Alibaba Finds Another Place for Its Cash — China's Version of YouTube

Chinese eCommerce retailer Alibaba is entering the online video space with an investment in Youku Tudou, the Chinese equivalent of YouTube.

The $1.2 billion stake comes from Alibaba Group Holding Limited and Yunfeng Capital, a private equity group founded by Alibaba executive chairman Jack Ma.The deal provides the groups with a 16% and 2% stake in the video site, respectively. Jonathan Lu, CEO of Alibaba, will take a seat on Youku Tudou's board of directors.

Alibaba has been working to diversify its business, investing in a variety of companies and industries. The position in Youku Tudou is another in a line of strategic moves aimed at Tencent, Alibaba's most powerful competitor. Together the companies dominate many aspects of China's 618 million Internet users.

Alibaba recently moved into the messaging market with a $215 million investment in Tango, a WhatsApp-like messaging service popular in Asia. Reuters reports that Alibaba has spent $4 billion in the past six months on various investments. Tencent owns messaging services QQ and WeChat, the latter of which has more than 270 million users.

Alibaba remains a private company but is expected to issue an initial public offering in the near future. The ecommerce company is already a giant, claiming to process more sales than Amazon and eBay combined. The company's IPO could be the biggest ever.

Youku Tudou is a publicly traded company, created in 2012 by a merger between two competing video sites.

"We are excited to cooperate and work closely with [Youku Tudou CEO] Victor [Koo] and his team to support their innovation in this key emerging space as well as accelerate our digital entertainment and video content strategy," Ma said in a press release. "This is an important strategic initiative that will further extend the Alibaba ecosystem and bring new products and services to Alibaba's customers."

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World's Fastest Elevators Will Be a Smooth Ride to the Top

They won't be faster than a speeding bullet, but two new elevators are sure to pack a punch.

A skyscraper currently under construction in Guangzhou, China will house the world's fastest elevators when it is completed in 2016. Hitachi, the company building the elevators, claims that once they are finished, the elevators will offer smooth, comfortable rides — despite moving at top speeds.

The elevators will rocket from the Guangzhou CTF Finance Centre's first floor to its 95th in about 43 seconds. At their fastest they will reach 45 miles per hour — 15 miles per hour over New York City's speed limit. In comparison, the average elevator only moves at about 5 to 22 miles per hour.

However, speed isn't the only thing Hitachi needs to think about — acceleration and deceleration are also vital considerations, according to James Fortune, an elevator expert who designed the two elevators in Taiwan's Taipei 101 building, which currently holds the record for world's fastest elevator. Japan uses rates at 0.8 or 0.9 meters per second squared for both measurements; that's slower than those in the United States, which range from 1 to 1.2 meters per second squared. This change in speed can affect riders' inner ears on the way down, making them "pop" as they would on an airplane. The elevators at the Guangzhou CTF Finance Centre will descend at 22 miles per hour.

"There's nothing inherently dangerous about high-speed elevators," Fortune told. "It's a function of acceleration."

This sensation will be reduced with technology installed on the cars that can adjust the air pressure in the elevators, according to a Hitachi press release.

Heat-resistant braking equipment will be able to safely stop the elevators when they are moving at high speeds if a malfunction occurs. A device called a governor will activate the equipment if it detects excessive speed. Elevators that go this fast are built to stop gradually, even in an emergency, Fortune said. Even during normal stops and starts, microcomputers will provide control, as passengers get on and off the elevators, according to Hitachi's website.

Guide rails are installed in most elevators to prevent lateral vibrations. The farther an elevator can go, the greater the risk of these rails warping. In response, Hitachi has developed a system that sends data about acceleration speeds to the guide rails in an effort to control the pressure that is put on them; this is the reason why it may not feel like an elevator is moving, even if it is actually flying upward quite quickly. Modern elevators experience almost no horizontal vibration, according to Fortune.

Designed by Kohn Pederson Fox Associates, the Guangzhou CTF Finance Centre will stand at 1,738 feet. It will have 111 above-ground floors and five below the ground. The skyscraper will include residential housing, office space and a hotel. In addition to the two record-breaking elevators, it will house 93 other low-, medium- and high-speed lifts.

IMAGE: KOHN PEDERSEN FOX (KPF)

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This Is the World's Top-Earning App

Line's active user count might be an enigma, but the latest edition of the App Annie Index shows outside of games, Line was the top earning app and publisher in the world in 2013.

Line ranked ninth in the list of most downloaded publishers in the world. It's the sixth most-downloaded app outside of games.

According to the report, Japan surpassed the US as the top country in terms of app revenue, driven largely by games on Google Play. That means Line's home market likely helped push it to the top of the highest earners list.

Within Japan, Line's game lineup took seven of the top ten highest earning mobile game spots, beaten only by fellow Japanese game Puzzles and Dragons. Line and Line Camera are the two most-downloaded apps in the country outside of games.

The popular Japanese messaging app and social platform might well be making more money than any other chat app out there, as well.

The hole in App Annie's data, however, is WeChat, which started monetizing from stickers, games, and in-app payments last year. App Annie pulls its data from Google Play and the Apple App Store, which means its stats for Chinese Android apps are likely skewed. Google Play is seldom used in China because it can't be installed on most phones sold within the mainland. Much like Line's mammoth revenues likely originate from Taiwan and Japan, WeChat's likely originate primarily from mainland China. So while both apps are technically top earners globally, they remain regional kings in a fragmented global space.

Here's a few other interesting observations from the App Annie Index:

> Japanese publisher GungHo Online and its game Puzzles and Dragons are the top-earning publisher and app in the world, respectively (merchandising not included).

> South Korea bumped the UK off the podium to be the third-highest earning country in app revenue.

> China's Alipay was the second most-downloaded payment app in the world, despite skewed China rankings.

> Outside of games, three Chinese publishers made the top ten most-downloaded app publishers: Sungy Mobile (third), Tencent (eighth), and Baidu (tenth).

Beijing- and US-based analytics firm App Annie is used by over 350,000 apps to track downloads, revenues, and rankings.

This article originally published at Tech in Asia

Image: MICHAEL PROBST/ASSOCIATED PRESS

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