Bilibili

Bilibili

Logo of Bilibili
Web address www.bilibili.com
Commercial? Yes
Type of site
 Video sharing
Registration Optional (required for content creation)
Available in Chinese
Users 560,000 (October 2012)
Owner Hangzhou Huandian Technology Co., Ltd
Created by Xu Yi (⑨bishi)
Launched January 14, 2010
Current status Online
This article is about the China-based video sharing website. For the dam in Indonesia, see Bili-Bili Dam.

Bilibili (stylized as bilibili, Chinese: 哔哩哔哩; pinyin: bīlībīlī) is a video sharing website themed around anime, manga, and game fandom based in China, where users can submit, view, and add commentary subtitles on videos. This website uses Adobe Flash Video and HTML5 technology to display user submitted videos hosted by third-party sources, while features a real-time overlaying subtitle system for interactive playback experience.

Inspired by similar video sharing websites Nico Nico Douga and AcFun, the founder of Bilibili, Xu Yi (Chinese: 徐逸; pinyin: xúyì), created a prototype website named Mikufans.cn in three days after college graduation. He launched the website on January 25, 2010 with the name Bilibili.[1] Later in 2011, he founded a startup, Hangzhou Huandian Technology,[2] to manage the development and operation of Bilibili.

Bilibili was ranked 1,991st by Alexa Global Ranking and it was ranked 232nd in China. (October 4, 2014)[3]

History

Xu Yi was an AcFun user in 2009. He was unsatisfied by the instability of the service and decided to create an alternative out of fun. He spent three days and created a prototype website named Mikufans.cn as a fandom community of Hatsune Miku.[1] As it grew, he reshaped the website to specialize in video sharing and launched it on January 14, 2010 with the name Bilibili (bilibili.us), which is the nickname of the protagonist Mikoto Misaka in the anime Toaru Majutsu no Index for her electric superpower.[4]

In 2011, Bilibili's domain name bilibili.us was revoked because of the domain registrar enforcing .US restrictions. As a result, Bilibili switched to bilibili.tv on June 25, 2011. Afterwards, in late 2011, Xu Yi founded the startup, Hangzhou Huandian Technology (Chinese: 幻电; pinyin: huàndiàn; literally: "fantastic electricity") based in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, for better development and operation of Bilibili.

In April 2012, Bilibili obtained an agreement with Nico Nico Douga to webcast latest Chinese-subbed episodes of the newly airing anime Fate/Zero starting from April 7.[5] However, this program was censored and ordered to stop after three episodes, for being reported as unauthorized operation of Internet audio-video broadcasting services. Its operating company Hangzhou Huandian Technology was administratively penalized and fined 10,000 yuan by local government.[6]

In August 2012, Bilibili started to display logos on its homepage to indicate affiliation with the state-owned Shanghai Media Group and share the use of various content provider licenses in hope to avoid future legal risk. Meanwhile, anonymous visitors to bilibili.tv got redirected to a subdomain of Shanghai Media Group Broad Band subsidiary (bilibili.smgbb.cn).

Features

Besides hosting video content, Bilibili's core feature is a real-time commentary subtitle system that displays user comments as streams of moving subtitles overlaid on the video playback screen, visually resembling a danmaku shooter game. These subtitles are called "danmaku" (literally "bullets"). Such subtitles are simultaneously broadcast to all viewers in real-time, creating a chat room experience in which users feel like watching and playing together with others. This system offers users various subtitle controls, including style, format, and movement. Users are also fond of creating translated and soramimi subtitles, or special effects with carefully formed subtitles.[4] The site also offers a feature called "advanced subtitles", where users can use ECMAScript-based API to control video playback, dynamically change danmaku subtitles and draw shapes onto the screen.[7][8] This functionality is only available with the video poster's permission.

Bilibili is experimenting with HTML5 video playback technology,[9] and has released smartphone apps for playback on iOS, Android and Windows Phone.[10][11]

Bilibili also has an API, enabling third-party developers to access website content including video lists, comments, "danmaku" subtitles, special topics and airing programs. The API service is open for signing up. It is rate-limited and requires developer keys for authentication.[12]

Operation

Bilibili's operating company consists of a team of nine members all versed in the Japanese language and culture. Two are web developers, including Xu Yi himself, and the rest are website editors and moderators. Bilibili's service is completely free. Its main revenue comes from webpage advertisement and affiliate marketing.[1]

Most content on Bilibili is free for anonymous viewing, while some is member-only to avoid censorship. Membership is required for submitting videos or comments. Bilibili limits membership availability to balance the quality of its user base and moderation capacity. Opportunity of signing up is available occasionally. Starting from March, 2013, the website is open for signing up with a limited number of invitation codes sent by existing users.

