PUBLIC MARKS from vista with tag times

The blogosphere is over 60 times bigger than it was only 3 years ago. New blog creation continues to grow. Technorati currently tracks over 75,000 new weblogs created every day, which means that on average, a new weblog is created every second of every day - and 19.4 million bloggers (55%) are still posting 3 months after their blogs are created. That's an increase both absolute and relative terms over just 3 months ago, when only 50.5% or 13.7 million blogs were active. In other words, even though there's a reasonable amount of tire-kicking going on, blogging continues to grow as a habitual activity.

It's not just the hardware — the tallest building in the world (for now), Wi-Fi coverage over more than half the city and a speedy and expanding subway system — that is sophisticated. The people, too, embody all the complexities of a country that is at once forward-looking and historically aware, internationally plugged in but diplomatically isolated, and as multiculturally hybrid (influences include China, Japan and the United States) as it is full of hometown pride.

Consider this. Last year, Apple sold 32 million iPods, or one every second. But for every $3 spent on an iPod, at least $1 is spent on an accessory, estimates Steve Baker, an analyst for the NPD Group, a research firm. That works out to three or four additional purchases per iPod. That obviously makes accessory makers happy. It thrills retailers, whose profit margin on the accessories is much higher than on an iPod. And it delights Apple because the racks of add-ons made just for the iPod — 2,000 different items at last count — send a strong statement to consumers that the Apple player is far cooler than a Creative or Toshiba player, for which there are few accessories.

第一屆全球華文部落格大獎頒獎典禮。

來自北京的京華時報。