In episode 322, Rui Ma from Techbuzz China joined us to discuss Bilibili in China and discuss how the video site has grown from a niche community of anime lovers to its now proclaimed "Youtube of China". Starting from the origin story, Rui Ma traced the backstory in how Bilibili came to be and how the site has diversified their monetisation revenues from esports, ecommerce to advertising. Last but not least, she discuss how Bilibili balances its current growth strategy against the patience of the community behind after going public.

Here are the interesting show notes and links to the discussion (with time-stamps included):

• Rui Ma, Founder of Euzen Labs and Host of TechBuzz podcast by Pandaily produced by SupChina & Extra Buzz Newsletter (LinkedIn, @ruima) [0:28]
  • Since our last conversation, what have you been up to? [0:31]
• Bilibili in China [1:19]
  • Can you talk about the origin story of Bilibili and how it has become a platform for fans who are experts in certain niches such as anime in China? [1:40]
  • Who are the founders of Bilibili? [5:08]
  • What are the monetization models for Bilibili? [7:55]
  • How much that Bilibili has ventured into e-sports after acquisition of an e-sports team? [10:24]
  • What are the major similarities & differences between Bilibili and Youtube?[12:50]
  • User experience on Bilibili - bullet comments [15:44]
  • Most popular phrases that come from bullet comments in 2019 - AWSL [17:30]
  • Can you describe how users actually register and get themselves memberships on the Bilibili? How is this different from public social networks out there such as Facebook, Wechat?  [18:45]
  • What are the interesting partnerships that Bilibili has done so far for example, New Year Gala with Xinhua Agency and ecommerce with Taobao (Alibaba)? [21:02]
  • Do you think that the Bilibili model can be exported to the US, India or Southeast Asia? Are there already examples of similar models out there? [22:55]
  • The balance between growth and user community interests in Bilibili [26:30]
  • Other references: Check out Techbuzz China's Episode 57: Bilibili - The YouTube of China?
• Closing [28:30]
  • Anything if you want to recommend that inspire you recently? [28:35]
    • David Epstein "Range"
  • How do my audience find you? [29:01]

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The show is hosted and produced by Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin) and originally created by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin).  Sound credits for the intro music: Taro Iwashiro, "The Beginning" from Red Cliff Soundtrack.