Weird Phenomenon Blog 2006: From Global First to Millions of Zombies - Shang Jin - Sina BLOG

When the summer of 2006 saw advertisements from chip manufacturers on all TV channels promoting "grabbing Mr. Xu's sofa", blogs had become the most popular public term in Chinese society. Although this Web 2.0 concept was introduced to China at the end of 2002, the combination of grassroots users and celebrities made starting a blog a trend that required no extra motivation. From Han Han's fans attacking Gao Xiaosong's blog, to Dong Lu questioning Wu Hongfei on Huang Jianxiang's behalf via his blog, beyond the heated debates sparked by these blogs, the seemingly vibrant Chinese blogosphere actually quietly documented many social realities of 2006. Among the nearly 50 million Chinese-language blog pages, less than 15% were actually effectively maintained.