LIFE> Odds and Ends
Stumbling blogs
By Mu Qian (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-04-14 09:29

Www.blogcn.com has changed its name from "China Blog" to "Bo Shang", a made-up word that incorporates "blog" and "fashion", indicating its changing focus.

Stumbling blogs

There have been reports about the collapse of www.bokee.com, the first blog website in China. Its founder, Fang Xingdong, denies its imminent demise but admits that the company is undergoing a strategic contraction and the number of its employees has dived from 200-plus in 2005 to about 30 now.

Fang founded the site in 2002, when he saw its great business potential but, like most of his competitors, Bokee has not had enough advertising income to support itself. This predicament became even more acute when Web portals like www.sina.com began to build blog channels in 2005 and when investment dived in the ongoing financial crisis.

"We have walked along a zigzag road in the commercialization of blogs. What we want to do now is reduce our running costs and live through the downturn," Fang says.

He complains that not enough Chinese blogs have valuable content and that most are just used to entertain.

Hu Yong, an associate professor at Peking University's School of Journalism and Communication, believes the entry of Web portals into the blog market played a key role in the popularization of a medium first used by IT professionals but is also behind many of the difficulties experienced by blog websites.

Fang says one remedy would be to separate so-called "elite blogs" and "grassroots blogs". Www.bokee.com could focus on the former, to influence "opinion leaders and the media"; www.blogchina.com, formerly a part of www.bokee.com, could take care of "the community plus online games," he suggests.

"I'm still optimistic about the future of blogs and I'm prepared to engage in a protracted war," he says.

According to the 23rd Statistical Report on Internet Development in China, released by the China Internet Network Information Center in January, 54.3 percent of Chinese netizens or 162 million people were using blogs by the end of last year.

   Previous 1 2 3 Next Page