G'day Nuffnang

Regional - Following the launch of its Philippines operation just three months ago, Asian blog advertising community Nuffnang has expanded down under with its Australian community going live last night.

The company, which has had to change its tagline from Asia's First Blog Advertising Community to include the words Asia Pacific, tied up with local Australian company Tomeel for the launch.

Tomeel is helmed by Martyn Thomas and David Lee, and Nuffnang Australia will be headquartered in Melbourne while a Sydney representative office is expected to open as well. A Nuffnang New Zealand operation is also on the cards.

"Once again, it's really about finding the right local partner. Australia was already on the radar, but the most important facet of expansion, is the local partner," Cheo Ming Shen, Nuffnang co-founder, said.

Nuffnang first rolled out its blog advertising community in Malaysia and then Singapore back in early 2007. The expansion into the Philippines this year has so far resulted in a 2,500 blog strong community for that market, as well as Hong Kong Disney Land becoming an advertising partner.

Cheo said plans for a Nuffnang New Zealand are in the pipeline.

"With close proximity to Australia, and a significant proportion of marketing budget coming out from Australia, it could happen. Our focus however, is on growing the profile of Nuffnang and Australian bloggers locally," Cheo said.

Today, there are 70,000 blogs in the Nuffnang community which reach out to over 2 million unique visitors on a daily basis, according to Cheo.