Youku Link Powers Social Video Sharing in China

BEIJING, May 13, 2011 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- Youku.com, Inc. (NYSE: YOKU), China's leading Internet television company ("Youku"), announced today that Youku Link, the company's cross-platform synchronization product, is now supported by four of China's most influential social media. According to data from the four largest sites using Youku Link, users of each service share and repost an average of 650,000 Youku videos every day.

Youku had long offered users "one-click sharing" functionality, allowing users to post links to Youku videos to participating websites with a single click. Youku Link, which first launched last spring, allows users to link their Youku accounts to their accounts on other websites, enabling a wider range of interaction across multiple platforms. Users can sign into Youku with accounts from other social media and select which aspects of their Youku experience – viewed movies, favorite clips, comments, or thumbs-up votes – they want to share with their online social circle.

Tencent's QZone is the latest service to implement two-way support for Youku Link. Youku has a long history of cooperation with China's prominent social media platforms: Renren, SINA Weibo, and Tencent Microblog. Figures provided by websites that have adopted Youku Link show that users of these websites have made Youku a major part of their online experience.

Youku is the most widely used source of videos on the SINA Weibo microblogging service. When Renren users share Youku videos with their friends on Renren, every video is re-posted and re-shared an average of 85 times. Youku is also the most widely used video site on Tencent Microblog. According to the most recent figures from Tencent, QZone users were already posting or re-posting a daily average of more than 700,000 Youku videos in early April, not long after the site added two-way support for Youku Link, generating an average of more than 35,000 replies per day.

"With Youku Link, we are introducing a new generation of sharing functionality," said Youku's Chief Technology Officer Jian Yao. "Instead of just sharing content, we are giving people the tools to share their behavior with their friends – their favorites, their comments, their bookmarked playlists – regardless of what social platforms they use. We are delighted to work with the major social media sites to enrich social networking and to make Youku an even more ubiquitous part of the Internet user experience in China."

One of the widest-ranging cooperative initiatives undertaken by a Chinese online video company, Youku Link is a reflection both of the diversity of China's social networking market and of the Chinese Internet industry's recent development towards open platforms and open APIs. As the service matures, Youku Link will expand the scope of Youku's cooperation with other companies and enable other categories of functionality, both between online platforms and within Youku's own product line.

About Youku:

Youku.com Inc. is China's leading Internet television company. Our Internet television platform enables users to search, view and share high-quality video content quickly and easily across multiple devices. Youku, which stands for "what's best and what's cool" in Chinese, is the most recognized online video brand in China. Youku's American depositary shares, each representing 18 of our Class A ordinary shares, are traded on NYSE under the symbol "YOKU."