China's 'microblog queen' has 5 mn fans

BEIJING, CHINA: Chinese television star Yao Chen has been named the "microblog queen" for having more than five million followers on the country's popular Twitter-like online social microblogging website.

Yao had five million fans on her microblog t.sina.com.cn/yaochen Friday afternoon, and the number grew by another 3,744 in the following one and a half hours, Xinhua reported.

The 32-year-old actress rocketed to fame in 2006 for her role in the popular sitcom "My Own Swordsman". She also starred in a successful television series "Lurk screened" in 2008.

The company, sina.com.cn, which runs the microblog service, crowned Yao "microblog queen". The website said she attracts netizens because she expresses her true feelings on her blog, posting entries like text messages sent between old friends.

Yao has more online fans than American TV host Oprah Winfrey.

Sina's microblog service had 50 million users in October 2010. As many as 157,542 entries were posted in the first minute of 2011, or 2,625 entries per second, the website said.

The number of internet users in China has reached 457 million last year, up 73.3 million from a year earlier, meaning over one-third of the Chinese population is online, according to the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC).

Last year the number of social microblog users was 53.11 million, or 13.8 percent of the total netizens in the country, the CNNIC said.