Some of the bigger names in blogging have been able to turn the venture into a money spinner or full-time job: Andrew Sullivan, Glenn Reynolds, Jason Kottke to name a few. But that's nothing compared to BlogChina. From the SCMP:

The company that launched China's leading blog portal plans to list on the technology stock-heavy Nasdaq exchange by the second half of next year and hopes to achieve a market capitalisation of more than US$1 billion, company officials said yesterday.

...the dominant mainland weblog portal [had] more than two million bloggers as at the end of May. With business expanding rapidly, [BlogChina founder Fang Xingdong] expected this number to reach 10 million by the end of this year.

BlogChina, established in June last year, has gone from just one employee to 210 staff. "We are adding 50 employees a month at the moment," Mr Fang said. The company was started with US$500 million [Ed. - I assume that's a typo...at least I hope it is!] in seed capital from Softbank Asia Infrastructure Fund and will receive a second round of funding of US$10 million this month from a group of six venture capital firms based in China and the United States.

Revenues have grown from about 400,000 yuan a month to more than two million yuan last month. BlogChina.com boasts a list of high-profile advertisers such as Dell, HP and IBM. Advertising and wireless charges form its primary revenue streams. The company is introducing a pilot virtual payment system this month in which bloggers can charge for their content and pay a share of their earnings to BlogChina.

Eat your heart out, Western capitalist bloggers.

Other reading

China Stock blog has excerpts of an interview with Fang Xingdong.
Kevin Wen on the business of Blogchina.com
Social branding on BlogChina.