Internet Users Double in Russia
A recently released report from the Russian IT public center, or ROCIT, shows a dramatic increase of Internet users in the republic in 2001.
As reported by Europemedia, the total number of Russian Internet users doubled in 2001 to reach 18 million. In addition, the regular users of the Internet increased to 8 million. Sixty-three percent of Russian Internet users access from work, an increase of 3 percent.
Another noteworthy finding of the study was that the growth of Internet penetration in Russia is on the decline.
Recruitment Not High on List on Australian Corporate Web Sites
According to a study performed by Oliver Recruitment Group and reported on by ZDNet, Australian companies aren't using their Web sites for recruitment of employees effectively and in some cases, not at all.
A mere 35 percent of Australian companies utilize their Web sites for recruitment purposes and of those, only 41 percent include online application forms and 68 percent have only a human resources email address posted. Astonishingly, a full 48 percent of companies that had online forms available failed to respond to job seekers' inquiries at all.
Companies in the telecommunication industry rated the best when it came to recruitment features on their websites with 73 percent and technology companies ranked second with 69 percent. Only 10 percent of investment capital companies included recruitment information on their sites.
Majority of Europeans Not Daily Internet Users
A Eurobarometer study under way by the European Commission indicates that while almost everybody in Europe watches TV, only a small handful use the Internet every day.
According to the study, only 14 percent of Europeans use the Internet several times a week and a paltry 9 percent use the Internet every day.
The most frequent Internet users come from Sweden, with 67 percent going online regularly. The Danish, Dutch and Finnish are next with 59 percent, 54 percent and 51 percent respectively.
Asians' Internet Pornography Use on the Rise
New research from NetValue and reported on by Reuters indicates a substantial increase in time spent on and number of visits to pornography sites by Asian Internet surfers.
According to the data, Taiwan saw a 30-40 percent increase in porn site visits since March 2001, but the major increase was seen in South Korea with a 72 percent rise in porn site visits over the same time period. This percentage equals around 10.2 million visitors.
The time spent on porn sites amongst Asians also increased in varying degrees for each country. Taiwan users spent 90 minutes on average at adult sites while Hong Kong users dallied about 73 minutes in the month of March. Singaporeans and South Koreans were less glued, spending only 66 minutes and 30 minutes in March, respectively.
The study also revealed that of the Korean visitors, nearly 50 percent were students visiting adult sites and about 47 percent of visitors from Singapore were executives and professionals.
Increased Sales a Direct Result of E-mail Marketing
The Direct Marketing Association recently published a survey regarding the effectiveness of e-mail marketing on bottom line sales figures for US companies.
The results show that large companies witnessed a 47.1 percent increase in sales as a result of email marketing, while small companies realized a 42.6 increase and medium-sized companies realized the biggest increase in sales, with a 59.8 percent increase from email marketing campaigns.
The companies also discovered that e-mail marketing was an effective customer retention tool, with 63 percent of respondents citing this as an important effect of email marketing and 37 percent of companies said their email marketing was effective as a customer acquisition tool.
Nearly 80 percent of the companies indicated that text email was preferred and use it over rich media or HTML email campaigns.