Australian Restrictions Fail to Curb Online Gambling
Internet company Hitwise measured Australians visits to online gambling sites for the Australian Casino Association and found consistency amongst number of visits throughout 2001, in spite of the Australian federal government's Interactive gambling ban instituted earlier in the year.
The effect of the ban seems to have merely pushed would-be online gamblers to visit international gambling sites, with 40 percent of them visiting offshore casinos and a 38 percent increase in the number of visitors to international sites between February and December 2001.
While Australia-based online casinos submit to rigorous testing and privacy restrictions, Australians are banned from gambling on those sites. "It is extraordinary that Australians are forced to gamble on offshore sites when our local sites have in place player protection measures which are among the toughest in the world," said Chris Downy, the executive director of the Australian Casino Association.
Wireless Gaming in Europe on the Rise
The recent "Making Mobile Gaming Pay" report released by Forrester indicates that Europe's mobile gaming population will grow significantly by 2005.
The current figure of 5 million mobile game users in Europe is predicted to increase to a stunning 130 million users by 2005. Mobile game adoption has already begun among the 11 million SMS users in Europe, and that number is expected to rise to 70 million by 2005.
Eighty-four percent of the current SMS users are below age 35 but Forrester predicts 70s style games like Pong and Space Invaders will attract the more mature audience in 2002.
Forrester believes high-speed mobile networks and advanced handsets are the key factors to the mobile games market in Europe.
Internet a Staple in Canadian Households
Research company Ipsos-Reid surveyed 750 households with children under 18 to determine the place of the Internet and computers in family situations.
As reported by Cyberatlas, the study found the Internet played an important role in family circles, with the average family spending 32 hours online in a week and 41 percent of families having to schedule or negotiate for Internet usage in the home.
Other notable findings of the survey included 59 percent of parents with a home Internet connection have made a purchase via the Web and 58 percent agree that conducting activities such as shopping and banking online have enabled them to spend more time at home with their kids. Forty-eight percent of parents have instituted curfews on their children's Internet usage.
Europeans Aren't Jumping on the Broadband Bandwagon
According to Gartner Group, less than 10 percent of Internet users in the United Kingdom, France and Germany think broadband is a good value.
Projections for the broadband market look bleak, with Gartner predicting a meager 10 percent uptake of broadband services by 2005. Currently, less than 8 percent of Internet households in France have broadband, which works out to only 500,000 homes. The United Kingdom and Germany exhibit similar numbers with 2 percent and 9 percent of homes having Web access using broadband services, respectively. The United States, in contrast, has 22 percent of Internet homes opting for broadband over dial-up connections.
Gartner also notes that, until prices fall, more attractive content is offered and trial periods are allowed, the numbers of homes with broadband access is likely to remain insignificant across Europe.
US Shoppers Spend More When Multiple Commerce Channels Exist
Recent research from DoubleClick shows that consumers who use catalogs, Internet and bricks-and-mortar stores to shop spend more on the whole than their single or double-channel counterparts.
An average of US$995 was spent by shoppers who utilized all three channels as compared to $894 spent by two-channel shoppers and $591 averaged by single-channel shoppers.
DoubleClick's research also found that 66 percent of the shoppers used multiple channels browsed for products in one channel and purchased products in another. On average, 64 percent of those consumers' holiday budgets were spent in stores, 26 percent was spent online and 10 percent through catalogs.
Super Bowl Had Super Impact on Internet Usage
Internet activity on Super Bowl Sunday was measured by comScore Networks, based on an opt-in system that accurately measures the browsing behavior of 1.5 million worldwide participants.
ComScore's figures showed a decrease of 23 percent in overall U.S. Internet traffic during the hours of the game as compared with the same time the previous week. Kickoff was the slowest 15-minute block of the game, with only 4.7 million people using the Web, and the spike in traffic came with a 10 percent jump in traffic upon the game's completion.
Outside the United States, similar usage patterns were displayed, but to lesser extremes. Web usage only dropped 14 percent from the previous Sunday among non-U.S. users, but international interest in the game was piqued, as seen by a 140 percent increase over the previous Sunday of non-U.S. visitors to Superbowl.com.