Figures from the China Internet Network Information Center this week showed that China's population of Internet users soared nearly 30 percent last year to 384 million. That means there are more regular net users in China than the entire population of the United States.

And given that reach, today, more and more of the survey's that gage public opinion are carried out almost exclusively online. Gathering opinion in this way is cheap, efficient, and above all fast.

The speed with which information travels over the internet means that opinion polls and public reaction can be gathered in a fraction of the time it used to take. And, in a society where, for political and cultural reasons, people tend to be very wary about offering their opinion, internet surveys have another advantage - the safety of anonymity.

But can that cloak of anonymity also lead to distortion of true feelings? To just what extent does online opinion represent real-life opinions gathered in more traditional ways?

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It's an exciting time to be in the online business here in China. With more Chinese using the internet than ever before, many companies are shifting more of their advertising budget from traditional media to the internet. In today's BON feature, Sylvia Gunawan takes a look at China's booming online advertising sector.

As purchasing power in China continues to rise, online shopping has becoming a booming market. Now one company here is taking the next step in the hope of making buying and selling online in China bigger than ever before.

Different people will pay attention to different advertisement according to what they want to buy. Personally I'm more concerned about commercials on TV, because I don't trust advertisements on the internet. I think most ads on the internet are not real.

Online advertising affects the way I think, such as ads for cosmetics and clothes. I think the online advertisement market will become as important as the TV ad market. There are so many internet users in China now, and a lot of people might not turn on the TV when they come back home, but they will definitely turn on their computers.

35 Chinese civil servants were recently fired after they were found to be chatting online and watching movies during office hours. The sackings were announced by a government supervision bureau in the southern city of Guangzhou.

As more and more office workers spend time on the net, the temptation to chat online grows - and the line between personal and work use of the computer can become difficult to define.

In today's straight from the street, we asked people: do you think it is justified to chat online during office hours?