China: Hooker unions, uniting bloggers and qualitative and quantitative data from the Chinese blogsphere · Global Voices
John Kennedy

One stock narrative for MSM reports on China is the untabooing of sex since Mao died. Indeed, a trip to the countryside reveals unsettling numbers of STD treatment posters and abortion hotline ads can frequently be seen on the rear windows of taxis in most cities.
While sensationalist stories about exotic Asian sexuality might help sell WASP-y Western newspapers, China these days is just as kinky a country as anywhere else.
Not the sort of tone found in Chinese media, as seen in a post today from Bokee blogger smilefish which looks at a Guangzhou newspaper's recent report on the gritty life of male prostitutes in the Southern Chinese city, some reportedly as young as seventeen:
“这是一种边缘游戏！”用报料人阿东的话说，这群为社会上某些男同性恋提供性服务的男青年就是一群边缘人，他们有些人是在玩一种他们不情愿的游戏，就像行话里对他们的称谓是“MB(Money-Boy)”，他们纯粹是为金钱在铤而走险。“他们和我们(单纯的同性性取向者)根本不是一类人，这段经历将影响他们的一生。”阿东说。
另据了解，这类组织有着看似温馨的称谓——“家”，为首的叫作“妈咪”，而被操控的男青年也被称为“孩子”。在这温情脉脉的面纱后面，到底藏着一个什么样的群体？社会应该对他们给以什么样的关注？为了弄清这许多疑惑，本报记者对他们进行了深入暗访……
Furthermore, these kinds of organizations sort of match their warm description of ‘home’, led by a ‘mommy’, with the young boys under [‘her’] control known as ‘the kids’. But what kind of group is actually hidden behind this warm and sentimental-sounding veil? What kind of attention should society pay to them? In order to clarify these many questions, this newspaper's reporter carried out a secret investigation into them…… [zh]
The Chinese blogsphere took a substantial step closer to the blogblogrevolution late last month when the very ‘bull’ (Chinese for cool) and well-known blogger Luo Yonghao (罗永浩) rounded up all the hippest, smartest and most progressive of bloggers on his list and launched his Bullog.cn blog aggregator of sorts. Just a few of the names found there: Ran Yunfei (冉云飞), He Weifang (贺卫方), Chai Jing (柴静), He Caitou (和菜头), Lian Yue (连岳), Milk Pig (奶猪) and the blogger some consider the best in China, Wang Xiaofeng (王小峰).
From the Bullog About page, where a very clear picture of the website's slant can be seen in the various (celebrity) bloggers it chooses to exclude:
牛博网不是一个传统意义上的 BSP(Blog Service Provider 博客服务提供商 ) ，我们并不提供在这里自行开博客的服务，至少现阶段是这样。
除了给我们自己邀请的博主提供空间之外，我们也欢迎被读者推荐的别处的优秀博主来这里开博。如果符合我们的标准，不管那些博客开在什么地方，有没有名气，浏览量大不大，我们都会死皮赖脸地去把他们请过来，至少邀请他们在牛博网开设镜像。我们不能容忍那些优秀的博客被埋没在几乎全是文字垃圾的大型博客网站里。
如果您是优秀博客的博主，也可以自荐。如果您自重身份不好意思自荐，也可以冒充普通读者来这里推荐您的博客。如果您有虚荣心方面的需要，比如需要我们在首页上隆重宣布即将邀请您来开博客，比如需要我们敲锣打鼓迎接您，比如需要我们声称我们是八顾茅庐之后才请到了您等等，我们都可以满足您的需要。
我们欢迎的优秀博客的标准：
1 ．首先要会自己写字，不能像李宇春。
2 ．要言之有物，不能像徐静蕾。
3 ．不能剽窃，万一不小心剽窃了，要懂得道歉，不能像郭敬明。（要是多次剽窃，道歉也不行。）
4 ．可以是有钱人，但不能像潘石屹那么讨厌。
5 ．可以幽默，但不要滑稽，可以搞笑，但不要可笑，可以假装热爱人民群众，但不要同时说什么“几十亿愚众”，简单地说，不能像孔庆东。
6 ．长得难看也没关系，做人也不必厚道，但要地道。比如说，不要在前夫正倒霉的时候落井下石，最好不要像洪晃。
最后，也是最重要的，文章一定要写得牛。
And finally, with the release of Technorati's second-quarter statistics report, A-list IT blogger Keso reflects on what the aggregator‘s blocked status means for bloggers in China, and ways the Chinese blogsphere can adapt:
Techonrati是一个非常好的blog研究工具，它每个季度一次的统计分析报告，也是最好的有关blog圈的参考资料。可惜，它被GFW了，实在搞不懂为什么，这些有价值的网站在中国总免不了这样的命运。国内的奇虎正在活的Web搜索上扎扎实实地向前推进，也许将来我们可以通过奇虎的统计数据，了解国内blog圈的情况。但眼下，Technorati还是我们惟一可用的权威数据来源。
—snip—
中文blog。中文blog的发贴量继续排在第3位，4月、5月、6月分别占全部发贴量的14%、10%和12%。
发帖时间。英语语言的blog发帖时间，主要集中在工作时间。日文blog的发帖时间，则主要集中在晚间和早晨上班之前。没有关于中文blog发帖时间的报告，但通过对Donews blog发帖规律的观察，我估计中文blog也是以工作时间写blog为主。
Posting times. For posting times of English blogs, most of them are during work time. For Japanese blogs, most of them are in the evening or the morning before work. Nothing in the report about posting times for Chinese blogs, but judging from a look at rules for posting on Donews, I bet that Chinese blogs are also mainly written during work hours.
Also mentioned recently on Keso's blog is the release of portal website Sina.com's own chat client, Woocall. Or, as Keso put it, 我靠:
Woocall，新浪的新武器。不知道这东东对我的blog是否有点儿价值，试试，在页面的右下角。