ON December 6, 2004, Deutsche Welle announced that The Dog Newspaper blog created by Chinese freelancer Yan Wenbo whose nickname is "Aggressive Little Snake" had won the best weblog award at the Deutshche Welle International Weblog Awards 2004. According to the news from Deutsche Welle, the blog won the award because: "The contrast between the way people treat their pets makes it clear to everyone that as BOBs (Best of the Blogs) jury member Mu Zimei said: 'We are not living in a fair world'."

Yan's The Dog Newspaper was not the only Chinese blog nominated for the award. A strong competitor was "Dancing with Kebab" created by Zhou Yijun, a reporter from the Xinhua News Agency who has lived in Gaza for years. In contrast to Yan's focus on dogs' lives in various places around the world, Zhou's blog logs and reflects her experiences and life in the Middle East as a reporter.

Chinese is only one language out of the seven selected by the awards organizer as official languages. The nominees from different countries created their blogs in Arabic, Chinese, English, German, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish. The awards jury accordingly consisted of 10 members who among them spoke those seven languages.

Besides the variety of languages and countries involved in the awards, another attraction was that seven Best Journalistic Blog awards were created and reserved for reporters who have created blogs of their own to publish essays, discussions, news and photos. Among these, Moodless.net created by a 25-year-old Kuwaiti, which won in the category Best Arabic Journalistic Blog, gives an indication of the jury's criteria and taste. As Deutsche Welle described it: "Moodless.net encourages readers to reflect on problems facing the Arab world and contribute to a cultural dialogue" and "while Moodless.net concerns itself with current affairs, there are also a variety of poems and literary texts there."

Innovative publicity

In the course of the year 2004, the word "blog", which is the shortened form of "weblog", has exploded in the virtual world of the Internet. According to the Merriam Webster online dictionary, blog was the most searched word on its website in 2004. The Merriam Webster Dictionary's definition of blog is "a web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks provided by the writer". The concise definition of this phenomenon can only impress people who want a rough idea about blogs - in fact, they have become an innovative wave in the world of media, information and the Internet.

Xu Anyuan, a freelancer who mostly writes articles for magazines and newspapers, created his blog in 2002. His blog can be regarded as a collection of his literary works in some sense - all of his essays released in magazines or newspapers can be found on his blog. Readers can also find interesting pictures taken by him and his many unreleased works. "My blog is my own publishing house," said Xu. "I am both the writer and the editor. The free space of the blog gives me more confidence about my writing. Several years ago, it was impossible to imagine hundreds and thousands would notice my works and give me efficient feedback promptly after I finished them."

Now Xu often invites editors from different periodicals to choose from his works on his blog. He can receive 3,000 yuan (US$360) or so every month from these periodicals as payment for his selected works.

Every blog is a forum for a certain group of people to discuss certain topics in any specified field. Zhang Weimin is a physics teacher in a college, but he also collects all kinds of knives. In 2003 he created a blog which is mainly concerned with his hobby. He collects detailed information about knives ranging from legendary Damascus swords and falchions to today's products such as the M.O.D series. From his blog, knife-lovers can acquire knowledge about manufacturing or collecting knives. Many senior collectors also open threads on his blog to enter into discussions about different aspects of knife making and knife collecting. "I get to know many good guys through my blog, and some of them have become my close friends," Zhang said with a smile. "Sometimes people tell me that my blog is something like a knife-collectors' guide, because people can refer to my blog and find out the value and the most up-to-date price for many knives."

Inspiring interactions

The influence of blogs also appears in education. Zhang Huang is a college philosophy teacher. He opened his blog for his students in 2002 to discuss not only philosophy problems they are confronted with in college courses but also their personal problems.

"I enjoy communicating with my students on my blog. I write down my thoughts and ideas, my life and their lives on my blog. They can find out what people like me really think about. Their feedback on my blog helps me learn much from them. Some people would say that this is little different from interactions between teacher and students in class, but I think words written in the virtual world can convey deeper thoughts, and not only between teacher and students."

Data provided by Blogchina.com indicate that the number of its registered users reached 500,000 by September 2004. According to Fang Xingdong, who is considered to be the "father of Chinese blogs", the expansion of the Internet will definitely cultivate more blog users in the future - in this sense, their influence should never be underestimated. The Drudge Report which exposed the affair between US President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky in 1998 - at the very beginning of the blog revolution - has already proved the remarkable influence of the medium. Fang, in a lecture about the future of blogs at the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics in June 2004, commented: "The development of blogs indicates the way that people will acquire all kinds of knowledge in the future." He also said that "the overwhelming power of blogs is still growing" and "will have a revolutionary influence on society."