When China's largest web portal, Sina.com, recently announced it would launch a podcasting service, people started wondering whether podcasts will soon become more popular than blogs?

But Beijing Daily Messenger reports that a number of insiders claim podcasting won't develop as quickly as some people expect.

They say making videos is much complicated than writing words for the web, a skill almost everyone can master.

But podcasting has already been around for two or three years in China.

Well before Sina made its decision, a number of smaller websites provided podcasting services, like tudou.com, aeeboo.com.

These websites have been attracting more and more netizens, but the paper says podcasting in China is still in its early days, compared to the huge popularity of overseas podcasting sites.

Critics of China's podcasting sites say most of the works they display aren't original, but imported from foreign websites.

They also warn that the new medium will bring a host of problems. As well as having the potential for sparking copyright disputes, they may host negative, aggressive or pornographic content.
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(CRI December 25, 2006)