The video industry has experienced many twists and turns. Where will it go in 2015?

In 2014, the three giants BAT continued to recruit troops on the Internet, and the video field became an important battlefield for BAT to compete. Let's review the major events that happened in the Chinese video industry in 2014:

1. At the beginning of the year, iQiyi, a subsidiary of Baidu, announced that it had bought out many entertainment programs from Hunan Satellite TV. Subsequently, a series of popular variety shows including "Where Are We Going, Dad?" and "The Voice of China" continued to set new records for the number of copyrighted dramas broadcast. In terms of TV dramas, iQiyi, backed by Baidu, spared no expense to buy popular dramas such as "Love Apartment 4" and "My Love from the Star". The popularity of these dramas pushed iQiyi to the forefront. In addition, Gong Yu began to frequently contact Wall Street investment banks, and the news that iQiyi was about to IPO began to circulate among the public.

2. If Sohu Video, Youku Tudou, iQiyi and other video websites focus their main competitive energy on copyright, Qvod has gained a large number of users by taking a different approach. Although this video website, which started out by pirating videos, has tried to clean up its name, it is just as the saying goes, "You will pay for what you have done sooner or later." With the investigation of Qvod CEO Wang Xin, Internet video began to show awe for copyright, and a series of video websites that copied Qvod disappeared afterwards.

3. Baidu has iQiyi, Tencent has Tencent Video, and Alibaba also started to expand into the video industry in 2014. In April 2014, Youku Tudou Group announced a strategic investment and partnership with Alibaba Group. Alibaba and Yunfeng Capital acquired Youku Tudou A-share common stock for USD 1.22 billion, of which Alibaba holds 16.5% and Yunfeng Capital holds 2%. Alibaba will appoint its CEO Lu Zhaoxi to join the Youku Tudou board of directors.

4. Unlike its competitors backed by BAT, Sohu Video has always gained a unique competitive advantage in the video field by taking an independent development route. In 2014, Sohu Video acquired the video website 56.com for US$12.9 million. The outside world interpreted this move as another milestone in the video industry after Youku's acquisition of Tudou and iQiyi's acquisition of PPS.

5. There is no shortage of players in the video field. Xiaomi also joined in 2014. After investing in Xunlei in early 2014, Xiaomi poached Chen Tong, the editor-in-chief of Sina.com, at the end of the year and announced a $1 billion investment in content. In addition to Xiaomi, Enlight Media and 360 also announced the establishment of an Internet video company at the end of 2014. Although the video industry has not yet made a profit, capital that is optimistic about this market is flocking to it. The continuous influx of giants and new players has also added a bit of mystery to the competition in the video industry in 2015.

6. In addition to horizontal events, the competitive strategies of major video companies also changed in 2014. All companies compared 2014 to the first year of self-production in the Chinese video field. Different from the small attempts in the past, in 2014, video websites began to invest heavily in creating their own signature self-produced dramas. Sohu Video's self-produced dramas such as "Fleeting Time" and "Diaosi Man" have received wide acclaim, and Youku Tudou and iQiyi also announced that they would spend hundreds of millions of capital on self-produced dramas in 2014.

7. Establishing film and television companies is a new way for video websites to play in 2014. After LeTV established LeTV Film and Television, Youku Tudou also established Heyi Film and Television, and iQiyi established Huace iQiyi Film and Television. In addition to purchasing copyrights, video websites are trying to control content at the source by establishing film and television companies.

8. Hunan Satellite TV stopped selling variety show copyrights to video websites at the end of 2014 and integrated these resources into Mango TV. This means that some traditional TV stations have begun to regard video websites as competitors.

9. In 2014, domestic video websites generally encountered a policy setback in terms of box products. As the radio and television tightened their policies on TV boxes and Internet TV, if video websites want to obtain the right to play on Internet TV, they must access the content platform rather than appearing in the form of a separate TV app. This led to the TV apps of Youku, Tudou, iQiyi, and LeTV all being offline. As a result, the boxes that many Internet companies invested heavily in also lost all their money.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.