Chinese portal brings the internet and traditional media together

WangYou Media's Buddy Ye has experienced pain and gain for seven years guiding start-ups in China's burgeoning internet sector. Having struck out with MeetChina but struck lucky with ECantata - two similar business-to-business portals - the graduate of Chengdu's University of Electronic Science and Technology of China now sees a future in the emerging trends of podcasting, video casting, photo sharing, blogging and social networking.

The company's internet portal - wangyou.com - combines all elements of user-generated content in a service WangYou Media calls 'lifecasting,' essentially a one-stop shop for any content that its 3.1 million registered users can dream up.

'Based on our research, we understand that users will get bored if we limit them to a particular form of content,' Mr Ye said in a telephone interview from Beijing.

'We help users promote their sounds and videos on our internet site, and are even partnering with 60 radio stations all over the country to broadcast the content and songs from our website.'

Mr Ye said this tie-in with traditional media - the company plans to launch television shows based on video clips - was a key differentiator when compared with similar websites in China and overseas.

He said mainland internet users often saw such portals as a way to achieve more long-term success in the country's relatively young entertainment industry.

Four of China's 10 most popular songs last year are said to have been discovered on the internet.