Hebe Media Talks To: Buddy Ye

This week as part of Leeds Digital Festival, Marketing Leeds are presenting the fourth event in their ‘The business of’ series: The Business of Digital. This will be a question and answer style event on the impact of digital technology on businesses. One of the panelists will be Buddy Ye, and I spoke with Buddy yesterday about his thoughts on the digital landscape and his trip to Leeds.

Buddy Ye is the Founder, CEO and Producer of Shune River Media, a Shanghai-based independent production house that is quickly emerging as a bridge between the rapidly growing Chinese media market and the rest of the world.

Buddy studied for his MBA in the UK at the Said Business School in Oxford and explained some of the differences between the different education styles at the time “For my generation the learning environment in the UK was much more open. Students would be encouraged to ask questions and try new things. This was different to China at the time, although things are gradually changing now”

After returning to China, Buddy set up WangYou, one of China’s first major social media platforms. The site focuses mainly on music and a massive percentage of the user generated content is Karaoke. “Karaoke is very popular with young people all across Asia. We provide the technologies for people to upload, rate and interact on their own user-generated content” Behind the scenes work is taking place on the next steps for WangYou as Buddy explains “We are currently working on the transition from web to mobile based versions of WangYou”

As we talk further, Buddy and I begin talking about the future more generally and how things may move forward in the coming years “Over the coming 10-12 years there will be a high-speed development of digital technologies and I think over the next 3-5 years content will play a more important role” says Buddy.

Which leads us on to discussing some of the reasons why he is visiting Leeds: “There is a high demand in China for international content. I am talking about animations, documentaries, films, what I would call professional digital content. I am here in Leeds to speak with digital professionals about some of the opportunities in the Chinese market and how we might work together in the future”

I look forward to meeting Buddy on Thursday at the Business of Digital event. It seems there are some potentially very interesting relationships and collaborations that could take place. The more international relationships we can build for the already exciting Leeds digital scene the better.

For more information about Leeds Digital Festival and to register for the event click here.