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By the end of the year, the world's most populous nation is expected to become home to over 60 million bloggers, or writers of Web logs.

This would represent a huge growth from the current level of 16 million (as estimated by the Chinese search engine Baidu.com). And as the existing bloggers already tend to nearly 37 million blogs, a four-fold increase in the number of writers could lead to an even more amazing jump in the quantity of Chinese blogs.

These numbers are not unprecedented. China already stands as the second-largest Internet market (after the United States). And these blogs are not stagnant, outdated scripts-73 percent of Chinese bloggers write at least once a week, according to a study by the Internet Society of China.

Continued growth is expected, with the number of Chinese bloggers predicted to reach 100 million by 2007. An interesting aspect of this trend is the tight government control placed on it. The ruling Communist Party censors language, political discussions, and even closes down some of the more outspoken blogs.

Nonetheless, such a large market has attracted a number of American firms, including Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google.

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Doug is a staff writer for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest eBusiness news.