Blog "boom" hits Switzerland

Wow. According to Swissinfo the land of cows, banks and chocolates is about to discover the blog - at least a little bit:

The blogging phenomenon has made few waves in Switzerland, even though the country boasts 48 regular internet users for every 100 inhabitants. “Only a few people here understand the term weblogs,” says Roger Fischer of Zurich-based Kaywa, which hosts around 350 blogs on its servers. He puts the total number of blogs in Switzerland at around 1,000. Software maker Perseus Development estimated in late 2003 that there were around four million blogs worldwide. Martin Hitz, the former head of the online edition of the “Neue Zürcher Zeitung”, has been running a blog for the past 18 months. At the internet address www.medienspiegel.ch he collects information on changes in the Swiss media landscape. Around 4,500 surfers visited his blog last month. Hitz points out that in the United States there are countless bloggers – estimates put the number at two to five per cent of the population. “The Swiss probably feel they have less of a need to talk to other people than the Americans. It’s possible that our reserve stands in the way of a Swiss blog boom, because you have to expose yourself in a blog."