The web turned 15 years old last month, it was created by Sir Tim Berners-Lee (pictured), who invented the web idea and it went world wide on April 30, 2008 1993. The decision to make the code underlying the web free and available to all was probably one of the most momentous in recent business history.
Anyway, it seemed like a good opportunity to go looking for some facts that demonstrate the growing power and pervasiveness of the web. One thing you notice immediately is that every 'fact' is subject to a great deal of discussion and argument so if you have any corrections I welcome them.
1. Twenty per cent of the world’s population, 1.17 to 1.33 billion people, now use the Internet. North America (72%) has the highest penetration, Africa (5%) the lowest.
2. Only 30 per cent (380 million) of Internet users are english-speaking, 14 per cent (180 million) speak chinese, 9 per cent (113 million) speak spanish. 46 million Internet users speak arabic.
3. China’s internet population increased by a third in 2006. According to state news agency Xinhua, the total number of internet users in China has reached 132 million, of which 52 million have broadband connections. [Source: Guardian, December 2006]
4. Google’s market capitalisation is around $US180 billion, nearly three times the size of News Corporation. Microsoft, Apple, Google and Amazon are all in the Fortune 150 list.
5. According to Zenith Optimedia, between 2007 and 2010, internet adspend will increase by 69% and raise its market share from 8.1% to 11.5%. About $US36 billion will be spent on Internet advertising globally in 2008, an increase of 24%.
6. Youtube is the world’s third largest site, behind Google and Yahoo. One in five of the world’s internet users visit youtube each day. Nearly half of US internet users report visiting a video-sharing site like Youtube at least once.
7. Britney Spears was the most sought after celebrity on Google in 2007 and pilates was the most popular search in the fitness category. The most popular who, what and how queries were who is god, what is love and how to kiss
8. Social networking is the fastest growing part of the Internet. There are 70 million active users on Facebook (the 8th most popular site in the world), more than 14 million photos are uploaded daily. The fourth most popular country for facebook id Turkey with 3.3% of users. Australia is 6th, 2.7%. Meanwhile, a Sophos poll of 600 workers found that 43 per cent were unable to access Facebook at work, while an additional seven per cent reported that use of the site was restricted.
9. Last year, global digital music sales rose 40 percent to $US2.9 billion, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. Downloaded music now makes up 15 percent of the recording industry's sales.
10. Movie downloads could grow tenfold by 2012 and reach $6.3 billion worldwide during that period, according to a 2007 report by British market research firm Informa Telecoms & Media.
11. The iTunes store was launched on 28 April 2003, since then it has sold more than four billion tracks and over 125 million TV episodes worldwide. It is now rivaling Wal-mart to be the biggest music retailer in the US. 150 million iPods have been sold world-wide since the iconic device first appeared in October 2001. Nearly forty percent of Americans now own and iPod or other mp3 player.
12. Wikipedia is the 7th most popular website in the world. The english version of wikipedia has more than 2.3 million articles. Over a third of online US adults consult wikipedia.
13.There are over 100 million websites, 74 per cent are in the commercial or .com domain
14. Total e-commerce sales in the US for 2007 were estimated at $136.4 billion, an increase of 19.0 percent from 2006. Total retail sales in 2007 increased 4.0 percent from 2006. E-commerce sales in 2007 accounted for 3.4 percent of total sales. E-commerce sales in 2006 accounted for 2.9 percent of total sales.
15. Core search engines Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL, and Ask.com collectively increased 15 percent in December 2007 in searches performed, compared to a year earlier, serving 9.6 billion searches in December 2007.
16. Since the beginning of 2007, Sen. Obama has raised more than $US100 million online from Americans contributing $200 or less at a time, according to data compiled by the Campaign Finance Institute (WSJ, 3 May)
17. In 2006, the average corporate email user received 126 messages a day, up 55% from 2003, according to the Radicati Group, a Palo Alto market research firm. By 2009, workers are expecting to spend 41% of their time just managing emails. (WSJ, 27-11-2007)
18. More books are sold on the internet than any other product and the number is increasing, research suggests. Polling company Nielsen Online surveyed 26,312 people in 48 countries. 41% of internet users had bought books online, it said. The largest percentage of people buying books in any country was South Korea at 58%. Nielsen estimated that equated to 18m people. (BBC 21-01-2008). Twenty percent of US book sales and 17 percent of UK book sales are now made online.
19. Nielsen says more than eight out of ten internet users purchased something in the last three months. That is a 40% increase on two years ago, to about 875 million shoppers. (BBC 21-01-2008)
20. Newspapers’ online audiences are rising at twice the rate of the general internet audience. Newspaper Web sites attracted more than 66.4 million unique visitors on average (40.7 percent of all Internet users) in the first quarter of 2008, a record number that represents a 12.3 percent increase over the same period a year ago, according to a custom analysis provided by Nielsen Online for the Newspaper Association of America.
mate, the internet did not start in 2008! Get the date right
Posted by: k | 15 May 2008 at 03:02 PM
Trevor: Can you tell me how many estimated ecommerce sites there are in the US? I've been searching for hours and your blog is the closest I've found to an answer (# 13 (worldwide)). Thanks.
Tim
Posted by: Tim | 16 May 2008 at 07:50 AM
Tim I'm not sure but maybe if you hunt around this site http://www.seotechnologies.com.au/internet_statistics/default.htm
or this one http://www.census.gov/mrts/www/data/html/07Q4.html
you might find something useful. I suspect its very hard to say precisely how many sites there are though that engage in ecommerce because its a very broad concept and there's a big long tail
Posted by: Trevor Cook | 16 May 2008 at 08:18 AM