9.239 growth of the Internet

Humanist (mccarty@phoenix.Princeton.EDU)
Wed, 18 Oct 1995 21:32:04 -0400 (EDT)

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 9, No. 239.
Center for Electronic Texts in the Humanities (Princeton/Rutgers)
http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/

[1] From: Ron Davis <french.webmaster@utoronto.ca> (103)
Subject: INternet statistics

[The following will likely come as no great surprise to anyone here, but
I thought it might at least remind us that we have a job to do, not just
to hang on to our hats but to think about what is happening in the online
medium and its implications for the virtual and solid world being
constructed around us. My thanks to Ron Davis of my own university for
passing this on. The following is Ron's own summary of an article in the
most recent issue of Internet World. --WM]

________________________________________________

Summary of "Internet '95: The Internet's Phenomenal Growth is Mirrored in
Startling Statistics" by Cynthia Bournellis, from Internet World (November,
1995, page 47)

R. Davis
Dept. Of French
University of Toronto
Oct-95

1. The most reliable statistics for the Internet come from Mark Lottor's
Domain Survey which counts the overall number of registered host computers
connected to the Net.

2. From July, 1994 to July, 1995 the number of hosts counted rose from 3.2
million to 6.6 million. In July, 1993, the survey found 1.8 million hosts.

3. By the end of the decade 120,000,000 machines will be connected to the
Net, according to the Internet Society which bases its projections on
Lottor's survey.

4. Over half of the computers on the Net are in the U.S. The rest are in
100 other countries (the top five being Germany, U.K., Canada, Australia and
Japan in descending order).

5. 22 new countries joined the Net in 1995.

6. 70,000 largely private networks comprise the Internet, compared with
40,000 networks last year.

7. North America has 4.5 million hosts as of July, 1995 (up from 2.1 million
in July, 1994). Western Europe has 1.4 million hosts (compared with 730,000
in July, 1994).

8. The number of people actually using the Net can only be estimated.
International Data Corp. (Framingham, Mass.) estimates there were 38 million
Net users worldwide in 1994, which will grow to 56 million by the end of
1995, and 200,000,000 by 1999.

9. The .com domain has been the fastest growing segment in the past 2 years
and is now the largest domain. 76,000 commercial addresses were registered
with InterNIC as of July, 1995 (29,000 in December, 1994). 8,000 new
registrants were added in June, 1995 and 10,000 in May, 1995.

10. The .edu domain is the second largest segment (856,243 hosts in July,
1994, 1.4 million in July, 1995). The .org domain went from 66,000 in July,
1994 to 201,905 in July, 1995. The .net domain went from 30,993 to 300,481.

11. The WWW was introduced in 1992. The number of servers grew from 130 in
June, 1993 to 11,576 in December, 1994. A Webcrawler search at the end of
June, 1995 found 38,796 servers.

12. NSCA's server is the most popular one, running 55% of WWW's server.
CERN's is second (20%). Netscape and Apache are beginning to gain share
(1,020 and 965 sites respectively as of August, 1995).

13. Netscape is used for 73% of graphical WWW browsing, while Mosaic is used
for 8%, according to Net.genesis.

14. Every day, approximately 150 businesses join the Net according to Stark
Realities, in El Cerrido, California.

15. The number of commercial servers grew from 588 in September, 1994 to
6,000 in May, 1995 according to Open Market Commercial Sites Index
(http://www.directory.net).

16. ActiveMedia Inc. in Peterborough, N.H. predicts that the number of
servers will grow by 1,000 per month into the fall.

17. Of 195 active Internet marketers surveyed by ActiveMedia, 22% reported
profits, 40% said they expected to be profitable within 12 to 24 months, 15%
said they never expected to be profitable but found it useful for public
relations, and 14% were totally disappointed or did not expect a financial
return for 3 to 5 years.

18. ActiveMedia estimates total sales on the WWW at $118 million between
September, 1994 and August, 1995. Of 48 Forbes 500 firms' executives
surveyed by the Bureau of Business Research at American International
College (Springfield, Mass.) 67% believed their industry would enable
customers to access marketing data and transact business online, and that
39% of the firm's annual sales would come from the Internet and online services.

19. According to a survey by the Rochester Institute of Technology (378
users who had bought products on the net between February and May, 1995),
Net users are predominantly young, male and well educated. Median age is
32, 79% were male, and 67% have college degrees.

20. According to Emerging Technologies Research Group of FIND/SVP (New
York), 3.4% of U.S. households classify themselves as Internet users. It
estimates the maximum range of actual users at 4.4 million. 31% of Net
users are self-employed professionals working from home. Executives and
teachers comprise 50% of the total occupational profile of people accessing
the Net from home.

21. According to FIND/SVP of the 30 million users on the Net, 3 million were
consumers, and the rest were users from academia, corporations, and
government agencies.

22. According to a survey conducted by Georgia Tech Graphics/Visualisation
and Usability Centre, between April 10 and May 10, 1995, U.S. WWW users have
a median age of 36, while the average European was 31. Half of all WWW
users are married, 15.5% are female, and the overall average income was
between $50,000 and $60,000.

23. According to SRI International of Menlo Park, California, in a survey
called Exploring the WWW Populations Other Half, there are two WWW
audiences: (1) the "upstream" audience (77% male, 97% college educated,
mostly professional/scientific/academic) makes up 50% of WWW users but 10%
of the population. (2) the "other half" (64% male, students or recent
graduates, mostly under 30). 28% of WWW users have incomes of less than
$20,000.

-----------------------------------------
University French:
Projet WEB Project
-----------------------------------------
Ron Davis
Assistant Professor
Department of French
University of Toronto
Vox: (416) 929-2324
Fax: (416) 929-1087
e-mail: french.webmaster@utoronto.ca
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