:: a couple of days ago, Sina.com announced China’s “Top 10″ IT Bloggers for 2008. For the most part, the list was decided by netizen-vote, but the final results were ultimately determined by a panel of Sina.com judges. Either way, there are some heavy-hitting tech geeks on this list worth paying attention to (see below). Sina also announced the “most popular” IT business blog – CNNIC’s Web2.0 Research and Development blog; and the “most valuable / worthwhile” IT business blog – Microsoft’s Research Asia Pacific blog. Hat tip to Joel for linking me to this news.

2008 “Top 10″ IT Bloggers (in alphabetical order, as translated from Sina):

Chen Yongdong (陈永东) – During the Microsoft acquisition bid for Yahoo, Chen published almost 40 posts critiquing and commenting on the affair from many angles.

Hong Bo, aka “Keso” (洪波) – Keso continued to use his unique point of view and perspective to influence the Web2.0 space in 2008 with 49 blog posts.

Jin Cuodao (金错刀) – From the profound perspective of an IT industry and business management expert, Jin contirbuted original points of view about hot issues in 2008.

Lao Yao (老杳) – Using his deep academic and professional understanding of the IT space, he set up “critque unfair matters, praise those worth praise” on his blog.

Lei Jun (雷军) – By sharing his experience in venture capital / start-up investment and business mangement, it took Lei’s blog barely 3 months from launch to get a million hits.

Liu Xingliang (刘兴亮) – As a result of his many years working in the Web2.0 and service provider industry, Liu’s influential point of view easily caught the attention of netizen and blog readers.

Liu Jianguo (陆建国) – With his unique point of view and simple but profound language, Liu used his blog to report on the 200 “big and small” events from the Chinese Internet in 2008.

Moonlight Blog (月光博客) – By closely following hot Chinese Internet topics / problems from a technology point of view, readers fell in love with Moonlight Blog.

Wang Ran (王冉) – Wang observes IT industry phenomenon from the perspective of an investor; deciphering hot investor topics online while vividly sharing a unique perspective.

Xiang Ligang (项立刚) – 2008 was a year in which the telecommunications space was given a lot of attention, and thus Xiang made a living by continuously writing blog posts, igniting a sword-fight of battling points of view.

// AjS

:: the latest CNNIC report was published today. Unlike previous reports, this edition also includes detailed statistics about the Hong Kong and Macau internet markets. Download the full report (Chinese only) as a PDF here, or as a MS Word document here. See below for a translated summary of the report’s more salient points. Unless otherwise noted, the data below represents averages across all demographics. For “deep dive” figures, see the original report – it’s rich with in-depth analysis and data slicing.

