Aparat

Aparat (website) is one of the video sharing services in Iran which began tentatively on February 13, 2010, and, officially, two months later on April 13, 2011.^[2] Aparat, as well as Cloob and Mihanblog websites, have been launched by Saba Idea Tech Company (Saba Idea)^[3] and are managed by Mohammad Javad Shakouri Moghadam. ^[4][5]For easier access to shared videos, this website organized them under various categories such as: personal, nature, educational, entertainment, etc. so that access to the considered videos can be made easier.Aparat was selected by experts in 2013 at Iran Web Festival in online multimedia sector and also selected as the best film website in 2011. ^[6]

History

Aparat was introduced to Iranian users on February 2010, when many international video sharing services were restricted in Iran. ^[7] Shakouri, Aparat service manager, has stated the reason for provision of this service for Iranian users as “high volume of users’ requests for provision of video sharing service.”^[8] After one year of Aparat service provision, the Android version of the service was provided for the users in February 2011. After more than a year, in December 2012, the daily views of Aparat videos exceeded one million ^[7]. In July 2013, the iOS version of Aparat was released. Later that year in November 2013, the first online photo contest on Aparat called “Tehran’s Guest (Tehran Municipality)” was held in cooperation with Tehran Municipality. Later in March 2014 the second version of Aparat on Android was released. In April 2014, President of Islamic Republic of Iran created an account on Aparat and thus the first official channel in the service was introduced. ^[9]After the President, it was the Minister of Communications that created an official channel on Aparat and became the second official active in Iranian social networks. ^[10]Following the footsteps of Minister of Communications, other political, cultural and artistic figures and brands gradually launched their official channels on Aparat. In June 2014, by broadcasting the World Cup Competitions, in July 2014 by changing its logo and in August 2014 by holding the first online Iranian Talent Contest named “Iranian Prodigies”, Aparat spent a successful summer. In October 2014, the daily views of Aparat videos exceeded four million views per day which was a new record for website. Afterwards in November 2014, Aparat Kids was launched for children. In January 2014 Filimo, which streams both Iranian and international movies and TV series, was launched ^{[11] [12][13][14]}

Video-related Features

Playing

The video files in Aparat are accessible to all users so they can watch the video content of this service without having to subscribe first. However, some videos posted on Aparat are not accessible to the public and payment is required. Whether the loaded video is accessible to the public or only to users who have paid, is decided by the user that uploads the content ^[15]. The videos in Aparat are applicable on the browser by Adobe Flash Player Software and in order to watch the Aparat videos, users must install this software on their browsers first.

Uploading

In order to upload videos in Aparat, users must first become a member. After subscribing to the service, users can upload videos in different formats, among which mpeg, 3gp, webm, mkv, avi and mp4 can be named. Uploading and watching videos with HD quality is also made possible for the users. To upload videos in Aparat, there is a size limit of 250 MB and in order to upload videos larger than 250 MB, users must have an “approved account”.

Quality and Formats

Aparat users can load videos with different formats in this service. The list of possible formats in Aparat is as below:

Subtitle

On July 21, 2015, Aparat weblog announced adding the new feature of “subtitle” to its features. With the addition of this new feature to Aparat, users can also upload subtitle along with their videos. The subtitle files posted in Aparat are in SRT format. The reason behind adding this feature to Aparat has been announced as the expansion of uploaded videos in languages other than Persian (Farsi). ^[11]

Tagging

The videos uploaded in Aparat can be tagged. With the help of this feature, users can record proper tags for the uploaded videos. As the only way for determining the content of a video is tagging it, users determine the type of the uploaded video content by means of the feature of tagging. There is no limit for the number of tags written for a video.

