Many years ago, the first time I heard about 56 was because of their email service. They created an email service identical to NetEase's, and it was quite large. Later, I heard that their leader and key members were from NetEase, which is why they made an email service exactly like NetEase's. Moreover, they had many distinctive features, such as sharing functions.
Not long after, I suddenly noticed that 56 had turned into a video website. Later, they issued an announcement stating that new user registrations would be paused (if I'm not mistaken, this poster was Zhou Juan herself). In other words, from 2005 to 2006, 56 transformed from an email service provider into a video website.
Not too long ago, 56 was shut down for more than a month. After making a comeback, the domain redirected to a strange domain, v-56.com, with a bunch of odd suffixes. Even if it was shut down, it didn't have to be like this, right?
Today's news is that 56 is transitioning to an SNS (Social Networking Service), which is insane. A website with the largest number of videos in the country can just decide to transition like that. What about the users? What about the users' data?