How much time do you spend online each week? If you're an average Net user, a new poll shows, it's around 13 hours--excluding e-mail.
The Harris Interactive poll, released Wednesday, found that 80 percent of U.S. adults go online, whether at home, work, or elsewhere. Those who surf the Net spend an average of 13 hours per week online, but that figure varies widely. Twenty percent are online for two hours or less a week, while 14 percent are there for 24 hours or more.
The average number of hours that people spend online each week has grown over the years, hovering at 7 hours from 1999 through 2002, 8 or 9 hours from 2003 through 2006, and 11 hours in 2007. The level hit its peak at 14 hours in October 2008--after the global recession had set in and just before the U.S. presidential election.
The jump in time spent in cyberspace likely stems from a few factors, according to Harris. More people are comfortable using the Internet. More of them are shopping and watching TV online. In addition, the number of Web sites and online applications has increased. Harris adds that the recession may also play a role since surfing the Net at home is free (after paying monthly access fees), while going out means spending money.
The age group that spent the most time online per week: 30- to 39-year-olds, at 18 hours.
The total number of U.S. adults on the Internet is 184 million, around 80 percent of the total population, according to the poll. That figure is virtually the same as in 2008 but is a big jump from 1999, when it reached at 56 percent, and from 1995, when the figure was a mere 9 percent.
The number of people who surf the Net at home rose to 76 percent this year, compared with 66 percent in 2005, 46 percent in 1999, and 16 percent in 1996. In 1995, that specific question wasn't even asked.
The Harris poll queried 2,029 people in early July and mid-October.
Here are the poll results:
(Credit:
Harris Interactive)
Sex, porn, and Michael Jackson were among the most popular items kids searched for online in 2009, as tracked by Symantec's OnlineFamily.Norton.
Symantec on Thursday revealed the top 100 favorite search terms among children 18 and under found by its free OnlineFamily.Norton service, which helps parents monitor their kids' online searches. Though innocuous terms like Sesame Street and "New Moon"--a popular movie in the Twilight vampire series--made the cut, sex showed up fourth on the list for boys and fifth for girls, following YouTube, Google, and Facebook as the three top terms.
For boys, the top 25 search terms focused on social-networking sites, shopping sites, and certain adult terms. Girls seemed to favor subjects related to music, TV shows and movies, and celebrities.
Speaking of celebrities, to no one's surprise, the late Michael Jackson was the most searched for celebrity, coming in at number 12, followed by pop singer Taylor Swift at No. 13. Other hot stars that made the list included Miley Cyrus, Britney Spears, Beyonce, the Black Eyed Peas, the Jonas Brothers, Eminem, Rihanna, and Chris Brown (who was in the news this year after admitting that he assaulted ex-girlfriend Rihanna).
Searching for celebrities online, however, may be hazardous to your PC's health. Symantec has found found that these searches sometimes draw people to dangerous Web sites, which spew out viruses, spam, and other malware.
Kids seven and under searched for items related to video games, while older kids were heavy into music, with 34 percent of teens and 27 percent of tweens searching for music-related topics. The Miley Cyrus song "Party in the USA" was the most-searched for tune among kids, while "Boom Boom Pow" by the Black Eye Peas took the No. 2 spot.
Tech terms that popped up on the list included MySpace at No. 8, MSN at No. 33, the iPod Touch at No. 98, and Bing last at No. 100.
To compile its top 100 list, Symantec tracked 14.6 million searches run by users of its OnlineFamily.Norton service and ranked the terms according to ones submitted most frequently to those submitted the least. The terms were collected anonymously, so none could be associated with any specific children or families.
Susan Boyle's first appearance on "Britain's Got Talent" tallied the most worldwide views on YouTube for 2009, the video site said Wednesday.
The video of the once-unknown singer captured more than 120 million views.
Her video was followed "David After Dentist" (37 million views), "JK Wedding Entrance Dance" (33 million views), "New Moon Movie Trailer" (31 million views), and "Evian Roller Babies" (27 million views).
YouTube also looked specifically at which music videos tallied the most views for the year.
Pitbull's "I Know You Want Me" had more than 82 million views this year. That was followed by two Miley Cyrus songs--"The Climb" and "Party in the U.S.A"--with 64 million and 54 million views, respectively. The Lonley Island's "I'm On a Boat" and Keri Hilson's "Knock You Down" rounded out the top five.
You may notice that Michael Jackson videos, surprisingly, didn't capture more views than the top clips of the year. According to YouTube, the pop star's "Thriller" video was one of the fastest rising searches but it failed to acquire enough views to push it into the top five most-viewed videos.
Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
About 81 percent of Web users leave an online video page if they encounter mid-stream rebuffering, a new study from video analytics firm TubeMogul has found.
