Chinafotopress

Ambitious companies in any business sector will inevitably branch out to take advantage of new opportunities. Still, the scale and sheer variety of expansion projects by China's leading online players is startling; as search engines become online publishers, video game developers set up email services, video sites open e-commerce platforms, and portals introduce gaming. Yet, even though this development is almost inevitable it does lead to the question, "Are these companies losing focus?"

"While the first wave of Chinese web companies were entering new fields a bit reckle ......-profitable sectors, or a slow withering away on the vine as their main services become obsolete and markets too competitive, you only need to look at the examples of US companies AOL, Yahoo!, and MySpace, all of which held a massive market share but were subsequently overtaken by more innovative rivals and are now all struggling to survive. Chinese online giants are showing themselves to be unafraid of change and a new challenge, and clearly prefer not to go quietly into the night.