Thank goodness for capitalism. There’s apparently nothing you can’t create a market out of, and the latest entry into the wonderful world of supply and demand is the weblog. Blogs – a more popular abbreviation for the term weblogs – have been around for quite a while. They range from badly-designed HTML homepages back in the 1990s to pages created on specialised hosted services such as Blogger, TypePad and LiveJournal, which have become the “big players” in the blogosphere across the course of the last few years. Almost everyone has read about them, most people probably already have one, and those who don’t are voracious readers of other people’s online writings. Blogs run the gamut from individual diaries to extensions of political campaigns, and may be written by just one occasional author or a large community of several different writers.

Enter BlogShares. For people who’ve just never wanted to risk their life-savings in the death-defying display of gymnastics that is the Karachi Stock Exchange, BlogShares provides an opportunity for people to play virtual stockbroker and become an investment tycoon overnight. The site is basically a fantasy stock market in which weblogs are the companies. Players invest fictional dollars (Blog$) into buying shares of blogs. These blogs are valued on the basis of the number (and reputation) of incoming links. The same blogs can also add to the value of other blogs by linking to them, and stock prices rise or fall based on the amount of trading and the underlying value of a particular blog.

BlogShares was written in early 2003 by Seyed Razavi in his free time. Although there was no set goal for the project, one of the main motivations for creating the site was to prove the Power Law theory. Part of this theory is predicated on the idea that 20 per cent of a population holds 80 percent of the available wealth. In the case of BlogShares, Razavi decided to see if the same proportions would apply to weblogs, and succeeded (20 per cent of the blogs contain 80 percent of all incoming links).

The BlogShares project took off rapidly, and was widely considered a personal success by its creator. Unfortunately though, the site suffered from some serious coding issues that severely interfered with site growth and expansion, not to mention its up-time and speed. By the time these issues became a problem, BlogShares was tracking close to 400,000 combined blogs and links. Eventually these took their toll on the BlogShares machines, and an all-out system failure brought the site to a screeching halt. In light of the difficulties associated with keeping BlogShares up and running, not to mention personal troubles of his own, Seyed Razavi decided to leave the project.

At this time, BlogShares was taken over by its current owner, Jay Campbell, and co-administrated by C. Suburban Wolf (a pseudonym), who was brought on almost immediately to help recode the entire site. Once BlogShares was taken out of the beta stages, its popularity skyrocketed. Today, BlogShares has become one of the most popular stock market simulations available online, with over 13,000 active users at last count, and over 11,000 blogs claimed by their owners. What’s really impressive though, is the sheer number of blogs currently tracked, which stands at 1.9 million. The combined worth of all concepts in the game (such as cash, stocks, and bonds) amounts to over 600 trillion dollars, and trading occurs in such massive quantities that this number varies by trillions each day.

Understandably, BlogShares has limitations. Since the site requires expenditures on maintenance and service, users can join up as either “regular” or “premium” members. For regular members, BlogShares is free to play with some minor restrictions (e.g. a limit of 20 transactions per day). For an annual charge of 15 dollars, users can upgrade their accounts to premium membership, which allows them to conduct unlimited transactions and searches, receive e-mail alerts on blog price changes, post “press releases” on their blog page, and receive slightly more detailed features in the help system.

The site’s design may seem somewhat arbitrary and confusing at first, but there’s a steep learning curve involved, and that makes it much easier (in practice) to just dive into the mechanics of the game. The help system is exhaustive, to say the least. But once again, the organised madness tends to clutter up the interface. This has less to do with the depth and breadth of the available information and far more to do with the enormous amount of data that is integral to BlogShares as a game: there’s just so much information that it seems well nigh impossible to sort through efficiently. Nevertheless, keen players and just about anyone with sufficient interest should be able to get a handle on the different terms, categories and devices engaged in the game without too much hassle. And if nothing else, BlogShares is a great way to expand one’s awareness of the blogosphere and to encounter new writers and opinions.

Formula One (F1) is undoubtedly the most expensive and controversial sport in the world today. With billions of dollars pumped into the industry by corporate sponsors, not to mention the obscene amounts of cash that car companies spend on research and development, it is not a sport to be taken lightly. For the people who wonder what F1 actually is, the answer is simple: it’s an extremely expensive indulgence on the part of car companies to test, experiment and play with cutting-edge technology. The 2005 season has brought a burst of freshness to F1 racing, with many new faces taking to the tracks while veteran drivers are seen behind the wheels of new cars (lured by enticing packages no doubt). A bunch of new teams have parked themselves on the grid (Red Bull and Toyota, for example) making this season all the more entertaining.

The first exciting thing that an F1 fanatic will find on the website is a timer counting down to the next race, down to the last second. At first glance it might seem as though there’s a plethora of jargon on the front page of the site, but there is a method to the madness, and it shouldn’t be too difficult for most people to figure out their way around. To get a head start on the fortnightly races, pop into the Race Calendar section to see where and when a race is scheduled. The Insight section eases newbies into the world of Formula One cars and drivers, and is a nice touch, because for anyone with more than a passing interest in the sport, it’s essential to know which cars will be on the circuit this season and who will be driving them. The profiles provided list how long the team has been racing, its wins, past exploits and failures, and current car specifications for the season. The teasers on this page hint at regularly updated stories and developments in the F1 arena. Think of the site as F1 “gossip” hot off the press.

The unique selling point of this site has to be the Live Timing section, which lets you know exact times for qualifying sessions and the races. Depending on browser settings, it provides local times as well. For example, the 2005 season tab lists a country-by-country (track-by-track) table of the winning car and driver with lap times for each circuit. This is the best way to get a feel for who’s leading from the front this season, and the Results Archive can provide a look back at who was the king of the circuit last year (no surprises there, as Schumacher’s Ferrari wowed audiences all through) and has possibly killed any anticipation for this season (Ferrari, once again, tops the list).

A true F1 fan has to be aggressive in judgement and analyses and the Technical Analysis section facilitates just that. Learning about F1 cars, about what lies under the covers, and reading updates on who’s got new wings, better fuel injection, or just bustier bodies (yes, we are still talking about cars) is there for the taking.

To be a credible authority on Formula One or impress ignorant peers, steal a couple of pages from history in the Hall of Fame, which showcases the F1 greats (including the notorious Michael Schumacher, the only driver on the page still racing), who they raced for, and how many championships they’ve won. For those so inclined (possibly the one-off female), there’s a gallery of exclusive up-close and personal snapshots of drivers and their wheels, caught on camera on race-days, in the garage, or on the podiums dousing themselves in champagne.

The News Bytes are a favourite haunt for regulars, with their sneak peeks behind closed doors, under the bonnets or simply within the confines of each team’s garage. Full transcripts of interviews and conferences are also available. For real convenience freaks, regular updates can be obtained through free e-mail bulletins, which list race details, timings and track information, and are sent to subscribers on race weekends.

Hats off to the team that updates this website, week after week, making sure it’s usable and punchy. With no outdated or redundant links and a simple format, it’s easy to roam through. In fact exploring the site is not only informative but one comes out on the other end feeling like quite the F1 expert (well not quite, you actually have to tune in to the race season for that). Subtle colours, crisp enlargeable images that make for enticing wallpapers, and the overall simplicity with which information is presented, are what will keep people coming back to this website. There’s something for everyone here, the virgin F1 enthusiast or the connoisseur, and with all the excitement promised this season, now is a good time as any to jump in and become familiar with the F1 roadmap.