The Vine Clone for China by the Two YouTube Founders Released An Updated Version

Wanpai (means something like ‘have fun with video shooting’ in Chinese) , the Vine clone launched by YouTube founders Steve Chen and Chad Hurley for China market, released a new version yesterday. Updates include a couple of new filters and improved video quality.

Although Steve Chen said in an earlier interview  (in Chinese) that it would be very different from Vine afterwards, one of the very few differences it now has from Vine is it supports video sharing to Chinese social platforms, Sina Weibo, Tencent Weibo, Renren and WeChat’s Moments, instead of those inaccessible in the walled country.

The iOS version was released in the past April and Android version one month after that. But it seems very few people I know of are using or talking about it, even though its being-created-by-youtube-founders has drawn much media attention.

Is it that Chinese don’t like funny short videos? No. They’ve been enjoying the animated GIFs made out of videos long before the mobile Internet became ubiquitous.

Or, Chinese users haven’t grown accustomed to watching videos on mobile? There was a wave of video sharing apps emerging a couple of years ago in China. Till today, most online video businesses, Youku Tudou, iQiyi, Sohu, etc., have their own mobile apps, and the independent ones didn’t gain much traction. No one is dominating the market. Actually mobile video sharing didn’t prevailed at all.

But now the situation seems definitely different. In Q1 2013, 30% of the daily traffic of Youku Tudou’s was from mobile devices. iQiyi saw 37%  of the traffic was from mobile in march 2013. Almost all the Chinese online video sites plan to monetize mobile traffic from this year.

YY, the live video show platform, launched a major update of its mobile app that supports live singing performances, online gaming and the like, planning to start to sell mobile virtual items in the second half of this year. Even Changba, the hottest mobile Karaoke app now supports video sharing.

Or Chinese users don’t like clones any more? (OK, just kidding. There must be more Vince clones to appear before long and ordinary Chinese must have no idea that they are clones). AVOS, the company founded by the two Youtube founders, has launched several products in China before Wanpai, including the Chinese version of Delicio.us. I don’t know many Chinese that are using them either.

OK, it must be because it’s only two months old and Steve Chen will be very busy with interviews talking about Vince clone competition in China before long.