Page 99 - How China Is Winning the Tech Race

summer he had set up one of China’s first blog sites, BlogChina, later renamed
Bokee. Fang opened it with a zinger: “Each blogger is a world. Let everyone
have their own blog.” He even coined the Chinese word for blogging: Bokee,
which also can mean “plentiful guests.”
The number of people reading blogs in China has exploded to 65 million,
or more than a third of the country’s Internet users. Blogging first captured the
public’s attention in 2003, when a female blogger in southern China’s
Guangzhou with the alias Muzimei drew some 160,000 surfers to her site
monthly with a vividly descriptive sex diary that featured her multiple partners.
4
She even was featured in a Time magazine article. In 2004, a Beijing blogger
named Zhang Shihe drew attention to the new citizens’ medium by breaking the
story of a murder and posting photos of it, which local newspapers picked up.
By May 2006, the most popular blog in the world came from China: a diary-
like account written by a beautiful young actress named Xu Jinglei. 5
Despite the outpouring of voices Bokee has ushered in, Bokee itself may
not survive, says new media publisher Jeremy Goldkorn. He contends that
Bokee lost its edge a few years ago when it moved from being a forum of
personal voices and became a portal hosting anonymous bloggers. The arrival
of Web portal SINA to the blogging scene in 2005 “blew Bokee out of the
water” by signing up celebrity bloggers, he says. “I think Bokee blew its
chance at the big time.”
Yes, Bokee is in deep financial trouble and management turmoil. I’ve been
briefed by two investors that Bokee may be about to go under. The company
laid off about a quarter of its 400 employees and streamlined its blogging
lineup in late 2005 and early 2006 but still lost $4 million in 2006. At the
current rate at which it’s burning through cash reserves, it will be out of
money by the end of 2007. Mean-
while, the Chinese Web portals
SINA and Sohu have sucked the air “I think Bokee blew its chance at the big
out of Bokee with competitive time.”
blog-hosting services. A search to
Jeremy Goldkorn,
find a revenue-generating business
publisher, Danwei
model for blogging—a problem for
all sites—has not been successful.
Also, Fang’s leadership abilities are
being questioned by his board of directors.

Bokee.com—Growing Pains 73