Internet magnifies influence of Olympics, Paralympics in China

Source: Xinhua | 09-15-2008 19:03

BEIJING, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- When the Olympics and Paralympics come to China, which has the most Internet users in the world, they have earned unprecedented attention and popularity with the help of the Internet.

Just as they did during the August Olympics, all major Chinese portal websites give real-time, comprehensive and in-depth reporting to the ongoing Beijing Paralympic Games, running tens of thousands of news stories, photos and audio-video clips each day.

For the country's 253 million netizens, sometimes it seemed more enjoyable to learn about the Games via the Internet, which has such unique advantages as being speedy, diversified, individualized and interactive in the spread of information.

Some Chinese websites claimed they were updating the Olympics and Paralympics-related information as fast as live TV broadcast, sometimes even at a faster speed.

Even people who are surfing the Internet for other purposes could easily get the latest information about the Games, mostly from news alert windows that suddenly pop out on the screen.

And if they find the news interesting and want to learn more, there are always plenty of links guiding them to all related stories.

Moreover, modern technologies have made the Internet accessible not only to PCs, but also mobile phones, of which China has some 600 million users.