MANILA, March 11 (PNA) — The city government of Makati said on Tuesday it was not a surprise at all when Makati City and Pasig City emerged as “Selfie Capital of the World”.
”It not surprising. First, on work days you can find over three million cellphone equipped office employees, shoppers and visitors in Makati and the city especially the Central Business District (CBD) — also has a lot of WiFi hotspots so it’s easy to upload selfies,” Makati information officer Joey Salgado when reached for comment.
Salgado explained that Makati has a lot to offer by way of interesting and safe to places to visit for dining, entertainment, events and well-known personalities one could bump which make it perfect for those selfies.
According to TIME Magazine, Makati City and Pasig City ranked number one with 258 selfie-takers per 10,000 people.
Manhattan, New York was placed in second with 202 selfie-takers per 100,000 people; followed by Miami, Florida with 155 selfie-takers; Anaheim and Santa Ana, California with 147 selfie-takers; Petaling Jaya, Malaysia with 141 selfie-takers; Tel Aviv, Israel with 139 selfie-takers; Manchester, England with 114 selfie-takers; Milan, Italy with 108 selfie-takers; Cebu City, Philippines with 99 selfie-takers; and George Town, Malaysia with 95 selfie-takers to wrap up the top 10 countries under the “Selfie Capital of the World’ category.
TIME Magazine built a database of over 400,000 Instagram “selfies” and found that Makati City and neighboring Pasig City are the world’s selfie capital. In total, it ranked 459 cities to determine the selfiest places on earth.
“Makati City, known as the financial center of the Philippines, can now boast another distinction: It is the Selfie Capital of the World,” TIME editor Chris Wilson from Washington wrote in a report posted Tuesday.
“The city, part of Metropolitan Manila and home to 500,000 people, produces more selfies per capita than any other city in the world,” Wilson added
Time, is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City which has the world’s largest circulation for a weekly news magazine, and has a readership of 25 million, 20 million of which are based in the United States.
The TIME said the photos from which the list was based were downloaded from the Instagram API in two sets of five days, from January 28 to February 2, 2014 and March 3 to 7, 2014. Data for each day consisted “of the 24-hour period from midnight to midnight to account for all time zones equally.”
The 402,197 Instagram photos tagged “selfie” included geographic coordinates. TIME noted that the data “only account for a fraction of all selfies uploaded during that time since the majority of photos do not include a location.”
“For every city in the world of at least 250,000 residents, we then counted the number of selfies taken within 5 miles and divided by the population of that city,” TIME said.
Other than the penchant for selfies, TIME said smartphone adoption rates and median income are also considered factors. “As such, this list tends to favor regions just outside major urban areas,” TIME said. (PNA)