"Lite-blogging" services make their mark in China

"Lite-blogs" are essentially Tumblr clones - a cross between microblogs and full blogs - and have been mushrooming quietly in China over the past few months. David Wolf, chief executive of Wolf Group Asia, a Beijing-based marketing strategy firm, observed that given Tumblr's success in the US, the temptation to copy is great. "(It's) 'China syndrome' where people will all pile in on a great idea," he said.

The microblog, itself a Twitter clone, burst into the Chinese scene in 2009 when Sina launched its Weibo service in August that year.

"Weibo is becoming onerous as some things you want to discuss just cannot fit in the space, while a full-on blog is too daunting," Wolf commented.

Players in the Tumblr-clone market now include Sina's Qing, Diandian, Phoenix New Media's Kuaibo, Netease's Lofter, Shanda's Tuita, and Renren's Xiaozhan.

Sina Weibo has been the defacto winner in the Chinese microblogging race, boasting about 200 million users. Qing is Sina's complementary lite-blog product for its Weibo - an already comprehensive microblog - that allows users to publish media-rich content such as images, videos, and music files.

Kuaibo is another Tumblr-copy, developed by iFeng, the portal by Phoenix New Media. CFO Lily Liu says that Kuaibo is the new baby of the company with a dedicated product development team and US$3 million (RMB20 million) slated for investment in the second half of 2011. She went on to predict lite-blogs would become a dominant social media product in the near future.

Diandian, arguably the most noteworthy Tumblr clone was launched in February 2011. CEO Jack Xu described the selling point of his lite-blog as being like a magazine, compared to a blog being a book, and a microblog being a daily news bulletin.

When asked why DianDian would be attractive to users when they already have established microblog accounts, he said the appeal lies in DianDian’s focus on user-generated content as well as the sharing and customisation of this content.

However, Dong Xu, a social network specialist at Analysys International said it was early days for lite-blogs to talk about profitability, or brands to measure marketing effectiveness on lite-blogs. "The value of the platform depends on the size of the user base, which cannot be achieved unless internet companies pump in initial investments which may or may not be recovered," Dong said.

Growing that user base to a sizable one is a challenge. Alex Phung, head of digital and group creative director for Euro RSCG 4D China, described lite-bloggers in China as advanced online users who had better editing skills and preferred more customisations on layout design.

Wolf was upbeat about the lite-blog phenomenon but attached conditions to his optimism. "I say it'll be 18 months before lite-blogs gain popularity and get monetised, but we need good ad engines for brands to incorporate their current advertising onto the lite-blog platform".