[Photo by Cai Men/China Daily]

There is no exact number of how many people are working as online broadcasters in China or trying to gain entry into that world, nor of how many viewers are watching them, one reason being that both groups are growing so quickly and that the pace of change is unrelenting.

Some platforms are now well established, among them Douyutv.com, Huya.com, Panda.tv, Longzhu.com and Zhanqi.tv, all of which came to the field after having made a pile of money in computer video games on personal computers. Public records show that Douyutv is estimated to be worth $1 billion.

As more and more people in China have moved their attention from computers to smart phones, and 4G technology has made wireless access to the internet via telecommunications giants such as China Mobile and China Unicom faster and cheaper, almost all IT companies, big and small, are eager to get a slice of the pie that live broadcasting is creating.

For them the mobile market Eldorado is something that no one can afford to miss, and in the past several months the big three Chinese technology giants Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent have begun to stake their claims.

Baidu set up the Baidu Show based on its signature Post Bar, which it claims to be the largest online Chinese-language forum. Alibaba set up Taobao Live to merge live video shows into its online shops to boost sales. Tencent created the Qie.tv (qi'e means penguin, which is Tencent's logo) to broadcast high-definition sports events and the company's own electronic games, in addition to its investment in Douyutv and Longzhu.

And all of these platforms are pulling in viewers.