Buzzcity, which claims almost one million registered users, received the injection from lead investor 3i, BancBoston Capital, and OCBC, Wearnes & Walden (OWW). The company "buzzes", or notifies, registered users when content on participating sites they identify has been updated. It also operates email newsletters for partner sites.

Working with these investors was a strategic decision, Buzzcity chief executive and co-founder Dr. Lai Kok Fung said in a telephone interview. "We plan to expand to the European and Latin American regions, and those investors are particularly strong in those areas," Lai said. Lai also believes there may be synergies between his companies and their financiers' investments. "BancBoston invested in a company called Netmine, whose technology is very similar to ours," Lai said.

Over the next 12 months, the company plans to "focus on three major language groups: Chinese, English, and Spanish, and expand to 10-15 countries," Lai said. Buzzcity also intends to "expand our wireless portion, with [delivery to] mobile phones and pagers," he said.

Building an Asian brand means targeting areas where American firms aren't as strong, Lai said. "That is one reason that we chose to start with Chinese and then later Spanish, because those are areas where American firms are the weakest," he said. Those languages also have the greatest number of native speakers, other than English.

Buzzcity's method of linking to Web sites and using the first one or two sentences from each article may be put the company at risk for copyright violations, especially as it expands into North America. New rulings from US courts indicate that Web sites can prevent other sites from linking to them. Lai said Buzzcity seeks permission from and only links to and uses content from participating sites, and that any site that does not wish to be linked will be removed upon request.