BLOG authors are invited to attend press events in China, especially in the information technology industry, and although it is normal in the United States it's not so common in China.

Two weeks ago, Intel held a groundbreaking ceremony of its US$2.5 billion wafer plant in Dalian, Liaoning Province. More than 10 bloggers, who have online spaces on sina.com, were seen at the event and even in the VIP interview rooms.

"We started to invite blog authors to attend the events this year as we think they are influential," said Nancy Zhang, Intel China's spokeswoman.

Industry officials, including Zhang, think inviting them to such events is a great opportunity in China as the bloggers have an impact on a wide audience.

"We will continue to invite bloggers to our events because we don't want to lose connection with the public," Zhang added.

Intel has invited bloggers, from various industries, in April to talk with Chief Technology Officer Justin Rattner on the latest applications and Intel's future roadshow.

In China, there were more than 30.9 million blog spaces by the end of June 30, almost half of the global level, according to the China Internet Network Information Center.

"I think there are definitely influential IT bloggers in China. For example, Keso is a blogger with 'rock star' status in the blogging world. He is equivalent to bloggers like Robert Scoble and to some degrees like Techcrunch, and blog on wider IT topics, especially those related to the Internet and Web 2.0," said Sam Flemming, chief executive and founder of Shanghai-based CIC.

CIC is an Internet Word of Mouth (WOM) research and consulting firm, which have clients like Nike and Pepsi.

"It's necessary for PR (public relations) firms to adopt new methods, for example, blogs to promote clients' products, especially high-tech and fashion products," said Ada Wang, an official at Infox Consulting Co, a Beijing-based PR firm.

Wang, who invited more than 10 Sohu bloggers to attend a big electronics fair in Qingdao in Shandong Province in July, recommends clients adopt blog, BBS, podcasting and search engines to promote.

Celebrity blogs are regarded as seeding blogs, whose recommendations will be widely spread online, according to a laptop blog promotion campaign plan Shanghai Daily obtained.

"We should send laptops to the (celebrity) bloggers and let them write down their experience of using them," according to the plan. "It is not an advertisement but it has better effect than that."

For the Intel's Dalian plant ceremony, a blogger used a professional video camera to record the event. The man, who operates video Websites, said he could update the clips within 20 minutes on his video blog, faster than most TV stations.

CIC's Flemming thinks there are two important issues to solve - reliability/influence of bloggers and how to communicate with bloggers.

But others view the two issues with skepticism.

"People won't depend on blog articles to choose the chips in computers. Instead, they believe in industry Websites and newspapers in China," said Wang Lidong, an official at AMD, which hasn't any plans to invite bloggers.

Blogging is a relatively newer phenomenon in China than in the West, and there are fewer bloggers here who have really demonstrated their credibility, according to William Moss, the Shanghai-based director of global PR firm Burson Marsteller.

"But bloggers here are gaining credibility, and the most authoritative ones are beginning to be widely recognized," Moss said.

Burson Marstellar, which services SAP China, advised the enterprise software vendor to create a Chinese-language blog space. SAP experts, analysts and journalists are invited to contribute content for the space.

"SAP doesn't sell to the public at large, so they weren't the audience. SAP was interested in engaging very specific industry audiences such as developers and analysts, and we encouraged them to create a professional blog that would be useful and interesting for audiences across the industry."

Multinational giants like Dell and Nokia have already established Chinese-language corporate blog spaces.

Usually speaking, invited bloggers don't publish negative information about the companies though they are not directly required to, Wang said.

"We have a close relationship with Sina editors. We won't publish the negative things as that will break our friendship," said a blogger identified as David.

But journalists are not used to having to interview news makers together with the bloggers.

"They (the bloggers) know little about the industry and they spend too much time on basic questions during the interview," said a reporter from Shenzhen, who declined to be identified.