Aparat Service Features

Profile

In order to upload videos on Aparat, users must first become a member. A profile is assigned to each user who becomes an Aparat member. Through profile, users can upload videos, post comments on other videos and follow active users in Aparat. The profiles in Aparat are divided into two groups: profiles that are related to natural persons and those belonging to legal persons that have been authenticated by the service. The set of features provided by Aparat for member users is as follows:

• Following
• Viewers’ statistics
• Liked videos
• Posting comments
• Managing comments
• Notification

The users that have become a member in Aparat service can follow one another. If followers follow a user account in Aparat, they are informed of the latest videos released by the other party and can like the videos or post comments on them. One of the other common features of video sharing services is the possibility to display the number of views which is also used by Aparat service and based on which the number of views of each video is displayed both to the viewers and to the loaders. In the user panel, a diagram is displayed to the users which is related to all the videos released by the users and in which the data of the total number of viewers of is posted at different time intervals. In the user panel, along with the number of views, the number of received likes and comments for the total videos are displayed and users can manage the comments posted on their videos. Moreover, users are informed of all the mentioned events through the feature of notification. As a result, through the feature of notification, users are informed of the videos that have been liked or commented and their new followers.

Views

There is a calculator for the number of views for all the videos released on Aparat. As a result, along with all the videos displayed in, the number of views of the considered videos is presented to users. Aparat monitors the display level of videos momentarily and rates the best and most viewed videos to users on the home page.^[5]

Categories

All the videos released on Aparat are categorized.^[5] When releasing a video content, the releaser must determine its category as well. In the display page of each video its category is defined. Thus, Aparat users can visit a special category and watch the videos available in the considered category. Aparat offers various categories as below:

• Educational
• Comic
• Personal
• Religious
• Film
• Entertainment
• Political
• News
• Music
• Events
• Sports
• Science and technology
• Cartoon
• Animals
• Nature
• Other
• Artistic
• Advertisement

Official and Approved Channels

The channels related to legal persons, officials and distinguished figures in Aparat are approved by this service and can have official activity. Official channels have a green check mark next to their avatar image which separates them from other channels. A gray check mark is displayed for approved channels.^[16] At present, a number of prominent figures and officials in the Islamic Republic of Iran have official channels in Aparat and are active in this service. Aparat is one of the few Iranian social media which has made authentication possible for users. After membership of some officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran in non-Iranian social networks such as Facebook rose controversy and provoked objections of official institutions and media inside the Islamic Republic, many political figures turned into domestic social networks.^{[10][17][18][19][20][21]} Cultural and artistic figures in addition to famous brands, have official channels in Aparat service and are officially active in this service. The approved channels in Aparat are a total of 201 channels which have come into specific categories.^[22]

Paid Channels

The videos released in Aparat are provided for all the users by default. However, users can set a subscription price for their loaded videos and thus make financial profit.^[15]

Embedding Videos for Use in the Website

Aparat, as in the form of video sharing services, has the feature of video embedding. By means of this feature, users can display the posted videos on Aparat in their own websites without having to save the videos on a separate server. In this case, Aparat provides a code for the users and using this code people can embed the considered videos, along with their names and other characteristics, in their own websites. The website users can watch the videos in the considered websites without having to refer to Aparat.

Downloading Videos

High quality internet and appropriate speed are needed for using video sharing services. At present, there are a lot of ifs and buts in this regard due to the low quality and speed of the Internet in Iran. However, by providing the feature of downloading videos, Aparat service operators have designed and implemented a proper solution for the Iranian users of this service. By means of the feature of downloading, the videos on Aparat can be retrieved through this service.^[5]

Competitions

In 2014, Aparat started an online contest called “Iranian Prodigies”. The purpose behind this contest was announced as discovery of Iranian talents in different fields.^[14] This competition was held from September 11 to October 19 through arbitration of well-known figures. In this competition, the persons who had a special talent in each of the pre-declared sections could make a video and enter the contest. The competition was held in 5 general parts. Shakouri, Aparat’s manager, reported the number of videos received in this competition as 3,279 and number of views, more than 2 million times. Aparat intends to hold the subsequent rounds of this competition by drawing on the experiences obtained from the first round. Following his talk about “Iranian Prodigies”, Shakouri asserted: “The videos were uploaded from different regions of the country, even the areas that have few facilities, as in villages.”^[23] The second round of this competition will started on August 12, 2015.^[24]

