LAST week, Sina Corp and Microsoft China's Internet service arm announced a partnership that will allow users of Sina's Twitter-like microblog service and Microsoft's instant-messaging program to link their accounts.

The announcement came only days after a truce was called in the cat fight between domestic instant-messaging service leader Tencent and anti-virus tool Qihoo 360.

Tencent and Qihoo agreed to allow their software to be compatible with each other about a week after Tencent forced users to uninstall Qihoo security tool. The spat caused net users' great inconvenience. Tencent has more than 600 million active user accounts. Many market watchers said it was the perfect timing for Sina to boost its instant-messaging tool UC and a huge marketing opportunity for its microblog service.

Sina bought the instant message software UC for US$30 million in 2004, but the company's market share and product awareness for the service have been awkwardly low given Sina's dominant position among news portals.

In my view, Sina's ultimate target might not be the instant-messaging service after all. It's reasonable to think that the company is eying a much bigger target.

It's anyone's guess what that might be, but a real-time information source forged from the rich content of Sina and vast user base of MSN Messenger isn't beyond the realm of possibility.

Sina makes money from rich content on its portal, which basically covers all categories of news. Although advertising income benefited from big events such as the World Cup and the World Expo in Shanghai, it has yet to show strong and long-term growth potential.

Sina's focus right now is the microblog service. Although counterparts such as NetEase, Tencent and Sohu have launched similar services, each of them obviously lacks momentum.

This is mainly because Sina struck the first blow in the market and backed it up with extensive publicity and education about the service for users to become fully aware of its potential as a real-time platform.

Sina has always been a master of marketing and media relations. It has spared no effort in persuading celebrities to open official web blogs on its platform. That strategy obviously worked well, and now Sina is trying to repeat the process with the microblog. It has attracted entertainment stars, property tycoons and renowned economists to record their daily musings on the microblog.

It's easy to assume that Sina will quickly outpace similar services offered by rivals Tencent and NetEase.

A large number of hits naturally brings a wide range of news sources.

Moreover, domestic newspapers, magazines and financial service providers are also opening official accounts on Sina's service to update their latest articles.

Radical change

Unlike traditional official websites, microblogs allow a person to put in a key sentence of a story on them, attached to a website link. Viewers can get a rough idea about the main story, and, if they are interested in the detail, a simple click will bring up the full article.

After all, as an ordinary user, it's impossible to check out four or five microblog accounts at one time. In the end, the attention of users tends to focus on just one or two.

I don't often use Sina's microblog service, but I do check out the website once in a while to find out what media people and financial commentators are saying about the latest company news and market trends.

The so-called Web 2.0 era has radically changed how people use the Internet. No longer do they have to be passive in receiving news. Instead, anyone with a computer or a mobile phone can become a news source.

Domestic web users have quickly embraced new platforms such as Kaixin and Sina's microblog, which are similar to their United States counterparts Facebook and Twitter. Now with smartphones and relatively cheap connection fees to the wireless Internet, updates from all over the world can be seen from a single monitor.

For big and unexpected events, smartphones allow ordinary viewers to take photos at the scene where something dramatic is happening and upload them to a microblog. Live broadcasts are no longer the exclusive realm of TV and radio stations.

Sina is now allowing users to log onto its blog platform and instant-messaging tool UC using an MSN ID.

In the near future, MSN users will be able to see the latest updates of their friends on the microblog and chat with MSN contacts on the platform whenever they're online.

According to Liu Zhenyu, manager of MSN China, the company is seeking to use an open platform called Messenger Connect to put together user-generated content on other websites and allow contacts on MSN Messengers to see one another's updates.

Although MSN looks to be lagging behind QQ in market share of active Internet-messaging users, it has a relatively high-quality user base drawn largely from white-collar workers in China's biggest cities.

"Although we don't have the largest instant-messenger user base, we focus on the high-end and valuable opinion leaders, so advertisers will surely be willing to pay more," MSN China's Liu said.

The Messenger Connect platform saves users the trouble of checking multiple websites to see updates from their friends.

It would be only natural for users to search for interesting news after a mention from a friend, and instant messaging is the easiest way to do that.

Sina Vice President Peng Shaobin said his company's microblog, which started trial operations in August 2009, had 50 million registered users by the end of October.

Twitter, by contrast, had about 175 million users by August.

On Tuesday, Sina established an industry alliance to support third-party software developers who provide value-added services to microblog users.

The initial 200 million yuan (US$30.3 million) investment will be funded by private-equity investors, including Sequoia Capital, IDG and former Google China head Kaifu Lee's new venture Innovation Works. Sina will contribute 100 million yuan.

Software developers will receive 70 percent of the income from value-added services, while Sina will take the remainder, according to Peng.

"Part of Sina and MSN China services overlap, and both sides are working very hard toward an open platform that lays a solid foundation for our collaboration," Sina's Chief Operating Officer Du Hong told a media briefing when the partnership was announced .

Sina CEO Charles Chao said the firm is still working on potential advertising models so the microblog will have solid revenue next year. He said the goal is to make the microblog the company's biggest revenue source.

Sina is more focused on building its user base and platform, Chao added.

Marketing will be critical in raising user awareness and achieving that goal. But there's no doubt that the new partners are already way ahead of their rivals.

The next big challenge is to keep and enhance that momentum.