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Doubana Chinese social networking service that focuses on film, music, and booksrevealedon August 5 that its plans to go public overseas wouldbring in cash flow necessaryfor its product linesto run on independent budgets. The email did not mention which overseas market the company planned to list on.

The announcement comes from aleakedinternal email(in Chinese) that founder and CEO Yang Bo (more widely known as Ah Bei) sent to hisemployees, calling for a pragmatic pivotfor the company. A person familiar with the matter has confirmed the authenticity of the email to TechNode.

Ah Bei said in the email thatthe waning, profit losingproducts includingDongxi, a product once with high financialexpectations,will be terminated. A new content business group, centered around its first paid content feature Douban Time,will launch with the focus on generating revenue.

Founded in 2005, Douban has long adopteda self-described slow approach to its business modelagainst todayscurrents. Coupled with the sites focuson books, music, and movie reviews, Douban is widely known as a haven for Chinas utopianhipsters. Over the years ithas dabbled inseveral monetization attempts with fewsignificant outcomes. AlphaTown, avirtual city developed with the aim to make money from e-commerce and online gaming, shut down in 2015 after five years of operation.

As of 2016, Douban has accumulated 150 million registered users and 300 million monthly active users, Caixin reports.Its a much less sticky app, however, compared to other Chinese social networking giants. Basedona report by China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), Doubans usage rate (percentage of users who used the app in the last six months) in 2017 is 8.6%, compared to Weibos 38.7% and WeChats 84.3%.

Doubans last funding round was a$50 million Series C in September 2011.

Telling the uncommon China stories through tech. I can be reached at ritaliao [at] technode [dot] com.

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With IPO plans, China's hipster social network Douban turns pragmatic - TechNode (blog)