Teens Online Half As Much Time As Adults
Despite parents' contention that their teens are always surfing the Internet, a new study from Jupiter Communications and Media Metrix shows otherwise. Compared to their parents, most teens spend far less time online on average, in both number and length of sessions. Media Metrix show that teens spend an average of 303 minutes online per month, compared to adults who spend an average of 728 minutes online per month.
www.jup.com, www.mediametrix.com
Slim Pickings for Irish E-commerce Sites
Irish businesses have flocked online, yet few are actually engaged in e-commerce, the Irish Independent newspaper reported. A survey by the Information Society Commission shows that nearly 96 percent of Irish businesses are online, and 77 percent have websites with advertising, marketing and information distribution. Yet, of the 500 various sized companies interviewed, only 20 percent actually use their websites to conduct business.
Top Web Sites in China
The top 10 websites in China during August, according to iasma, are:
- 163.com
- sina.com.cn
- sohu.com
- yeah.net
- chinaren.com
- yahoo.com
- 163.net
- china.com
- 263.net
- microsoft.com
Growth Predicted for Worldwide Network and System Management Market
Revenues for the worldwide network and system management market have grown 19 percent since last year, and are projected to grow at a compound growth rate of 19.7 percent through 2004, surpassing $21 billion. GartnerGroup, which released the figures, said growth had slowed down since previous years, blaming it on Y2K problems, mergers and management changes. "While management often takes a back seat to the excitement of applications, the Internet and e-commerce applications are demanding levels of availability that are now driving new expenditures in the management space," a Gartner analyst said.
www.gartnergroup.com
Broadband Continues to Reach New Consumers
The Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS) audience in America is likely to reach 25 million subscribers over the next five years, The Yankee Group predicts. Yankee analysts attribute DBS' growth to the addition of local channels and new services like high-speed Internet access and interactive TV. "The DBS market is evolving as it adds new services," notes a Yankee spokesman. Several key factors have been identified as sustaining consumer growth, including DBS' role in negating cable operators previous advantages; new opportunities for DBS in suburban and urban populations; and DBS is emerging as a major player in the high-speed Internet access market.
A survey about the industry also showed that access to local stations is affecting cable; hardware prices are down, but subscription fees remain steady; DBS subscribers are interested in satellite receivers with DVR capabilities and DBS customer satisfaction remains high.
www.yankeegroup.com
Asia/Pacific Mobile Internet Dominated by WAP
Wireless application protocol (WAP) currently dominates the mobile Internet market in Asia/Pacific, reports GartnerGroup, although a few microbrowsers have managed to maintain pockets of domination throughout the region. Asian operators controlling 73 percent of Asia's first quarter 2000 subscriber base have installed gateways supporting WAP or HDML microbrowsers. In Japan, however, where NTT DoCoMo accounts for 17 percent of the region's total subscribers, cHTML (compact hypertext markup language) has been used. Less popular is J-Phone Group, used by five percent of the Asia/Pacific marketplace, which uses its own MML (mobile markup language) based browser.
"WAP has built strong momentum within the industry," acknowledges a Gartner researcher, "but it must develop similar momentum with customers or it will face pressure from competing solutions within six months. The early WAP days disappointed many users. The expectations have not been met. If improvements take too long, operators will consider alternative solutions. The I-mode solution, currently limited to Japan, may break into other markets and could challenge WAP."