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

The number of bloggers, or blog authors, which are personal online journals intended for public consumption, was 47 million at the end of November 2007.

The increasing number of bloggers was because more and more Chinese want to express their own views about local and international events through the Internet, Gao said.

The Internet Society of China, devoted to tracking development of the Internet in China, said the country recorded its first blog in August 2002. Now there are more than 100 million blogs. The society is a non-government institution sponsored by 70 organs, including Internet service providers, network access carriers and research institutes. It did not reveal how it tracked the number of blogs or bloggers.

Currently, there are more than 290 million netizens in China, ranking the country first in the world in terms of its online population.

Gao said, netizens in China were not only a group interested in virtual space, but also an important force in real life. They can even influence government policy-making.

(Xinhua News Agency January 7, 2009)