On Dec. 26th, 2007, CNNIC published "the Survey Report on Blogs in China 2007". According to the report, by the end of Nov. 2007, the number of blog spaces has reached 72.82 million in China, and with 47 million blog writers, it is reaching one fourth of the total netizens. This indicates the rapid growth of the blog market in China.
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.
By the end of 2006, the number of blog writers was 17.5 million, and within one year the increasement reached nearly 30 million, indicating the large-scale growth in number of the blog writer group. However, as indicated by the survey, the future growth of the blogs will slow down: 65% of the investigated said they only registered one blog, and showed little tendency to register another in half a year; only 11% of the investigated said they would definitely register a blog in the future half a year.
The survey also indicates that the blog covers almost all the areas of people’s daily life, including the cultural, military, economic, tourist, living areas, etc. therefore the blog has also become the important channel for people to obtain information. Among the blog writers surveyed in this report, the male gender take up 43% while the female is 57%, which is contrary to the traditional gender ratio of 55:45 (male: female) among netizens, and shows a higher popularity of blogs among female users.
In terms of major content the blogs covered, 47% of the blogs are written about the inner monologues or record of emotions of the writers. Next are the narration of daily life, personal interests and hobbies. Most of the blogs are for the writers to record their own life status and conduct self demonstration, with the blogs having a more and more obvious tendency of self-media attributes.
The survey also finds that among the motives for reading blogs, entertainment comes first, which is reported to occupy 43% of the surveyed. It will become one of the directions for further probing of the profitable blog model to make full use of the participative, interactive, and circulative characteristics of the blog and dig out the entertainment value of blogs.
In addition, although blogs have become an important information channel, the readers obviously have more confident in online news than in blog content. 63% of the surveyed said they trust more in the online news while only 20% have more trust in the blog content. This shows that compared to online news, the blog content at present calls for improvement in its credibility. And as a kind of transmission media, the blogs need the self discipline of the blog writers in order to raise the credibility.
The survey shows, in terms of the methods that blog writers choose to access most frequently visited blogs, the primary choice is through the links on the blogs and through the browser bookmarks. 12% of the blog writers directly key in the blog addresses in the address bar, which means 5.64 million blog writers browse their blogs directly by keying in the addresses of the blogs. Judging from the accessing habits, the market of individual domain names looks optimistic in the blog area.
Meanwhile, 66% of the surveyed expressed interests in using the individual domain names. And as many as 31% of the surveyed said that if a blog website offers the simple or customized blog domain names at 10 yuan/name, they would consider changing the blog platforms. So for the 1 yuan registration price of .CN domain names, the individual .CN domain names would have a lot to commit itself to in the blog area.
The function that blog writers use most frequently is the upload/display function of pictures, also with a high frequency in using music and videos on the blog. Among the new functions or tools the writers mostly long for, the blog writers wish the most is to expand the storage of the blogs space, and being provided with the customized design models of the blog. Meanwhile，10% of the writers responded that they are willing to buy the blog space service. This indicates that the functions of blogs have set apart from the monotone written record, and headed for multi-functions.
With the continuous progress in Internet technology, the continuous expansion of Internet cyberspace, and the continuous raise in networking speed, the future blogs will include various technologies such as character, images, audio, video, flash, etc., combing the instant messaging, social network, online shopping and etc., demonstrating having the tendency of becoming the all-around personal space which cover all aspects of information of the blog writer.
