News from Chinese Blogosphere · Global Voices
Frank Dai

1. Blog Auction:A T-shirt that was signed by participants of CnBloggerCon was  auctioned on the official blog(in ZH). The revenue would contribute to two online charity projects: Simling Library and 1KG. Blggers can post on their blog then use trackback to offer price. The price rose from 20 to about 700 overnight. Also the ppt files of speeches in CnBloggerCon are available online.
2. Collaborative Blogging: ESWN, Anti's English Blog (in ZH)and Simon World are asking for co-authors and guest bloggers. As Roland of ESWN said, they are inviting “like-minded” guest. All of them are focusing on China-related topics.
3. Olympic Mascots: Mascots for 2008 Beijing Olympics are released consisting of a set of 5 mascots called “The Five Friendlies“. Many arguments have been made as to whether they were appropriate. There are also some variants on the internet.
4. BBC Interview: BBC interviewed with some bloggers including Wangjianshuo via phone. He posted his experiences in dealing with foreign media. However many bloggers felt very unhappy about it  because he said he was bored with the censorship issue that is certainly the major agenda of BBC correspondents.
5: Brief History of Chinese Blog: Sayonly began to pack up some details and write a series of post reviewing the history of Chinese Blogs(in ZH), including how the blogosphere evolved since it was introduced in 2002.
6: WSIS: Issac Mao attended the WSIS panel. As Ethan Zuckerman posted, he believe “free thinking is more important than free speech right now “. Rebecca Mackinnon, who was also on this panel, divided Chinese blogosphere into several categories based on her observation visiting China.
7: Forum on the China Internet Media: The fifth Forum on the China Internet Media has ended in Hangzhou.  Officials and professionals singed a proposal calling on China-based news websites to contribute toward establishing a harmonious society, as China Digital Times reported. The term “harmonious society” was the most frequent word used in Chinese official press thsi year.
8. 4.5 million blogs: Fons Tuinstra pointed to a survey which estimated that there are 4.5 million regularly maintained blogs.