In a Sina the times, bloggers get chance to choose favourite musician

The Hong Kong branch of Chinese online portal Sina.com has launched what it is billing as the first 'people's choice music award' in the city, with the winners decided entirely by fans.

Two weeks into the voting, Gigi Leung Wing-kei and Pakho Chau (pictured) are leading their respective categories.

There's a catch with the qualifiers, though. Only artists with Sina blog accounts are in contention and voters must also have such accounts.

But with Sina reportedly having 50 million users, that seems to be a big enough number to represent the region's music fans.

As a sign of the times, a 'most popular Weibo account' award will be handed out to the artist with the most followers on the Twitter-imitating micro-blogging site.

The winners will get an award and a slot to perform at an official ceremony on January 19 at Hitec in Kowloon Bay.