Type of business Private Area served Worldwide Founded 26 January 2011 | Available in Chinese Key people Zhou Yuan (CEO) Headquarters Beijing, China | |
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Type of site Knowledge markets, Q&A software Net income web ads, e-books, paid questioning to certain experts/celebrities Founders Lǐ Shēnshēn, Huáng Jìxīn, Zhōu Yuán | ||
Zhihu is a Chinese question-and-answer website where questions are created, answered, edited and organized by the community of its users. Its website, zhihu.com, was launched on January 26, 2011. The number of registered users of Zhihu had exceeded 10 millions by the end of 2013, and reached 17 millions as of May 2015 with 250 million monthly page views.
Contents
In Classical Chinese, "Zhīhū" (知乎) means "Do you know?". Chinese-language internet users nowadays increasingly resort to Zhihu for expert knowledge and insights into various topics.
History
Starting from August 2010, Zhihu was under development (originally under the name "Azid"). It went through a closed beta test at the end of December 2010. The final product went on line on January 26, 2011. It has reportedly received fundings from Kai-Fu Lee's Innovation Works, Qiming Ventures, SAIF Partners, Tencent and Sogou.
Product Operation
In the beginning, user registration was mostly invitation-only, with referral needed from a couple hundred of registered users. Otherwise new users had to apply to join, by filling a good amount of personal information and waiting for a reply. This strategy at Zhihu's early stage insured the high quality of questions, as well as hosting professional questions and answers, which attracted additional users to the community.
Zhihu started open registration in March 2013, which increased the numbers of users from 400,000 to 4,000,000 in less than one year. Registered users are able to ask questions in the community while inviting specific users to answer. Each user is able to check his/her Zhihu followees' updates (Likes, Answers, Following questions). On the home page, users are able to check the status of their own questions, as well as the activities of their answers and comments.
Impact
Zhihu is highly interactive with best responses upvoted by others. It features high-profile Chinese entrepreneurs and public intellectuals among its users, increasingly providing Chinese netizens with a space for a rich discussion.