You can take a virtual tour of almost anywhere or buy practically anything you want with just a few keystrokes on a computer. It’s now official: more than half of all Americans are taking advantage of these kinds of opportunities through Internet access in their homes. Around the globe, the Internet is becoming an indispensable tool for business and home use.
In December, approximately 220.4 million English-speaking persons around the world had Internet access. That figure is expected to grow to some 270 million by next year. Non-English speaking Internet access is forecast to expand to about 505 million by 2003, up from the December figure of 292.7 million.
Not only do most of us have access, we’re also using it. In September 2001, approximately 145 million Americans used the Internet, an increase of 33% over the past three years. During that same month, 45% used e-mail and 36% searched for product and service information. Each of these usages rates were 10% higher than the same period the previous year.
For the last full week in January 2002, individuals in the US with Internet capability averaged logging on once a day from their homes. While online, the average number of unique sites visited totaled 19; the typical session lasted about 33 minutes. At work, Americans used their computers to reach out to the world an average of 12 times a week, visiting an average of 32 unique sites each and utilizing the Net nearly 7 hours over the five-day period. The average amount of time viewing a page—either at home or at work—was almost a minute.
Top five web sites visited during the study period (February last year) were yahoo.com, aol.com, msn.com, microsoft.com, and passport.com. Yahoo.com had 64.4 million unique visitors, well above the 51.3 million for second place aol.com. The other three sites had 46.7 million, 38.7 million, and 36.5 million, respectively. While those figures are huge, even the web site ranked 50th—espn.com—pulled in 8.2 million users during the month.
One of the fastest growing uses of the Internet is for e-commerce. Of course, many people still like to go somewhere to go shopping. Some even claim they were “born to shop.” Even so, 39% of Internet users are making online purchases. That figure will probably continue to rise as confidence increases in credit card privacy.
The five leading shopping categories are cars/car parts, books, computers, clothing, and CDs/Videos. Did you notice that within a nano-second of the New England Patriots’ victory over the St. Louis Rams in the Super Bowl last Sunday, T-shirts and hats featuring the logos of the world champions were available online? Watch for similar shopping opportunities next week as gold medals are awarded at the Winter Olympics.
Many people thought that the dot-com crash would spell the end of e-commerce. It was not even the end of the beginning. What failed (or at least no longer convinced the market that it could succeed) was a business model. The growth of the underlying technology has continued unabated, and will do well into the future. In June 1993, there were only about 130 web sites. Since that time, the rate of the web’s growth has been exponential. Although its early growth—doubling every three months—has slowed, the current pace of doubling every six months is still phenomenal.
Web usage has become an integral part of our lives. A few years ago, a goal of many Americans was to become “computer literate.” Now the objective is to become “Internet literate”—learning how to take advantage of the doors that are continually being opened as a result of technological advances.
Today, about nine out of 10 school age children in the US have access to computers, either at home or at school (although home access remains the province of the relatively affluent). Such opportunities will certainly enable them to enhance their abilities to reach out to the world with a few keystrokes, expand their budding innovative and entrepreneurial spirits, and add economic vitality and growth for the future.