I spoked to Frank Dai of Global Voices a bit further about the diverse and suspiciously large estimates of the Chinese weblog population. I probably have to admit that I've been missing about 50 million Chinese weblogs.
According to Dai, it all depends on what you call a "weblog."
One thing is for sure: Analysys International has been much closer to the truth than I believed last November, when they produced an estimate I thought was unrealistic.
Frank Dai saved a nice chart that originally went along with this Nanfang Daily article about the Analysis report (in Chinese).
Apparently, contrary to Bokee.com's claims, Bokee is not the largest host of Chinese weblogs. Rather, Bokee holds only 10 percent of that market -- which put it in fourth place at the end of 2005.
In fact, the leading Chinese blog host is Q-zone, a service of the Shenzhen-based company Tencent, which also runs a popular instant messaging service QQ.
Dai estimates that QQ now has 150 million accounts. Most QQ customers have two or three QQ accounts, although I have talked to people with as many as eight QQ accounts. One third of QQ users has a QQ blog, which they connect to via QQ software, not through a Web browser. These weblogs are mostly public, but since they have a rather complicated
URL they're difficult to find. Generally, only a QQ blogger's QQ buddies would would know that such a blog exists, says Dai.
When you take these QQ blogs into account, about 50 million new weblogs have emerged in China since last year.
According to the November 2005 Analysis International report, Q-zone had 30 percent of the Chinese blog hosting market. That means I -- and much of the rest of the world -- have been missing about 50 million Chinese weblogs.
Q-zone bloggers view themselves as bloggers and act as bloggers, says Dai. He notes that the recent Chinese celebrity blogging trend has generated hype and helped QQ considerably.
I wonder how Technorati plans to monitor this part of the blogosphere?
