Compiled by the IGN Staff
Increasing Use of Digital Television
Digital television services keep growing in popularity, says Strategy Analytics. This year, 21.5 million homes will soon be watching digital TV for the first time, bringing the total number of homes with digital TV to 56 million. Penetration is highest in the U.K., where 29 percent of homes have iDTV. The U.S. is next at 24 percent, and France and Spain follow with 15 percent. Many iDTV providers in Europe offer email, home shopping and banking, and games.
www.strategyanalytics.com
Irish Businesses Reluctant to Go Online
Of 127,900 Irish businesses surveyed by the University of Ulster, only eight percent have and email address and 4.3 percent have a website, reported the Irish Times. Meanwhile, in Northern Ireland the figures are even lower: Only 5 percent have email and 3.7 percent have a company website.
Trends in the UK
Forty-five percent of U.K. firms aren't yet engaged in e-commerce, although 91 percent of these companies plan to make the shift sometime within the next two years. In a survey of 332 firms by MediaCast, only 6 percent of the companies researched generate 40 percent or more sales over the Internet, but within the next two years 25 percent expect to hit similar Internet sales levels. Eighty-three percent of these companies have websites and 50 percent use their site as a marketing tool. At the same time, only 24 percent actually take orders over the Internet and 15 percent accept Internet payments.
www.mediacast.co.uk
According to research by MMXI Europe, U.K. Internet users are flocking to entertainment sites and staying at them longer. Gaming sites and music download sites are among the most popular Internet destinations. Additionally, users spend three times longer on entertainment sites than sports sites. For the month of April, MMXI lists the top five U.K. entertainment sites as virgin.net, windowsmedia.com, freewin.co.uk, pokemon.com and channel4.com.
www.mmxieurope.com
Forrester reported recently that Internet penetration in the U.K. is on the rise, climbing from 21 percent in May 1999 to 25 percent in May 2000. The increase takes the total number of people in the U.K. with Internet access to 19 million. William Reeve, Forrester group director of European Data Products, pointed out, "Whilst access at work was an early driver to growth, home use now accounts for 74 percent of Web use in the U.K." He also said that subscription-free ISPs are driving Internet use. The study additionally determined that the Web is impacting British buying behavior as well, with 89 percent of users polled having investigated some kind of goods and services online.
www.forrester.com
US Workers Value Email
Nearly two-thirds of U.S. workers feel that email has improved communication with management, although four out of 10 worry about employers monitoring their email. As a result, eight out of ten use a personal email account for private messages, online recruiter Vault found in a recent survey. Email, for 80 percent of the respondents, has replaced the traditional business letter, while 72.5 communicate through fax and 45 over the telephone. Additionally, more than two-thirds of the respondents would immediately delete sexually explicit or improper emails, although 9 percent admitted to forwarding risqué messages on to friends, and 4.7 percent would pass them on to friends and co-workers.
www.vault.com
Symantec Quantifies the Protection Issue
A recent survey by Symantec Corp. delved the concerns of both consumers and tech professionals with protecting themselves from computer viruses. The study, "Internet Security: Consumers vs. Technology
Professionals," found that 19.5 percent of consumers and 48.9 percent of tech professionals use a personal firewall on their PC; 87.1 percent of consumers and 94.7 percent of technology professionals use anti-virus software to protect their computer from damaging viruses; 84.7 percent of the consumers and 70.6 of the tech professionals are aware of how to protect themselves from cybercrime; and 36.9 percent of consumers update their anti-virus software at least once a month, while 68.8 percent of tech professionals do so.
http://www.symantec.com
Online Advertising Is on the Rise in China
Forrester Research says that online advertising in China is growing much more rapidly than it is elsewhere. The firm estimates that China's online advertising market, valued at US$8 million in 1999, will be worth about $440 million by 2004. A survey on local Chinese online advertising agents, conducted by the China Internet Network Information Center, indicates that 7.68 percent of Internet users frequently click to and read online ads and that 25.18 percent sometimes. The survey also reveals that 49.04 percent of Internet users click to the ads only when they are interested in the contents of the ads, 14.09 percent never do it and 4.01 percent hate the ads because they fear they will be encouraged to spend money.