Three Chinese IT firms join forces to challenge Sohu.com for Beijing Olympics. Sina.com, Netease.com and Tencent Corp signed an agreement on July 19th to co-operate and combine media resources to provide reporting services for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games in an attempt to challenge Sohu.com, the official Olympic Internet-content sponsor. Unlike Sohu’s agreement with the Chinese government to provide content, representatives from the new media alliance say it is open to all Internet media and that TOM Group of Hong Kong would likely become a member within months. But the alliance faces serious challenges. Only Sohu.com will be granted spot-reporting licences for the games, denying the new Internet media alliance access to real-time information. Olympic-related advertising revenue for the alliance will also be limited, as Sohu claims that co-operative partners of the Beijing Olympics must choose Sohu when advertising on the Internet. Sina, Netease and Tencent plan to challenge that claim under the pretext that Internet ad revenue falls outside Olympic-related exclusivity contracts.
