Sina’s blog section is now larger than its news channel which previously was the top destination at the big Chines website. Or, so says Susquehanna Research. The growth of the traffic channel may well help accelerate the web company’s advertising growth.
No such thing has happened in the US. But, it could. Google (GOOG) has a huge blog platform, called Blogger.com. And, TimeWarner’s (TWX) AOL property has it Weblogs and Netscape businesses. Netscape’s audience has not grown since it changed from being a web portal to a blog portal, but with the Sina news, perhaps that will change.
The blog has not really be exploited in the US the way Sina appears to be doing in China. NetRatings did come out with a study recently that showed the blog sections of newspaper websites growing much faster than the websites themselves.
Perhaps the media companies should look East.
Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at [email protected]. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.