• 298 million netizens (the largest Internet market in the world…its unlikely this will ever change)
• 41.9% YoY increase in users (up from 210 million in January 2008)
• 22.6% penetration (i.e. 22.6% of China’s entire population is online), YoY increase from 16%; compared against global average of 21.9%; other leading markets (U.S. 72.5%, Japan 73.3%, Korean 70.7%)
• 90.6% of netizens access the Internet from a broadband connection (270 million netizens)
• 39.5% of netizens access the Internet from mobile phones (118 million netizens)
• 28.4% “rural” netizens (up from 25.1%)
• 71.6% “urban” netizens (down from 74.9%)
• 52.5% male, 47.5% female (compared to 57.2% male, 42.8 female in January 2008)
• age demographics: 0.4% under 10 (down from 0.8% YoY), 35.2% between 10 – 19 (up from 27.6% YoY), 31.5% between 20 – 29 (down from 38.1% YoY), 17.6% between 30 – 39 (down from 20.5% YoY), 9.6% between 40 – 49 (up from 8.1%), 4.2% between 50 – 59 (up from 3.3%), and 1.5% 60 or older (up from 1.4%)
• education levels: 5.4% with elementary or lower (down from 6.7% YoY), 28.0% with up to middle school (up from 21.1% YoY), 39.4% with up to high school or basic technical training (up from 36.0% YoY), 13.9% with advanced technical training (down from 18.7% YoY), 12.2% with a bachelors degree (down from 12.2% YoY), 1.0% with a masters degree or higher (down from 1.4% YoY)
• 5.5% of netizens (not including students) are unemployed, laid off, or have lost their jobs (down from 11.9% YoY)
• 2.3% of netizens are farmers, fisherman, laborers, etc.
• 2% of netizens are retired
• 6.4% of netizens are freelancers
• 7.3% of netizens run small personal businesses
• 2.0% of netizens industrial or service industry workers
• 2.6% of netizens are migrant workers
• 33.2% of netizens are students
• 10.3% of netizens work for the government or state / government-owned enterprises
• 4.5% of netizens are manager-level at enterprises / companies
• 15.0% of netizens are middle / junior-level at enterprises / companies
• 8.7% of netizens are technology professionals
• monthly income levels: 1.5% with zero income (down from 4.4% YoY), 26% make less than 500 RMB, 16.2% make between 500 – 1000 RMB, 16.0% make between 1000 – 1500 RMB, 13.8% make between 1501 – 2000 RMB, 13.7% make between 2001 – 3000 RMB, 8.0% make between 3000 – 5000 RMB, 2.9% make between 5000 – 8000 RMB, 1.9% make more than 8000 RMB
• there are 287.8 million Web sites registered in mainland China (compared to 150.4 in January of 2008)
• Web “age” vs. time online: netizens that have been using the Internet for 8 or more years spend 26.4 hours online a week; for 6 – 8 years, 19.9 hours a week; for 4 – 6 years, 16.2 hours a week; for 2 – 4 years, 13.8 hours a week; for 1 – 2 years, 12.4 hours a week; for less than 1 year, 12.7 hours a week
• overall time spent online (average): 16.6 hours a week (compared to 16.2 in January 2008)
• access points: 78.4% of netizens are getting online from home, 42.4% from Internet cafes, 20.7% from work / office, 11.3% from school, 2.7% from other public locales
• access devices: 89.4% of netizens are getting online with desktop computers, 27.8% with laptop computers, 39.5% with mobile phones (this will likely jump dramatically over the next 12 months with the introduction of 3G in China), 1.4% with PDAs / other handheld devices
• 39% of netizens can’t work or study without the Internet
• 59.1% of netizens feel that without the Internet their “entertainment life” would, uh, suck
• 69.3% of netizens feel “taking care of matters” with the help of the Internet reduces personal annoyances
• 61.8% of netizens say that they first learn of major news from the Internet
• 64.6% of netizens say that when they have questions / inquiries, will first turn to the Internet for answers
• 65.4% of netizens say they have met “many” new friends on the Internet
• 82.5% of netizens say the Internet has strengthened their relationships with friends
• 19.9% of netizens say they feel “more alone” since the advent of the Internet and their use of it
• 29% of netizens say they feel the Internet has taken away from time they would otherwise spend with their family
• 47.5% of netizens say they use real / honest information when filling out online registration forms
• 27.6% of netizens say they feel safe conducting business transactions online
• 41.9% of netizens say that the Internet is the main channel by which they express their opinions
• 76.9% of netizens say that since starting to use the Internet, they pay more attention to social matters / affairs / etc.
• 78.5% of netizens are accessing news media content online (up from 73.6% YoY)
• 68% of netizens are using search engines (down from 72.4% YoY)
• 18.6% of netizens are job-searching online (up from 10.4% YoY)
• 56.8% of netizens are using email (up from 56.5% YoY)
• 75.3% of netizens are using IM (down from 81.4% YoY)
• 54.3% of netizens have / own a blog (YoY numbers n/a)
• 35.2% of netizens (actively) update / maintain blogs (up from 23.5% YoY)
• 30.7% of netizens use BBS / discussion forums (YoY numbers n/a)
• 19.3% of netizens use social networking sites (YoY numbers n/a)
• 62.8% of netizens are gaming (up from 59.3% YoY)
• 83.7% of netizens are accessing music conent (presumably downloading) (down from 86.6% YoY)
• 67.7% of netizens are accessing Internet video content (down from 76.9% YoY), with the under 30 age demographic account for the bulk of this usage
• 24.8% of netizens engage in e-commerce (up from 22.1% YoY)
• 3.7% of netizens sell goods online (YoY number n/a)
• 17.6% of netizens are processing payment transaction online (up from 15.8% YoY)
• 5.6% of netizens make travel bookings online (YoY numbers n/a)
• 19.3% of netizens engage in online banking (up from 19.2% YoY)
• 11.4% of netizens are trading / buying / selling stocks online (down from 18.2% YoY)
• 16.5% of netizens engage in online education (down from 16.6% YoY)

If anything more should be included or if anyone spots an errors in my translation, please let me know in the comments section. Thanks.

[UPDATE: for a more robust English translation of the entire CNNIC report, link here]

// AjS

:: according to the latest CNNIC report (published twice a year), there are now 298 million Chinese netizens. Download the report (Chinese only) as a PDF here, or as a MS Word document here. 56minus1 is working to summarize / translate the report’s most salient points. Watch this space, more coming soon.  // AjS