Another tumblr-like service is coming in town. Lofter, the lightblogging tool curated by NetEase is now open to public registration.
So now we have Dianian (by Innovation Works), Sina Qing (by Sina), Tuita (by Shanda), Renren Xiaozhan (by Renren) and I haven’t mentioned those founded by minor names.
Some were raving about lightblogging as they thought the service bridged the gap between blog (Blogger, WordPress or China’s Blogbus) and microblog (Twitter or Fanfou in China). Normal blogging takes a lot of time whereas microblogging is not always expressive. Liteblogging seems a good compromise between the two.
And this is partially evidenced by Tumblr’s skyrocketing growth with over 250 million pv per day.
Diandian, which is considered to be the best if its kind in China, said the company is trying to build an interest graph on top of its service to connect people share the same fondness. The site boasts over 1 million users as of this July.
Even though, the revenue picture for lightblogging is still in question, especially when Sina Weibo hasn’t made much from its heavy spending and over 2.5 million users yet. Bottom line, lightblogging isn’t that different from microblogging. Sina can hands-down promote its Qing service in great efforts to compete with these Chinese tumblr should the company feels any pressure.