Hao Hao ReportThe best China news and blog posts

It's official, the 2007 China Blog Awards are here. If you run an English-language, China focused blog, or you just like clicking things that say "vote" be sure to check out this article for all the details.

The Hao Hao Report is proud to be hosting the China Blog Awards 2007 - Best Story. We've dubbed it the Zui Hao (Best) Report.

Here’s one of the areas where Baidu is actually behind in its own market comparative to Google (unlike my previous post on how Google is so far behind in understanding China and in localizing the Chinese market).

This article, via Mask of China, makes you think how far the river has come since Mao took his famous dips. Due to droughts (and a completely disregard for hard-hitting environmental policy), the Chang Jiang (??) or Yangtse River is packed with about 7 million cubic feet of garbage congesting at the controversial Three Gorges Dam.

This great post at the 88s tears apart an article by Anne Applebaum entitled "Blame China". In what the 88s claims is the "worst foreign policy analysis" he's ever read, the article essentially puts all the blame for a nuclear DPRK on China's shoulders.

The Hao Hao Report has been added to the latest version of the excellent WordPress plugin - Sociable. The plugin allows blog owners to easily add a collection of icons to their posts making the addition of their articles to various social bookmarking sites (such as this) a breeze.

To see this in action - check out any of the posts at the Lost Laowai Blog.

Well, as any who've visited over the last few days will have noticed - the Hao Hao Report has received a bit of an overhaul. We've upgraded a bunch of things and added some new features, including:

* New Look: We're still working the kinks out of the slick new look. Let us know what you think.

* The Bury Feature: This has been a long time coming - but finally all users will have the ability to "bury" posts that are bu hao.

The crew of a Chinese ship have described how they used beer bottles and water cannon to fend off a pirate attack off the Somali coast before they were rescued.

Zhenua 4 was one of four vessels seized by pirates on Wednesday, shortly after the UN Security Council authorised countries to pursue the renegades by land and air.

Of China's more than 120 million Internet users, 43 percent are using online message boards, 76 million are using online video sharing sites and 24 percent are using blogs. Social media is alive and well in China, says CIC CEO Sam Flemming. CIC is the leading Internet word-of-mouth consulting firm in China. But is it a culture one where listening is promoted, and relationships are encouraged? How do companies "do" social media in China? What works best for American companies trying to use social media in China?

Danwei points us to this blog, on which an American professor at Peking University in Beijing details his protest of Dreamworks' Kungfu Panda. Though the description of the protest is in English, the reasons for it are notably absent.