With 100 million active monthly users and a market value of $5.1 billion, one social network is taking China by storm — and making some users vast amounts of cash.
This is YY, a real time video service that provides virtual rooms where people can talk, date, play online games and, crucially, watch performances en masse.
Performers are usually young, attractive women, stationed in bedrooms or home offices and singing popular songs into a webcam and microphone.
Many have cute, cuddly toys piled on beds behind them.
Their audiences range from a few hundred viewers to hundreds of thousands, who can post comments in real time, or interact via voiceover.
And these internet karaoke stars are transcending their amateur status.
Viewers pay to see shows using virtual gifts, which performers can later trade for real money. The most successful can make around $20,000 a month.
While China is fiercely anti-pornography, there are certainly sexual overtones to some of the activity taking place in these online rooms.
The site insists its top performers are often men and that it is carefully policed, providing a long list of rules prohibiting stripteases, provocative behavior and revealing clothing.
But while minors are limited to three hours of gaming, heavily made-up women often perform for seven hours at a time, wearing low-cut tops and coquettishly fielding comments on their appearance as male avatars toss digital lollipops on to a virtual stage.
Regular users can buy a seat at a show with virtual flowers and teddy bears, while superusers — known as “dukes,” “earls” or “kings” — can buy expensive virtual Ferraris to “park” in a hostess’s room, according to Foreign Policy.
Nameni, 23, posted on a chat site about her experience performing on YY, stroking users’ egos with comments such as, “Hubby, you are giving me gifts again. I want to have your baby,” the site reported.
Performers speak of “acting cute” and flirting with high-rollers, who have been known to spend more than $130,000 on one girl.
Nameni said some hostesses met users offline and charged them for sex.
Chinese officials are campaigning to “cleanse cyberspace”, with spot checks on websites, search engines and mobile app stores, spearheaded by the National Office Against Pornographic and Illegal Publications.
The campaign has seen 110 websites shut down and some 3,300 accounts on social networking services as well as online forums deleted.
In May, Qvod, one of China’s most popular online video platforms, was fined $42.32 million for linking to pornographic material and copyright infringement, with its business licence revoked for spreading pornographic content.
But China’s appetite for content sharing shows little sign of waning, with 450 million regular online video viewers (nearly 80 per cent of the country’s web users).
YY started as a gaming site, but its music and entertainment offering is now by far the biggest aspect of its business, raking in $155 million in the six months to June.
And commentators think the potential is even much greater.
Many have suggested that YY’s business model could be a hit overseas, with just 20 per cent of revenue coming from advertising and the rest going to the performer.
Others see new uses for YY, already branching out into talent shows and competitions, in helping people work and communicate more efficiently.
Whatever happens, this is one social network that isn’t going anywhere.