Internet in China: 47 million Bloggers

China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) published the “2007 China Blog Survey report” recently. The report showed that, by the end of November 2007, China blog spaces have totaled 72.82 million, and the number of bloggers reached 47 million.

The survey statistics show that by the end of Nov. 2007, the number of blog spaces has reached 72.82 million in China, while that of blog writers has totaled 47 million, which means that one out of every 30 Chinese, or one out of four netizens writes blogs. Also, the active blog writers have taken up 36% of the total blog writers, approximately 17 million, and the number of valid blog spaces of the active blog users is 28.75 million.

China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) surveyed 1,862 Internet users in late November. Extrapolating from this group, CNNIC calculated that 47 million Chinese have blogged, more than one fourth of the 180 million people who have surfed the net in China. But many blogs have gone blank: only a persistent 36 percent kept their sites updated.

Although small compared with the 1.3 billion population of China, the active blogger population has doubled almost every year. China’s first blog appeared in 2002; by the end of 2006, China had 17.5 million bloggers, nearly 30 million more than that of last year. 47% of the blogs’ main contents are the author’s mind or mood monologue record, followed by contents describing personal life and hobbies. Most blogs are for bloggers to record their own living conditions, and conducting self-display.

A large proportion of Chinese bloggers are assumed to be students, as the survey showed that more than 30 percent of them earned less than 500 yuan (68.50 U.S. dollars) each month or had no income at all. About 23 percent earned 1,500 to 3,000 yuan, which is the monthly entry-level salary of many white-collar employees in China.