Xu Jinglei v.s. Sina?

Recently the debate between who has the right to place advertisement on Xu Jinglei’s blog (hosted by Sina) is a hot one. I helped the reporter in CCTV on the report a little bit by connecting the people they want to interview, but I didn’t realize the story is on New York Time.

The Fact

Xu Jinlei is a nice actress. Her blog received 11 million total pageview in the first 5 months. Her BSP (Blog Service Provider) was Sina. Sina spent a lot of resources (homepage real estate) to promote the blog, so it is claimed to be the hottest blog in China so far. (a small foot note: in terms of page view, Wangjianshuo’s blog receives about 2 million page view every single month).

For me, There is No Doubt Sina has the Right

I suggested that any serious blog should have his/her own domain name, and space to blog. If you use an BSP, after one year or two, “Not starting with my own domain name” will be high on the list you regret didn’t do.

The deal is perfectly right. When bloggers want to blog, but don’t have server or technical skills to setup one, they choose to give up (part of) the copyright of the content they generated, to get the space, and hosting.

BSP provide free servers, bandwidth. In return, they get the right to place advertisement onto their user’s blog.

This is written in most user agreement for blogging services.

The Arrangement was Decided Already

When Ms. Xu started blogging at Sina, she already gave up the right to monetize the blog. Personally, I don’t understand why save the several hundred RMB but lose the long term ability to get money.

Sina’s RoleP.S** I respect Xu a lot. It seems she herself didn’t care about advertisement. Just the media, CCTV particularly, cares about who owns the right.