Rebuffering has become a major issue for most Web users. And even though TubeMogul found that just 7 percent of streaming video is slow-loading, it said Web video still can't quite match TV-quality viewing.
"The technology just isn't there yet to have a TV-like experience," David Burch, marketing director at TubeMogul, said in a statement. "And if it's an advertiser hosting video on a branded site or distributing it across the Web, people are just clicking away when they see that spinning wheel."
TubeMogul conducted its study by sampling 192 streams from leading content delivery networks--Akamai, Limelight, Edgecast, and Bit Gravity to name a few. According to TubeMogul, the services it tested "help to power video across thousands of sites." But they aren't quite doing as nice a job as some users had hoped.
TubeMogul found that Limelight performed best out of all the services it tested, experiencing slow load times just 4 percent of the time. It was followed by Panther Networks, Akamai, Edgecast, and BitGravity, respectively.
Although slow load times are still a problem on the Web, it's not stopping people from attempting to view streaming content. A recent Nielsen study found that online video viewing was up a whopping 34.9 percent in the last quarter, compared to a year prior. Now the CDNs just need to catch up.
Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
Hot on the heels of Friendster's recent face-lift, the onetime social-networking pioneer has found a buyer.
MOL Global, a Malaysian online payment company, has agreed to purchase Friendster, the companies announced late Wednesday. Terms of the deal were not revealed, but rumors last week said a likely asking price would start around $100 million.
"This combination is a natural progression of our relationship and will be an industry-changing event," Richard Kimber, chief executive officer at Friendster, said in a statement. "The new combined entity gives Friendster the kind of financial backing, retail distribution, and e-commerce infrastructure that will enable us to accelerate our strategy and create a locally relevant, fun experience for our users in Asia, both on and offline."
Kimber confirmed last week that the company was shopping itself to buyers as the social-networking site was unveiling a redesigned site that focused on the Asian youth market. The revamped Friendster site offers a suite of features designed to capitalize on the social-gaming craze: a virtual currency, an array of games, and virtual gifts.
Of Friendster's 115 million registered users worldwide, 75 million are based in Asia, and 90 percent of its traffic comes from the Asia-Pacific region. It started offering translated versions of the site two years ago.
The two companies announced a partnership in October in which MOL would provide a payments platform for Friendster Wallet and Friendster Gift Shop.
Ganesh Kumar Bangah, president and chief executive officer of MOL, will become the group chief executive officer of the combined entity. Kimber, who formerly served as Google's regional managing director in Southeast Asia, will become the non-executive chairman.
For a while, some believed that the Web and social networks would limit the amount of time people spend consuming video content. But Nielsen's latest A2/M2 Three Screen Report has found that people are actually consuming content on more platforms, thanks to digital video recorders and the Web.
According to the report, which looks at content viewing on television, the Web, and several other platforms, online-video viewing was up a whopping 34.9 percent in the third quarter. DVR use was up 21.1 percent, the study found. Surprisingly, 99 percent of video content that's watched in the U.S. is done on a television. So, while Web use is on the rise, it still has a long way to go before the television is supplanted as the "go-to" for consuming video content.
Nielsen shows off video viewing by demographic.
(Credit: Nielsen)Nielsen also looked at how much time the average American spends consuming video content on their TVs, from the Web, or via mobile devices. The company found that the average person watched 31 hours of television per week during the third quarter of 2009. Just 31 of those minutes were spent in playback mode on their DVRs.
Web use, while higher than it has been, was still much lower than television use. Nielsen said that the average consumer spent four hours on the Internet during the third quarter. That user watched an average of 22 minutes of online video per week. Meanwhile, mobile-video consumption was lagging far behind in the third quarter, accounting for just 3 minutes per week of the user's time. Unsurprising to some, teens watched the most video content on their mobile phones, averaging seven hours of mobile-video consumption per month.
A few other interesting tidbits of information: TV viewing followed closely with age. Those aged 65 and older watched an average of 43 hours of television each week, while the average person between the ages of 18 and 24 watched 22 hours of television each week. Respondents between the ages of 18 and 34 watched the most video content online, averaging 35 minutes per week.
Click here to see the full Nielsen study.
Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
Facebook has formed a safety advisory board comprised of five Internet safety organizations that will consult with the social-networking site, the company said Sunday.
Facebook said it plans to meet regularly with the advisory board to review the existing safety resources it provides its users, develop new materials, and seek advice on best practices for safety in general.
"We believe that the only way to keep kids safe online is for everyone who wants to protect them to work together," Elliot Schrage, Facebook's vice president of global communications and public policy, said in a statement. "The formation of a board to advise specifically on safety issues is a positive, innovative and collaborative step towards creating a more robust safety environment, and we are thrilled that such a well-respected, trusted group of organizations has joined us in this endeavor."
