Baidu To Launch Chinese Blogging Platform

Chinese search engine Baidu, with a market cap of about $3 billion, will be launching a blogging platform on July 13. Search Enging Journal reports (but without attribution) that Cynthia He, a spokeswoman for Baidu, said in a statement: “There’s a product named Baidu Space. I can’t describe the product or give a date, except that it will be very soon and we are very excited. But we’d like to keep a little mystery for now.”

Blogging in China is tricky business to say the least. And it’s fairly competitive – Bokee, BlogCN, ChinaBlog, Sina Blog and Sohu Blog all have competitive offerings and lots of users. Nevertheless, China is a huge market (the second largest internet audience after the U.S.) and has an active blogging community. And some of the blogs are masssive.

Someday, this massive community of people writing and conversing can bring China out of the dark ages freedom-wise. The more people that blog in and about China, the better.