Aparat Kids

In December 2014, a new feature called “Aparat Kids” was added to Aparat. This feature on Aparatwas intended to make it easy for children to browse through the available online content on Aparat while ensuring parents that their children has access only to appropriate content.^[12][25] Aparat developed Aparat Kids application for Android and Windows Phone users.^[26]

Filimo

Filimo officially started working in February 2014.^[7] Over 1000 Iranian films, dubbed foreign films, animations and documentaries can be watched online through Filimo. Along with each video content, some information on that content is provided. Filimo adapts the playing quality to the users’ Internet speed hence ensuring smooth playing of the content in case of a drop in the Internet speed. Three months after beginning of its operation, Android software of this service was introduced to users. At present, the content provided in this service is accessible to all users and there is no need to become a member in order to watch the videos.^[27]

Social Impact

Following the filtering of YouTube and other international video sharing services, Iranian users of these services were gradually reduced in size. Finally, in February 2010, Saba Idea Company introduced Aparat[10]. The main challenge for this local service was to ensure Iranian users regarding the capabilities and features at the time of its introduction, gradually managed to prove its abilities and values to the users and win their trust. One year later, the Android software of the service was launched.^[7] More users gradually adopted the Iranian service of Aparat over time, so the daily views of Aparat videos exceeded one million in December 2012. In August 2014 it set the record of daily views of more than four million. On January 12, 2013, IRIB showed a documentary on Aparat social network. This documentary was broadcast in “Café So’al” (Question Café) Program of National TV.^[28] At present, Aparat service is the best video sharing service in Iran and its Alexa rank, from among Iranian websites, is 3 and it is also ranked 565 in the list of the best websites in the world. Iran’s neighboring countries also, because of many commonalities in language, make use of Aparat service. Aparat is now ranked 54 in Afghanistan and 12% of its traffic is from outside Iran.^[29][30] Aparat smart phone application is available on Android, iOS and Windows Phone. In April 2015, UN created its official channel on Aparat. UN has announced its goal in creating an official channel in Aparat as “provision of more information on its activities in Iran and the world”. Through its official channel in Aparat, UN has so far uploaded about 60 videos that display different regions of Iran. The environment has been devoted a great share of these videos. “Gary Lewis”, UN Resident Coordinator in the Islamic Republic of Iran, expressed delight, in his Twitter account, in UN’s joining in Aparat video sharing network.^[31]

Situation in Iran’s Market

Currently, Aparat is the best video sharing service inside Iran. The website is ranked 3 among Iranian websites, after Blogfa and before Digikala.^[32] From among the 100 video sharing services most viewed by Iranian users, Aparat is unparalleled.

Aparat’s Current Status

Aparat service broadband has increased from 10 Mbps at the running time to 40 Gbps and every day over four thousand videos are uploaded on it. Total duration of available videos on Aparat has also been reported to be more than 16 million minutes. The monthly traffic of this service is 15 million hours per month. Moreover, users watch over four million videos on a daily basis. The views of different Aparat pages has been reported as over 250 million. Based on this, over 14 million unique visitors browse through Aparat each month. The views of Aparat by means of local mobile applications are about 30% of the total views. 12% of the current traffic of this service is from outside the country. Average time spent on the website is around 15 minutes.^[29]

Aparat’s Terms of Use

The terms that must be observed when uploading a video include:

• Not being harrowing and disturbing
• Not being in conflict with moral and social conventions in the society
• Not being offensive to political officials
• Not containing an illegal soundtrack
• Not leading to political tensions in the website
• Not being contemptuous of a citizen
• Not being offensive to ethnic and religious minorities^[32]

Advertisement on Aparat

Aparat main revenue stream comes from advertisement. Saba Vision Advertising Agency manages advertisements on Aparat.^[33] Ads are displayed to users in different sections of Aparat. In order to run an advertising campaign on Aparat, there are some terms which are posted on the main page of this service.^[34]

References