http://www.shanghaidaily.com/sp/article/2007/200708/20070824/article_328468.htm

ECHO Gao has been busy in the past month writing online posts in support of her favorite singer in a popular national singing contest, calling for more votes that could decide the young man's fate in the final rounds.

But even after the contest ended, the competition remains alive for its fans. Their Internet posts continue to give their favorites exposure by ranking the new stars' popularity and shooting them into the "hot topic" lists.

Gao is not alone. Being a fan of movie stars, singers and particularly the new faces emerging from televised singing contests has become a new way of making friends in China over the Internet.

And Websites have realized the importance of fans, whose lasting enthusiasm and online social networking have become a major drive for portals to enhance user loyalty while enriching their content cheaply with user-generated comments.

The fans help them boost traffic and improve their attractiveness to advertisers.

Sina.com, China's most popular portal, has rolled out a competition among the pop fans' online clubs based on clicks to support their idols. The clubs, which the portal call "quanzi," meaning circle, are a conglomerate of Sina bloggers on the same topics.

Sina has added new functions to link the Sina bloggers and facilitate communications between them, making its blogging service more like a social networking site, based on its popular celebrity blogs.

"Celebrities often attract large crowds of loyal followers and produce a snowball effect for the virtual celebrity club," said Morgan Stanley in a search note on August 7.

In this way, Sina can "improve advertising targeting and effectiveness as various celebrities, with differentiated public images, may be used to target different customer segments."

Sina would not release figures on the extra traffic driven by the competition. But News Corp's Xingkong.com, a portal for its Star TV China operation, saw its traffic increase by 10 times within a week after it rolled out a similar contest.

Baidu.com, China's No. 1 search engine, has also opened a BBS service. The most popular topics are also related to pop and movie stars, and also TV show contestants.

On Baidu, there are already more than 50 million posts related to the Super Boy singing contest, a TV idol show that ended late last month. The posts are still growing at 500,000 per day, said Zhang Xuetao, a Baidu spokesman.

More directly focusing on the fans, iFensi.com, a site set up after the Super Girl singing contest in 2005 for fans, has grown into a comprehensive fan community.

"Fans are the most important elements in the entertainment industry, but their contribution was not widely recognized," said Liu Xiaolei, co-founder and vice president of iFensi, which has drawn US$5 million investment in venture capital.

With around nine million registered members, the site has attracted companies like Nokia and Nike to advertise their products. Monthly revenue at present is more than one million yuan, mostly income from advertising.

Fans Media has also launched a 3D multi-player online game with the plot of becoming a superstar, and plans to sell celebrity-related products, like dolls and T-shirts, to diversify its portfolio.