Chinese Blogs Reach 34 Million
In a land where the exchange of ideas is limited and the freedom of expression is, well, non-existent, there sure are a hell of a lot of web logs.  Yes, China's number of blogs has hit 34 million.  What does this mean?  Well first, China has more blogs than any other country.  Second, China's number of blogs has quadrupled since 2002, when the blog craze began. And third, China has 34 million watered-down, government-regulated blogs.  The increase in the number of blogs in China has presented entirely new opportunities for advertisers, according to the Xinhua news agency.  Advertisers who once had to rely on signs and periodicals are now using blogs to push their products.  While China's blog count has reached 34 million, according to a national report, there are only 17 million bloggers.  This number does not include Flumesday, the owner of which has not "registered" his site with the government, as any good blogger in China should.  Rumor has it, Beijing has a team of 30,000 engineers patrolling the Chinese internet for content that is politically incendiary or critical of the government.  According to a Reuters story Tuesday, the filthy words "democracy" and "freedom" are the most popular words to be searched for and censored.  Whether this is fact or a scare tactic, I'm not sure.  But what I do know is last week, I wrote about Axl Rose's alleged new album entitled "Chinese Democracy" and Flumesday lived to see another day.  And I just wrote it again.  But the best thing to come out of this story is a new slogan for Flumesday.  Here it is: "In a land of 34 million blogs, there's only one that counts."

•China Daily: Blogs