Chinese YouTubes galore

We are currently having some trouble getting YouTube to cooperate here at Shanghaiist headquarters, so it's a good opportunity to explore other video options out there, ones that are hosted here in China. Thankfully, last night Danwei posted a fairly exhaustive list of Chinese video-sharing and video-related websites. And just a few days ago, Virtual China directed us to (and translated) this post by Joy Chan (陈佼) that said there could be as many as 200 YouTube clones in China. Chan analyzes the Alexa rankings for the top seven: mofile.com, 56.com, 5show.com, pomoho.com, 6rooms.com, tudou.com and uume.com. We were kind of surprised to learn that TuDou was only No. 6 (and that we hadn't heard of four of the others). But, admittedly, we have never completely understood Alexa's rankings, so maybe Chan was right in labeling the analysis "crude and subjective."

The odd little ad shown above was the fourth most watched video on Mofile during the past year. It's about donating blood.