Douban

For the paste, see Doubanjiang.

Douban
豆瓣

File:Logo of Douban.png
Web address	douban.com
Commercial?	Yes
Type of site	Web 2.0, Social network service, Online music, movie and book database
Registration	Optional
Available in	Chinese
Launched	March 6, 2005
Alexa rank	273 (February 2016)
Current status	Active

Douban.com (Chinese: 豆瓣; pinyin: Dòubàn), launched on March 6, 2005, is a Chinese SNS website allowing registered users to record information and create content related to film, books, music, and recent events and activities in Chinese cities. Douban also owns an internet radio station, which ranks No.1 in iOS app store as of 2012. Unlike Facebook and Renren, Douban is open to both registered and unregistered users. For registered users, the site recommends potential interesting books/movies/music to them in addition to serving as a social network website and record keeper; for unregistered users, the site is a good place to find ratings and reviews of books/movies/music.

Douban has about 53 million registered users in 2011.

The site serves Pan-Chinese users, and its contents are in Chinese. It covers works and media in both Chinese and foreign languages. Some Chinese authors and critics register their official personal pages on the site.

Founder

Douban is founded by Bo Yang. Yang had majored in Physics in Tsinghua University before he attended University of California at San Diego as a PhD student. After having received his PhD in computational physics, he worked as a research scientist at IBM. Later, he returned to China, becoming the CTO of a software company founded by one of his friends. In 2005, Yang started to create a web 2.0 site for travelling named Lüzong (驴宗), initially a one-man project at a Starbucks in Beijing. In a couple of months, however, the site was transformed to what is now known as Douban.com.

Timeline

File:Douban.jpg

Office of the Chinese Web 2.0 website Douban.com

• Year 2005
  • March 6, account registration was opened to the public
  • March 8, Group (小组) was released
  • March 9, the first topic appeared in the Group
  • July 6, the traditional Chinese version of website was published
  • August 23, Douban Location (豆瓣同城) got online to provide users to share and discover local events and activities
  • December 8, English version of website was opened for public testing

Censorship

Douban has attracted a large number of intellectuals who are eager to discuss social issues. This makes Douban vulnerable to censorship by the Chinese government. Douban reviews all content posted on the website, preventing some material from being posted in the first place, and taking down other materials after the fact.

In March 2009, Douban removed art paintings of the Renaissance on the grounds that they contained 'pornographic' elements. This action led to a campaign called "Portraits: Dress up" in which internet users were asked to dress up images of famous renaissance nudes in a protest against Douban's self-censorship. The discussion about the campaign was then removed by the administrator.

That year also saw the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, and Douban has further extended its keyword list to ban any terms that are likely to relate to the incident. One notable example is the ban on merely mentioning the name of Victoria Park in Hong Kong where the memorial gathering for the 20th anniversary was held, in the fear that it may lead to sensitive discussions. Users also found that some discussion groups, like a Hong Kong cultural study group hkren were suddenly banned and all topics were removed without any notices. The action angered some members, causing them to move to other similar websites that employ less strict self-censorship policies.

Its censorship department is a subsidiary company named Zhaowei Hulian(兆维互联) which is completely owned Douban. It is located in Tianjin.

Brand Video

On 16 February 2016, Douban released its first brand video My inner space(with English subtitle), which shows a young man's journey in first-person view through the different place of the world and eventually escaped to a litter shelter in outer space. The background music of the video is Sweet Little Hunter by David Gerard Lawrence. The introduction of the video by Douban said," it is a Visual Poem, and it also looks like a fable."They hoped the audience could watch it with the mood to read poetry. Douban also put the advertisement posters with the same theme in Beijing Subway Line 14 Dawanglu Station and Line 1 at same time.

External links

• Official website (Chinese)
• Sample texts written on Douban, with English translation