Youku releases mobile video-blogging apps

BEIJING, CHINA: Youku, Inc., China's Internet television company ("Youku"), recently released iOS and Android apps to support Youku Paike ("video bloggers").

The new apps are designed to complement the feature set of Youku's existing mobile clients with dedicated video shooting and uploading functionality, and to highlight the social media aspects of video blogging through its integration with the popular SINA Weibo microblogging platform, said a press release.

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The release further added, the new Paike apps emphasize the social media aspects of online video where users can choose other video bloggers to follow, easily find the most popular user uploaded videos, and publish Paike video to SINA Weibo microblog site with one-touch sharing.

"As smartphones become more popular, more and more users are effectively walking around with HD video cameras in their pockets," said Youku chief technology officer Jian Yao.

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"While we aim to provide best-in-class mobile video viewing experience with our client for smartphones, we also want to make mobile video shooting, uploading, and sharing just as easy and convenient. The mobile Paike apps will let our video bloggers share stories as they happen, without ever having to connect their cameras to a PC," added Yao.

Unlike the official Youku mobile client applications, which were designed to focus on video watching experience, the Paike apps were designed to highlight the video blogging experience. The streamlined interface allows users to quickly shoot, upload, and share videos.