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SK Communications has introduced “POPs,” an online advertising application that allows the users of the Egloos blogging platform to receive a portion of the company’s advertising revenue. / Courtesy of SK Communications |
By Kim Tong-hyung
Staff Reporter
It pays to have blogging fame these days ― or so say South Korean Internet companies.
As user-generated content increasingly becomes critical in the competition for online traffic, local Web portals are promising bloggers a share of advertising revenue to lure the ``A-listers'' away from rival platforms.
Daum (www.daum.net) ― which operates blogging platforms at Daum Blog (blog.daum.net) and Tistory (www.tistory.com) ― had already been providing ``Ad Clicks,'' a similar tool to Google's AdSense that generates advertisements from search terms. Advertisers pay Daum every time someone clicks on the advertisements that are displayed based on keywords. And users who choose to allow the Ad Clicks programs on their blogs receive a portion of the amount paid to Daum.
Now, NHN, the operator of Naver (www.naver.com), the country's most popular Web site, and SK Communications, which operates Nate (www.nate.com), Cyworld (www.cyworld.com) social networking services and the Egloos (www.egloos.com) blogging platform, are also looking to provide financial motivation.
``The top-end of popular bloggers often generate more viewers than a small news organization, so having a healthy platform is now a big part of the traffic game,'' said an official from Daum.
``And considering that blogging, as with search, has the ability to gather people with similar interests, we believe the potential for target advertising could be immense.''
About 10,000 Daum bloggers are currently using Ad Clicks.
NHN, which holds the country's biggest blogging service in Naver Blog (section.blog.naver.com), has picked 1,000 of its most popular bloggers to test its ad-sharing model, ``Ad Post,'' starting June 30. After fine-tuning the program, NHN plans to expand Ad Post to other blogs and Internet services later this year.
Naver's decision to provide ad-sharing for its bloggers is seen as a bold effort to suppress the challenge by Daum's Tistory and other up-and-coming blogging platforms. About one-third of Naver's 30 million subscribers have blogs, by far the most of any Web portal.
SK Communications has also started providing ``POPs'' for Egloos bloggers. POPs is another advertisement system where bloggers are paid in cash after clicks on advertisements add up to more than 10,000 won.
KTH, which operates Paran (www.paran.com), has been providing its ``Ad Box'' advertising application since 2007.
thkim@koreatimes.co.kr
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