According to some research released late yesterday by Windows Live Spaces, blogging is, indeed Big In Japan. Actually, it’s pretty much big everywhere in Asia among MSN portal users, being labelled as a “major social phenomenon”. To wit:

46% of Asians MSN users have a blog (compared with 8% of all online Americans, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, whose numbers were released in July of this year – which isn’t really an accurate comparison, I know).

Young people and women are predominant (except in India, where blogging is mostly a guy thing, as it is in Canada, though not by a huge margin).

50% believe that blog content is as trustworthy as MSM (aka “mainstream media”).

More than 40% have fewer than 10 visitors a day, bolstering the adage (is it a cliche already?), coined by Wired reporter Momus that in the blogosphere “Everyone will be famous for 15 people,” which I just love.

Blogging for business still hasn’t really emerged as a trend anywhere except Korea, where apparently everyone blogs about everything all the time. In a fit of hyperbole, the report calls the country an “online powerhouse”.

The numbers came from an online survey of more than 25,000 MSN portal visitors across seven markets – and while the press release tries to make it sound like all internet users in Asia are represented, it wasn’t based on a broad sample – just MSN users.