50 million Chinese now write blogs

There were more than 50 million bloggers in China by the end of November 2008, a growth of 6.38 percent from the end of November 2007, said Gao Lulin, deputy head of the Internet Society of China, yesterday.

The increasing number of bloggers, or authors of blogs, which are online journals intended for public consumption, was because more and more Chinese want to express their views about local and international events on the Internet, Gao said.

The Internet Society of China, devoted to studying the Internet in China, said the country's first blog was set up in August 2002. Now there are more than 100 million blogs.