周黎明 (Raymond Zhou's bilingual blog) 用中文写娱评，用英文写时评

Not All Blogs Were Created Equal

Blog as a tool of expression is supposed to be an equalizer. But not every blog is created equal. Most blogs have drawn a few hundred clicks while a few have attracted a disproportionately large number of eyeballs.

Celebrity blogs are the most obvious example. Xu Jinglei, a movie star-cum-director, is said to have the most widely read blog in the whole country, with 20 million accumulated clicks since it was launched in Sina on October 25 last year. Other big-name entertainers have followed suit, but many of those are operated as a public relations platform and the postings are nothing but press releases like those fed to fanzines.

There is another type of celebrity blog: The blogger builds his or her name not from pervious media exposure, but from blog writing itself. They are the true stars of blogsphere, some claim.

Hong Bo writes a blog called Keso, which focuses on the high-tech industry. He browses hundreds of blogs and websites a day and voices opinions on the latest happenings in the business. On an average day, Keso gets 20,000 readers.

Many of Hong’s articles and blurbs are criticisms of corporate moves. When he wrote disparagingly of Sohu’s strategy, he got a call of complaint from the portal site. Yet he doesn’t mind offending bigwigs of the business. It’s one of the advantages of writing a blog and that is extra latitude, he says.

Hong is editor in chief of Donews, an IT community and media website. However, he sees a subtle difference between the site he supervises and his own one-man operation. He wouldn’t post his Keso pieces on Donews.

Blogs like Keso tend to be penned by professional newsmen, who are carving out a special niche in the realm of journalism. The writers are fully aware of, and mostly abide by, journalistic ethics, yet at the same time gently push the envelope. These blogs with frequent updating and throngs of readers are sometimes called the “me media” vs. “mass media.”

The “star blogs” are run by media people, says an observer of the blog scene, who counts Keso as a media platform. Hong admits it, “but it is only one of the functions, and I can also be very personal in my blog.”

Massage Milk is another popular blog by a media professional, Wang Xiaofeng of Sanlian Life Weekly. He devotes one or two hours to it on a daily basis. His readers have left comments to the effect that his blog is much more fun to read than the magazine he works for.
Yet, Wang doesn’t see his blog as a potential media outlet, not even a column. “My blog is the place where I can bullshit,” he says, explaining his refusal to turn it into a print media column.

Roland Soong does not place his blog remotely in the league of a newspaper or news agency. “The information presented on my blog is partial, selective and idiosyncratic. It would be a huge mistake to treat this as the 'best source of information' on China,” he cautions.

However, EastSouthWestNorth, or ESWN for short, is considered by many as a very good source, especially for Western media organizations based in Greater China. Writing in English, Soong in his blog both aggregates news stories with a crossover appeal and makes observations with cross-cultural acumen. “It is the effort of a single individual trying to grasp this thing known as China,” he clarifies.

Soong doesn’t see any blogger in a position to compete with traditional media, but excel in “some small niche subject area such as Integrated Circuits design or the movies of Ang Lee” or a “suddenly breaking incident.”

Both Soong and Hong Bo cite length and deadline constraints as two areas where blogs have an advantage over traditional media.

However, a blog expert, who spoke to China Daily on the condition of anonymity, calls Soong’s a one-man news agency. “Traditional media absorb the best talent, including the best from blogsphere. If these bloggers are not already on a media team, they soon will.” But he admits that for most blogs, the best it amounts to is a well-recognized column in print media.

While most bloggers are happy to get a piece of rent-free online real estate, the highly visible and visited blogs with daily clicks of tens of thousands or more have raised the question of profit participation. Why should bloggers offer their knowledge and insight free of charge, asked some, while blogging companies reap all the financial benefits?

A Sina executive revealed that they were considering some form of profit sharing for bloggers like Xu Jinglei.

Roland Soong of ESWN doesn’t believe it’s “worth the effort” to fight for a slice of the blogging pie. For one thing, the blogging sites are not rolling in the big dough yet. For another, at the advertising rate of US per 1,000 visitors, a blog with 10,000 daily readers, like his, would bring in only 30 bucks each day.

Hong Bo’s Keso was reportedly the first blog to accept advertising, but he ended the practice three months later.

High-traffic bloggers tend to make money through other means. Xu Jinglei and Wang Xiaofeng have compiled books from their blogs. Some young women have parlayed their provocative poses into endorsement deals and tabloid careers.

Most professional bloggers have enviable jobs. “I don’t begrudge blogging sites make money out of it,” says Hong Bo. “What I get is extra leeway and more interaction with my readers.”

（这是“足本”，发表版被删减。）