Date: Fri 15-Aug-1997

Publication: Bee

Author: CURT

Quick Words:

iinfo-Internet-statistics

Full Text:

Internet Info for Real People: Who We Are

By Bob Brand

For reasons no one fully understands, Americans like facts, figures, numbers

and statistics. The chaotic growth of the Net confounds the number crunchers

because the definition of Internet usage varies so widely. The numbers are

messy.

For example, if people use only e-mail occasionally at work, do they qualify

as Internet users? If a person only has access to the Internet at a public

library, does this qualify as an Internet user? Depending on where you draw

the circle defines who does and does not use the Net. It gets more complicated

when considering statistics on the World Wide Web (WWW).

Price Waterhouse Findings

Right now companies like ActivMedia, Forester Research, PC-Meter,

IntelliQuest, Nielson Media Research, Jupiter Communications and many more are

collecting data. Frankly, I have little confidence in their numbers. As you

might suspect, there is little agreement among the so called experts.

About the best we can do is look at trends and maybe percentages. For example,

earlier this year the prestigious firm of Price Waterhouse interviewed about

1,000 Web users. Here is what this small group of people told them about how

they use it: 43 percent research, 34 percent e-mail, 9 percent game playing, 5

percent reading newspapers and magazines, 4 percent on-line chat, 2 percent

on-line banking, 1 percent two-way voice communications and 1 percent on-line

shopping. The interviewees told Price Waterhouse that 25 percent of the group

use the Internet from home.

Frankly, I wouldn't bet my mouse pad on these numbers. I don't know anyone

using the Internet for on-line banking. Certainly, cyber-banking is slated as

a high growth area. However, 2 percent of the Net-sters using it for banking?

No way.

I have a little more confidence in trends uncovered in the Georgia Institute

of Technology's 7th GVU's (Graphic Visualization & Usability) WWW User Survey.

With six surveys under their belt, the information should be better. The

sampling method used to gather the data may not pass rigorous muster

(participants respond to questionnaires posted on the Web) from ivory tower

statisticians. Nevertheless, they uncover some trends which make some sense.

Perhaps you will agree.

From a Larger Sampling

This survey was conducted from May 10 to April 10 of this year. There were

87,000 responses from 19,970 Internet users. This was a worldwide sampling.

The leaders of the survey team, Jim Pitkow and Colleen Kehoe, will be the

first to tell you that they gave their best efforts, but don't take the

results as coming directly from Mount Sinai on stone tablets. Here are the

trends they uncovered.

Censorship is the most important issue facing the Net. Also important are

privacy and navigation issues. Men and women see the Web in slightly different

terms. For example, women feel that privacy issues are more important than

censorship issues. Everyone, the study found, feels more connected to people

who share their interests. This leads to the conclusion that the I-Net is more

than just an information source.

Most Wouldn't Pay

About two thirds of the respondents claimed that they would not pay fees for

accessing sites. Of the group who would not pay for information, 45 percent of

them feel the information was available for free from other sites. They also

felt that they were already paying for access through their Internet provider.

The average age of users in the survey was 35.2 years old. The trend is the

population of Web users is getting older.

The survey found that about 31 percent of the users were female. However, in

the United States, the female Net population was found to be almost 33.5

percent. This statistic is of particular interest to the advertising

community, where women impose a significant impact on spending patterns.

The Bad Taste of Spam

On the issue of spam (receipt of mass junk e-mail), the survey revealed as you

might expect, a clear dislike for the practice. However, overwhelmingly most

felt that government regulation was not the way to control the problem. The

respondents expressed an interest in coexisting with spammers but with the

users in stronger control. Interesting.

The survey found that shopping is on the rise on the Net. This trend is

expected to continue. One in five people reported purchasing something on the

Web. This is much higher than I have seen in other surveys. Remember, this

group uses the Web on a regular basis.

Problems

Two thirds of the people complained of slow speed Web access. This results in

long waits for home pages, with men complaining more loudly than women. The

survey found that the majority access the Web with modems capable of 28.8kbps

speeds or faster. About half complained about broken links on websites. About

30 percent complained about finding information on the Net.

The results reported by the GVU WWW User Survey make sense. There were no

profound surprises, but rather it reinforces many of the common sense notions

reported by readers of Internet Info for Real People. You might enjoy reading

the results of the whole survey.

URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) of interest:

http://www.gvu.gatech.edu/user_surveys/survey-1997-04/

http://www4.zdnet.com/intweek/daily/970620a.html

http://www.pw.com

http://www.nua.ie/

(Note: This is the 64th of a series of elementary articles designed for

surfing the Internet. Next, "The Supreme Court" is the subject on tap. Stay

tuned. Until next week, happy travels through cyberspace.

Previous issues of Internet Info for Real People can be found at

http://www.thebee.com. Please e-mail comments and suggestions to

rbrand@JUNO.com or editor@thebee.com.)