Compiled by Emily DiFilippo
The Battle of the Bulge
"Cyber-bludging:" an Australian verb meaning to use the Internet at work for personal reasons. U.S. company Yankelovich Partners conducted a survey on this subject and found that 62 percent of U.S. employees go online for non-work related reasons at least once a day. 20 percent of workers cyber-bludge more than 10 times a day, and 71 percent of these say that it is "somewhat likely" that supervisors know about this habit. Australian company Red Sheriff found that workers Down Under spend about 3.6 hours weekly cyber-bludging, and 72 hours annually. This costs Australian companies about A$22.5 billion (US
$13 billion) a year.
Virtual Sales Are on the Rise
In 1999, Internet retail sales comprised 0.4 percent of total U.S. consumer spending. These sales fell under such categories as car sales, groceries, insurance, real estate, and government. Giga predicts that the percentage will rise to about 3 percent by 2004. By 2002, "bricks-and-mortar" retailers who also sell online will have two thirds of the consumer e-commerce market.
Harris Interactive, an Internet-based market research firm, found that, despite predictions to the contrary, online consumer spending in the U.S. rose 18 percent to $8.28 billion in the second quarter of the year 2000. They also surveyed 100,000 Internet users in April, June, and May to discover that Amazon is the strongest e-commerce brand, followed by eBay. Eighteen and seven-tenths percent of online consumers purchased Amazon products during this period and 15.8 percent bought from eBay. A 13 percent increase in online auctions was also detected, as
well as a 20 percent increase in the travel services sector.
The National Retail Federation (NRF) and Forrester Research, Inc, have announced the results of their Online Retail Index. The June survey reports that Father's Day and graduations heavily boosted online sales. Overall e-commerce spending went up 51 percent in the categories of small appliances, toys and video games, sporting goods, and tools and hardware. Total online spending went from $3.4 billion in May to $4 billion in June. The average amount spent per buyer went from $249 to $288.
Traffic to Financial Sites Rises
Nielsen//NetRatings reported that in May, one in every five Internet users visited a financial site. The Web's top 15 financial sites have drawn an audience of about 25 million individuals since March. This figure is up 127percent from last May. The reported number-one financial site is an online issuer of credit cards called NextCard. Their traffic was up 300 percent in May with an audience of 4.06 million. NextCard accredits this success to effective banner ads.
The number of visitors to financial websites since the beginning of 2000 is up 88 percent in France and 63 percent in Germany. A reported 34 percent of French Internet users with home connections visited financial sites this year. A corresponding 43 percent of Germans did the same. The popularity of this type of site is only up 27.5 percent in the UK, however. Top sites in France and Germany are Stock Market-related, while in the UK banking sites are most popular. The typical visitor to financial websites in all three of these countries is said to be a male between 35 and 49 years old.
Icelanders Are Wired
A survey by Gallup Iceland reports that three-fourths of all Icelandic adults now have Internet access. This figure shows that 49 percent more are online than were in December. The introduction of free Internet access probably caused the increase. It is clear, however, that the Web is more popular among the young: Only a third of those over 55 are online, but 90 percent of those ages 16-24 regularly surf the Web. Supposedly 77 percent of all adult men have Internet access while only 71 percent of women do. 35.2 percent of all users in Iceland have shopped online.
Web Hosts Favor Apache Servers and .Com Domain Names
According to the most recent SecuritySpace.com surveys, Apache servers are the most popular worldwide and .com is the most common domain name. 56 percent of domains are hosted by an Apache server, 25 percent by various Microsoft servers, and 4.5 percent by Netscape. As for domain names, .com comprises 44.4 percent of all internationally. The second most common is .de, which is a German domain accounting for 8.4 percent. The third is the British .U.K. at 6.1 percent.