Xigua Video () is a Chinese online video-sharing platform owned by

ByteDance ByteDance Ltd. is a Chinese internet technology company headquartered in Haidian, Beijing, and incorporated in the Cayman Islands. Founded by Zhang Yiming, Liang Rubo, and a team of others in 2012, ByteDance developed the video-sharing ap ...

. Originally serving primarily as a sharing platform for

Toutiao Toutiao (头条, "headlines") or Jinri Toutiao (今日头条, "Today's Headlines") is a Chinese news and information content platform, a core product of the China-based company ByteDance. By analyzing the features of content, users and users' in ...

's user-created

short video Short-form content (also known as short-form videos) are short videos, often from movies or entertainment videos, that are published on platforms like YouTube Shorts, TikTok, and others. Short-form content has become popular among young people, ...

s, Xigua now also produces film and television content. Xigua Video continuously provides content to different audiences through personalized services. As of June 2020, the platform has 131 million monthly active users.

History

Xigua Video was initially launched as Toutiao Video in May 2016. On June 8, 2017, Toutiao Video officially changed its name to Xigua Video and redesigned its logo. The name "Xigua" means "watermelon" and refers to the Chinese concept of "watermelon-eating crowd" ( zh, labels=no, t=吃瓜群众, p=chīguā qúnzhòng, l=eat melon group congregation), meaning "onlookers who just casually enjoy their melons and watch events unfold without wanting to get involved." In November 2017, the number of users exceeded 200 million. On November 25, 2017, Xigua Video established a co-production fund to encourage content creation with an amount of RMB 2 billion. In January 2018, Xigua Live went online. In the same month, Xigua Video launched the first season of online live quiz show ''Millionaire Heroes''. In April 2018, the user volume exceeded 350 million. In September 2018, Xigua Video announced plans to develop film and television drama segments. In October 2018, a new brand visual image was launched, with the release of the "Kaleidoscope Plan" and "Windmill Plan" to encourage high-quality content creation. In August 2019, the third "Xigua PLAY" video carnival was held on a cruise ship, marking the beginning of the "era of great navigation" for video creators. In December 2019, "Top Hero" (头号英雄), a nationwide interactive knowledge live answering activity, was launched jointly with "

" and "

Tiktok TikTok, known in mainland China and Hong Kong as Douyin (), is a social media and Short-form content, short-form online video platform owned by Chinese Internet company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which may range in duration f ...

". On October 20, 2020, the platform announced at an annual conference that it would invest at least RMB 2 billion to incentivize creators of "middle-form" videos in the coming year.

Partnerships

In April 2020, Xigua Video announced a content cooperation deal with

BBC Studios BBC Studios Limited is a British content company. It is a commercial subsidiary of the BBC that was formed in April 2018 through the merger of the BBC's commercial production arm and the BBC's commercial international distribution arm, BBC Wor ...

to jointly produce two documentaries, ''Hubble: The Wonders of Space Revealed'' and ''Primates,'' and show other BBC Studios content on Xigua. The platform also partnered with the

Discovery Channel Discovery Channel, known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery, is an American cable channel that is best known for its ongoing reality television shows and promotion of pseudoscience. It init ...

to air documentaries such as ''

Man vs. Wild ''Man vs. Wild'', also called ''Born Survivor: Bear Grylls'', ''Ultimate Survival'', ''Survival Game'', or colloquially as simply ''Bear Grylls'' in the United Kingdom, is a survival television series hosted by Bear Grylls on the Discovery Chann ...

'' and ''Life After Chernobyl.'' In April 2020,

Moonbug Entertainment Moonbug Entertainment Ltd. is a British children's media company and multi-channel network headquartered in London, with an office in Los Angeles. Founded in 2018 and owned by Candle Media, Moonbug creates and distributes children’s video a ...

, a London-based company, announced a partnership with Xigua Video, making content from the Little Baby Bum brand available on the platform in both English and Mandarin.

References

External links

* {{Video digital distribution platforms Android (operating system) software IOS software Freeware Video software ByteDance 2016 establishments in China Video hosting