Jane Chen / Shanghai Daily news

A leading Chinese blog has sparked an industry-wide controversy after reinventing itself as a portal.
Blogchina.com was formally renamed Bokee.com yesterday, the National Business Daily reported, with its president and CEO Fang Xingdong describing it as an entry into the WEB 2.0 era, which, distinct from the existing 1.0 era, emphasises the primacy of individual contributions. 
Citing popular domestic portals such as Sina.com, Fang said existing websites function mainly as public media, because the contents are created, edited and published by the website staff. 
In contrast, his new Bokee site is aimed at maximizing the input of public users and providing an individualized online platform.
Despite his claim, industry analysts doubt whether the transformation will prove a success, considering that the new portal, as a public media tool, is fundamentally different from its previous incarnation as a blog, whose original orientation was for individual use.
A "blog", short for "weblog," is usually defined as a personal or noncommercial website that uses a dated log format and contains links to other web sites along with commentary about those sites.
The analysts interpreted Blogchina's transformation as a reaction by Fang to the blog's unsuccessful business model based on revenues from user-fees, publishing, advertising, Moblog and enterprise applications.
Blogcn.com, another leading blog in China, supports their case by representing a similarly ineffective business model, with most of its venture capital from International Data Group (IDG) now eaten-up by daily operating costs instead of used for the development of profitable services, according to IDG partner Mao Chengyu.
Ignoring this charge, Fang insists Bokee.com is an attractive proposition for venture capitalists.
"We have recently been in talks to raise US$10 million," he disclosed.