Blogging gaining in popularity
(Shanghai Daily)
Updated: 2006-03-04 09:55

Blogging is becoming popular among office workers in Shanghai as more than half of the local white-collar workers have set up their own Weblogs, a recent survey has found.

CBP Career Consultants Co Ltd, a Shanghai-based firm, surveyed 400 people in four major Chinese cities - 100 each in Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen - about their attitude toward writing articles regularly on their personal cyberspace.

Survey findings indicated that 52 percent respondents had already set up their own blogs. Another 28 percent said they were planning to start one.

Microsoft Messenger Space is the most popular blogging choice, with 41 percent bloggers using the free online platform. Local bloggers update their spaces every 4 1/2 days on average, the survey said.

"I love the MSN Space so much that I click the shining yellow stars on the MSN contact list to view my friends' latest blog updates immediately after logging onto the Internet every day," said Mega Meng, 27, a trading company sales manager.

The biggest attraction of blogs, said Meng, was that they kept her informed about what's happening to her friends and what they are thinking.

Unlike westerners who like to comment on news events and politics, the survey reported that local bloggers usually focus on writing about one's life, expressing personal feelings and even gossip.

About 67 percent bloggers surveyed were willing to write about their private affairs - such as personal emotions and love life. Nearly 60 percent even blog to trash their bosses.

Bian Bingbin, chief consultant of CBP Career Consultants, said that blogs had become the fourth online communication channel for people, after email, bulletin board system and instant messaging tools such as QQ, MSN and Yahoo Messengers.

"But it is more than a simple lifestyle. The blogging habit also reflects the pressures of modern living," Bian said. So, many white-collar workers take blogging as a way to express themselves and relieve their emotions, he added.