SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Google Inc. has snapped up South Korean blogging software company Tatter and Company, or TNC, in a bid to expand the Internet search leader's reach in Asia.

The acquisition, announced by TNC's co-CEO Chang-Won Kim in a blog posting Friday and confirmed by Mountain View, Calif.-based Google, reflects Google's efforts to open up new distribution channels for its ads beyond its ubiquitous search engine.

Similar to Google's 2003 acquisition of the Blogger platform, the deal for TNC could also help Google continue improving its techniques for scouring and synthesizing blog content and tailor ads more precisely to specific markets.

Kim said Google has struggled to gain market share in Korea because many Internet users there are locked into Web portal-style services. Those services funnel users through one central point for all their Internet needs and limit some of the freewheeling exploration of different sites that helps Google sell more ads.

"Google isn't entitled with God-given right to become ‥1 in every region it operates in, just because it's Google," he wrote. "It's actually more about the Korean Web industry than about Google. I think the Korean web industry needs a player that can, as a balancing force, provide more options to the users and help create a more open Web."

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.