Challenges and Risks

Bilibili does not specify its video content sources, nor provide service to host or stream video, instead it relies on user-submitted posts which reference videos from third-party sources, such as Sina, letv and Youku. Thus, it risks of being blocked from the sources as it grows large enough to become a burden. Even though its community has been resilient, it has difficulty in maintaining content availability and managing copyright infringement.[1] Bilibili had success in negotiating with Japanese anime companies for licensed webcast, as mentioned above.

The Chinese government has stringent regulations and censorship on Internet services, particularly on Internet video services like Bilibili. Incomplete licenses or insufficient censorship compliance may be serious enough threats to shut down the entire operation of Bilibili if its legal defense is underprepared.

Bilibili is still in development and has yet to find a viable revenue model. How it will sustain long-term operation remains to be observed.[1]

Bilibili's mascots

Community

Bilibili has its official mascots elected by the community, Bili-tans, named "22" and "33".[13]

Bilibili has also established affiliated communities: Corari (Chinese: 协作乡; literally: "Hometown of Collaboration", currently offline), a collaboration project founding community; DrawYoo, a creative drawing community; The Ninth Channel, a support forum for Bilibili.

See also

External links

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Lou, Xiaojing (April 30, 2012). "哔哩哔哩吐槽动漫" [Bilibili Talks About Anime & Manga Industry]. CBN Weekly (Shanghai Media Group) 16.
  2. ↑ 杭州幻电科技有限公司开业公告 [The Opening Announcement of Hangzhou Huandian Technology Co., Ltd] (Press release) (in Chinese). News Center of Zhejiang Provincial Administration for Industry & Commerce. 2011-12-20. Retrieved 2012-10-01.
  3. ↑ "bilibili.com Site Overview". www.alexa.com. Retrieved 4 October 2014.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 土八哥 (August 2011). 让字幕飞——互联网"弹幕"视频全方位解析 [Let the Subtitle Fly: Comprehensive Analysis of Internet "Danmaku" Video]. Popular Software (in Chinese) (Beijing: China Society for Scientific and Technical Information) (375): 19–27. ISSN 1007-0060. OCLC 308996806.
  5. ↑ "Fate/Zero第2季週六晚間繁中字幕同步播出！" [The second season of Fate/Zero will be webcast with traditional Chinese subtitle simultaneously in Saturday evening!] (Press release) (in Chinese). Nico Nico Douga Taiwan. April 7, 2012. Retrieved 2012-10-01. 另外，本次為了造福中國地區的粉絲，也確定在中國動畫網站『嗶哩嗶哩動畫』進行《Fate/Zero》第２季簡體中文字幕網路同步播出！(Besides, for the enjoyment of fans in China at this time, we decided to webcast Fate/Zero the second season with simplified Chinese subtitle on the Chinese anime website "Bilibili Donghua" at the same time!)
  6. ↑ Hangzhou Municipal Bureau of Culture, Radio, TV, Film, Press and Publication (April 26, 2012). "行政处罚结果公示" [Public Notice on Result of the Administrative Penalty]. Retrieved 2012-10-01.
  7. ↑ "Script". Bilibili. Retrieved June 22, 2014.
  8. ↑ "弹幕发送". Bilibili. Retrieved June 22, 2014.
  9. ↑ Bilibilichiyue (July 3, 2012). "Changelog on 2012-06-08". Bilibili Wiki (in Chinese). Retrieved 2012-10-01.
  10. ↑ Client app on Google Play Store
  11. ↑ Client app on Windows Store
  12. ↑ "API". Bilibili. Retrieved June 21, 2014.
  13. ↑ Bilibili Announcement (May 27, 2010). "【BILI娘投票结束】投票结果发表" [(The Vote for Bili-tans Ended) Announcement on Results of the Vote]. Retrieved 2012-10-01.