The weblog by Chinese starlet Xu Jinglei is now the world's most popular.
With more than 50 million clicks it tops the "Technorati" billboard, a leading
weblog search engine.
"I didn't expect it to be so popular. An avalanche of clicks has encouraged
me to keep writing," said Xu, adding that her blog is mainly aimed at promoting
her films.
Xu, an actress-turned-director, became famous overseas when she won a best
director award for "Letter From An Unknown Woman" in the 2004 San Sebastian
International Film Festival in Spain.
She considers blog writing to be the most convenient and economic way of
publicizing her films.
While busy shooting her latest movie "Dreams May Come", which was released in
China at the end of June, she put details of the filming process and her
marketing plans into her blog.
She even inserted in her blog links to film clicks posted on the website of
her film company.
China Mobile seized the occasion, adding a link at the top of her blog's home
page to announce that the theme song of "Dreams May Come" sung by Xu herself
could be downloaded for cell phone rings.
Begun last October, Xu's blog at blog.sina.com.cn/m/xujinglei only took 112
days to break domestic records with more than 10 million visits.
Since then, she has updated her blog every other day. But if she feels in a
very good mood she sometimes posts two or three articles in a day.
Sensitive articles with her musings about life have made this beautiful young
director even more thoughtful and talented, and drawn legions of fans.
Visitors leave thousands of messages about each of her articles, applauding
her open, free writing style, commenting on films or taking advantage of her
popularity to advertise their own blogs or businesses.
A survey by Baidu.com showed there were 16 million bloggers writing in
Chinese last year, with a total of 36.82 million weblogs. Xu Jinglei was one of
the first celebrities that the portal website Sina invited to open blogs last
year.
