Chinese consumers have gone positively snap-happy, and the evidence is everywhere. In the streets of big Chinese cities such as Shanghai and Beijing, the young and old alike can be seen embracing the convergence of digital camera and mobile communication technologies. Everywhere you look, people are taking pictures with their phones.

An even more significant consideration is where these photos end up. An increasing number of people are uploading their shots to their computers and publishing them on online weblogs. Blogs took China by storm in 2005, with approximately 15 million bloggers throughout the country.

Yet with all the traditional media coverage of the blogging phenomenon over the past several years, the subject has almost become pass. The times have changed, and 'mobloggers' -- short for mobile bloggers -- are emerging as the new arbiters of cool.

Moblogs allow mobile phone users to publish text, audio, photos and videos on their online blogs, and to view other moblogs using the wireless application protocol (WAP) or standard web browsers.

Mobile blogging is different from traditional blogging in that it is constrained by mobile handset text input methods, however.

"Moblogs will focus more on the utilization of photos and video," says Dan Wong, vice-president of Nokia Greater China's multimedia division.

More than 28 per cent of mobile handsets in China are equipped with cameras, according to Li Xiaohua, product manager of Cyworld, a South Korean online community service provider. This figure will continue to rise as camera phones become increasingly cheaper.

ChinaDotMan, a Beijing-based service provider (SP), was the first company in China to launch a moblog service in mid-2004. Over the past year or two, an increasing number of moblog SPs have emerged on the Chinese market, such as Pdx.cn. Traditional blogging SPs such as Blogcn.com also offer moblog services, and new companies pop up regularly.

Large Internet portals such as Tom Online are reportedly researching moblog opportunities as well. Even Monternet, China Mobile's wireless portal, has its eye on the market.

"Moblog services can raise subscriber loyalty," says Fei Yue, project manager for France Telecom's research and development centre in Beijing.

Bright future

The wireless industry has high hopes for moblogs because they are comparable to popular personalized ringtone services, says Fan Yuzhong, a consultant at the Telecoms Research Institute of the Ministry of Information Industry (MII).

There are now approximately 50 million personalized ringtone users in China. Fan says personalized ringtones are trendy because they are based on individual preferences. Traditional blogs and moblogs are simply other ways for people to show their personalities, he says.

Moblogs could be poised to ride the mobile communications boom in China to even greater success than traditional blogs. There were 390 million mobile phone users in 2005, a figure that is expected to jump by another 50 million by the end of this year, according to MII statistics.

Mobile penetration in China stands at 30 per cent, compared to personal computers at 3 per cent, indicating huge business opportunities for mobile blogging, says Wong .

He adds that moblogs do not require highly complicated mobile phones, and any mobile handset that supports GPRS can handle moblog services. GPRS-enabled handsets account for 80 per cent of the Chinese mobile phone market.

Awareness of moblogs is also very high, with 79.3 per cent of bloggers familiar with mobile blogging, according to a survey by Sohu.com and iResearch, a Shanghai-based technology consultancy.

The speed of mobile networks is a barrier to the development of moblog services, however. Images and video take a long time to upload, but once the third generation (3G) mobile networks are launched, upload and download speeds should increase significantly.

Industry analysts widely believe that 3G licences will be granted in 2006. Moblogs are set to emerge as a major value-added service for these new networks.

Hu Zhiguang, president of Blogcn.com, expects mobile blogging to eventually develop a dedicated following.

Underlying problems

The traditional blog industry has struggled to identify a solid revenue model, and it is still unclear how to make moblogs profitable. Industry executives are optimistic, however.

Unlike the Internet, mobile Internet was never free at the beginning, so consumers are accustomed to that model, says Wong.

"The combination of blogs and mobile phones will offer new opportunities for the entire industry."

Cyworld has already shown that moblog services can be profitable. Li says 30 per cent of of Cyworld's annual revenues in Korea come from moblog services.

Most mobile blogging SPs, such as Blogcn.com, offer free services for users. Mobloggers only need to pay subscription fees to use WAP or send text and multimedia messages.

Zhou Fengcheng, chief executive officer of Blogcn.com, says the company has already attracted more than 500,000 mobloggers, and expects 6 million by the end of 2006. Blogcn.com reportedly accounts for almost half of the moblog market, followed by Beijing-based Pdx.cn.

A number of obstacles still threaten the development of moblogs, however.

"Mobile Internet users are the basis of moblog services, but that base is not stable," says Fan.

Between March and June 2005, only one-third of mobile Internet users surfed for more than four consecutive months, according to statistics from the Telecoms Research Institute of MII.

"Without basic mobile Internet service, moblog services are no more than a bubble," Fan says.

There is a glimmer of hope that the number of mobile Internet users could increase. Fan says mobile operators have begun to offer attractive price plans for phone subscribers using the mobile Internet. In places such as Guangdong and Beijing, for example, China Mobile, China's largest mobile operator, has lowered the entry threshold for WAP connections. Subscribers will be offered unlimited usage after paying monthly subscription fees.

Analysys, a Beijing-based technology consultancy, says there will be 35 million WAP users by the end of 2005, 20 million more than in 2004. That figure is expected to rise to 200 million by 2008.

Another challenge facing moblogs is the regulatory environment. Industry executives admit that moblogs will be subject to regulations on inappropriate content. But because they are mainly based on photos and video, moblogs cannot filter information such as pornography, as they do with text.

"It is very hard for websites to filter inappropriate video or pictures because the technology is incapable of doing that," says Hu, adding that this kind of content will be manually filtered or randomly checked when uploaded to reduce regulatory risks.

The real-name system for mobile phones might also make it easier for moblog SPs to regulate content, says Xiang Ligang, an industry observer.

Wang Xudong, minister of MII, says the real-name system will be implemented in 2006 to tackle phone crime.

(China Daily 01/23/2006 page7)