This Whole Internet Thing Is Still Just at the Beginning
comScore has released a report on global Internet traffic for May, and the usual suspects are at the top of the list: Google sites are still tops on the Internets, with over 527 million unique visitors, followed by Microsoft, Yahoo, Time Warner, and eBay. Wikipedia now sits at the #6 slot, which shows the continued and enormous popularity of the wiki-based community-run encyclopedia of everything and everyone.
I found the following line to be the most striking in the report:
There were 772 million people online worldwide in May (defined as those individuals age 15 or older who accessed the Internet from a home or work location in the last 30 days), an increase from 766 million in April, representing a 16 percent penetration of the worldwide population of individuals age 15 or older.
So six million more adults accessed the Internet in May 2007 than in April 2007. 16 percent penetration.
For all that’s happened online over what is really a short period of time, for all the billions of web pages published and trillions of communications that have taken place, a huge swath of the global population has yet to take part.
Growing up in the 1980s, I clearly recall my family getting its first microwave oven, its first VCR. I played handheld games featuring LCD red dots blipping around a tiny black screen. This was the height of technology at the time, and it was glorious.
Where will we be 20 or 25 years from now? If we can manage not to blow ourselves up and combat the scariest of the world’s problems, the future really is wide open.
Between the Lines wonders what percentage of the world’s population should be online.
