Huge numbers capture the imagination, while some numbers merely surprise, and still other numbers only reaffirm or validate an expectation. China’s Internet users now top 253 million, the highest globally. This announcement by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) falls into that final category: After all it was only a matter of time before China’s Internet users surpassed those of the formerly-number-one (and birthplace of the net itself) United States, because China’s overall Internet usage rate even now stands at less than 20 percent, versus more than 70 percent in the US.

Since the time of the Great Wall and its first population estimates, China has been a nation of superlatives. Currently it has the longest bridge, the fastest train, the biggest shopping mall, and so on. We even covered this in Supertrends of Future China as the propensity to over-build infrastructure for

1. expected growth (Bejing’s new T3, the world’s biggest air terminal and building);
2. prestige or attention-getting (how about the once-planned 13-mile concrete dragon project);
3. and lack of financial restraints and stakeholder safeguards (easy lending terms, land grabs).

(In fact, a whole book was recently written about just the urbanization and infrastructure trends alone, the aptly-named Concrete Dragon)

Back to China’s Netizen population, I’m with ImageThief in believing the absolute numbers themselves are not as important the stories behind the data, the context. For example, what exactly are China’s estimated 253 million Internet users doing on the web?

A whole lot of blogging going on

China has more than 107 million blogs and spaces as of the end of June 2008, according to the latest CNNIC survey. This is up from 73 million last November, growing 46.5 percent. Active bloggers have increased to 70 million, up from 47 million last November, growing almost 50 percent in seven months. Who are the most popular bloggers?

Although QQ.com and 163.com are the recognized leaders in blog hosting in China, Sina.com hosts three of the top bloggers: Director/actress/writer/traveler Xu jinglei, singer/actor/writer/race car driver Han Han, writer/model/TV personality Acosta.

Each blogger has more than 170 million accumulated visits, with Xu Jinglei topping 180 million to be China’s (and by some measures, the world’s) most popular online personality.

Other rankings, such as BlogRank.cn, put Bill Gates’ personal blog as the 6th most popular, while a movie review blog written by a Chinese girl named duoduo is ranked number one, followed by another multi-talented actress/model/writer Yang Gongru.

It seems that China’s blogosphere rankings are ruled by the individual, unlike most US rankings, which tend to be dominated by gadget and gossip sites (e.g. Endagadget, Perez Hilton, Gawker) and collaborative works (e.g. The Huffington Post, BoingBoing), or the occasional celebrity blogger (e.g. Rosie O’Donnel).

China’s most popular blogs, on the other hand, retain a kind of casual atmosphere where down-to-earth celebrities write about what’s on their minds without slick product or site tie-ins. In China, monetization of blogger content (a la Google AdWords, or paid sponsorships) is only in its nascent stage and most popular bloggers elect to be site-hosted rather than self-hosted with their own URL. To be sure, some may be paid to post on those sites to draw in advertisers, but very few of the 70 million active bloggers would fall into that category.

Gawker recently lamented that too many people in the US blogged for free; in China, pretty much everyone blogs for free, and parlaying online popularity into real-life money or fame is a still seldom occurrence.

It’s clear to me that China’s blogosphere has much growth potential and opportunities yet to come.

(Come back for part two of this story on Monday.)

Categories: China Supertrends, Inter-Networking