JAMIL ANDERLINI in Beijing

The number of registered online weblogs in China more than doubled in the first three quarters of this year, according to a report released yesterday by technology research firm Analysys.

From 14.75 million at the beginning of the year, the number of registered internet-based personal diaries, or blogs, had jumped to 33.36 million by the end of September, the report said.

But blogging's enormous popularity is yet to translate into serious revenue for the burgeoning mainland technology industry.

"Making money from blogs is very difficult," Evolution Securities' technology analyst Jim Sun said. "Advertising is still the only source of revenue."

In the weblog world, the quality of readers and their "stickiness", or loyalty to a given website, were just as important as the volume of people registering accounts, Mr Sun said. "Stickiness allows sites to charge users for premium services. More traffic and greater user-stickiness are the most important factors in generating revenue in the long term," he said.

The huge jump in blog users has helped market leaders such as Tencent Holdings, NetEase and Bokee by creating more interest from potential advertisers and allowing the sites to charge more for their space.

Tencent is the top blog service provider, with 30 per cent of the market, and its online advertising revenues rose 37.8 per cent quarter on quarter in the third quarter to US$4.3 million. It has been able to convince many of the about 20 million registered users of its QQ instant messaging system to sign up for blogs.

Bokee (formerly BlogChina) founder Fang Xingdong said yesterday that registered Bokee users had increased about fivefold this year, to about five million, and he expected an increase of the same magnitude next year.

Bokee has a 10 per cent market share in terms of user numbers and Mr Fang expects it to break even by the end of next month.