I am happy to announce that our CIC Watch report covering July 1-15 has been released. In this issue, one interesting topic is about Net stars. Those who have read my blog for some time know that I have written about this topic before (see here and here among others).

With this article, “The Growing Commercial Perspective of Net Stars” we can see that the impact/influence of net stars is increasing with the signing of ‘Xiao Pang’ to a movie deal with New Line Cinema.

I have pasted this Net star article below.

Summary

It was recently announced that the popular Internet horror fiction “Ghost Blows out the Candle” (鬼吹灯) will be filmed by New Line Cinema, the same company who has produced top box office sellers such as Lord of the Rings. The company also has announced that Chinese net star Xiao Pang (小胖) will play the “Fat Man”, one of the important roles in the story. The choice of both internet fiction and a popular net star by New Line Cinema is further evidence of the rising status of net culture.

Notes on Screenshots
1 Backdorm Boys featured in Motorola commercials and later Pepsi commercials
2 Tian Xian Mei Mei representing Sony Ericsson mobile phone
3 Top vlogger dodolook became ASUS laptop spokesperson
4 World’s top blogger Xu Jinglei represents AMD

CIC View

Many netizens, with the help of web 2.0 tools like BBS, Blog and Video Sharing, now enjoy much more control in terms what they choose to see and hear. The rapidly rising net culture is reflected in the development of a unique online language, e-sports, an online economy and online entertainment/celebrities.

Does net stars’ involvement guarantee a success for brands? Not necessarily. But they are the right “message” to draw netizens’ attention since they belong to the same world.

Other CIC watch related posts that may be of interest:

CIC Watch Half-Year Review released
CIC watch: “You” – Time’s Person of the Year – also lives in China