Chen’s fan count came close to reaching 7.4 million, putting her third on the world’s list of most popular microbloggers behind Justin Bieber (8.7 million followers) and Lady Gaga (9.3 million followers).
New fans flocked to follow Yao Chen’s account after she posted photos and tweeted about spending time with the disadvantaged at a refugee camp in Thailand.
China’s second most popular microblogger, Dee Hsu aka Xiao S, also leap-frogged her way up the international chart. The Kang Xi Lai Le TV host added 165,197 followers to her total of 6.5 million fans this week putting her in front of American chat show host Elle DeGeneres, whose fan count increased to 6.4 million.
In September 2010, Twitter had 175 million registered users, while Sina reports that Weibo had more than 80 million registered users in January 2011.