Facebook said the board is part of an effort that includes cooperating with state attorneys general to rid the social-networking site of registered sex offenders. The board's formation comes on the heels of New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announcing last week that more than 3,500 sex offenders from his state had been purged from Facebook and MySpace.
The five organizations on the advisory board are Common Sense Media, ConnectSafely, WiredSafety, Childnet International, and The Family Online Safety Institute.
(Updated 11.35AM PST Monday, with comment from Amazon)
There's a wonderful Borders bookstore in the middle of London's Oxford Street. Or at least there was. I went there in September and suddenly it was no more. Indeed, the U.K. arm of Borders recently reached for a form of bankruptcy protection.
So how interesting that one of the greatest successes in online book retail, Amazon, is rumored to be troubling real estate agents in its search for retail premises in the U.K. According to London's impeccable Times, Amazon is looking for very fine locations in order to, well, fulfill orders.
Perhaps some might find it a touch amusing that such a dot-com icon has decided to trouble the physical world. However, it appears that the British are suffering from frightful attacks of impatience while waiting for their erudite tomes, wickedly catchy tunes and other more substantial purchases to arrive by ponies that may be less than express.
The Times says that Argos, a U.K. catalog retailer of, oh, useful and useless stuff, has 18 percent of its online orders picked up in store. Indeed, the company believes that 50 percent of its holiday television sales will be transacted in this manner.
Amazon's customer service has become so progressive that its presence in American, as well as British, malls might serve as something of an inspiration to the more complacent establishments.
And now that Amazon seems to be able to sell you everything from woodworking equipment to vacuum cleaners, it surely puts extra pressure on postal services and that nice man in brown who comes to my house and always looks tired.
What a revolutionary concept it would be to go to a store and know that the thing you want is actually there. It just might catch on.
UPDATE: According to Reuters, Amazon denied Monday that it would open physical stores. However, the company would not comment on whether it might instead create partnerships with existing retailers, many of whom, Lord knows, could do with the business.
Some industry insiders told me that any potential steps towards physical retail by Amazon might be a reaction to the EU tinkering with distribution regulations.
I wouldn't for a moment think that anyone working late on something frightfully significant in Redmond would conceive of alcohol as a means to help them through their engineer's block.
But just in case there is one tortured soul who might be tempted to have a six-pack delivered to his cubicle, I have some difficult news.
i-Booze, the Seattle-based folks to whom you used to be able to turn online for a swift delivery of soothing liquids, seems to have fallen on difficult times.
For Techflash has delivered the information that not only has i-Booze failed to secure a license to sell liquor but that its enterprising founder, Karim Varela, uncorked a plea bargain on two misdemeanor charges of selling alcohol without a license and illegal possession of alcohol with intent to sell.
In truth, i-Booze isn't i-Booze any more. While the idea reportedly came to Varela when he was in jail for DUI, there were those who felt the name might be something of an incitement to excess. So the company recently changed its name to Dilky.com.
Which some might find a more neutral moniker, but I find my neural association membrane immediately goes to "alky."
In speaking to Techflash, Varela did not sound confident of Dilky's resurrection: "We are still working with the city and the liquor control board to regain a license, but it is a difficult battle."
Prohibition is not quite at hand, though. Anne Radford of the Washington State Liquor Control Board said the board will look into the matter over the next couple of weeks.
Meanwhile, Varela is hoping that former customers and those who would like to be current customers might lobby the board with a human rights appeal. Or perhaps offers of a free wine-tasting trip. (Some details exaggerated here.)
What hope he has, Varela is putting into the presence of a new Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes, who replaced someone called Tom Carr.
"We feel our downfall was mostly due to ex City Attorney Tom Carr's battle against bars, clubs, and alcohol in Seattle and we just got caught up in the middle when really we're providing a beneficial service for the community," Varela told Techflash.
A beneficial service, indeed. I would happily use it were it to descend to the Bay Area. However, it might also have helped if the service had benefited from a name such as i-Pinot or i-(De)liver rather than the somewhat provocative i-Booze.
Despite the recession, people are expected to be in a charitable mood this holiday season, as they shop online.
In the United States, cumulative online donations to charities could hit more than $4 billion during the holidays, according to a survey released Tuesday by marketing firm Convio. More than than 63 percent of those surveyed said they plan to donate money via the the Internet over the holiday season (November 1 through December 31, 2009), up from 51 percent in 2008.
Convio's "North American Technographics Omnibus Online Survey" for the fourth quarter of 2009 found that despite tough financial times, almost 6 out of 10 people questioned plan to give the same amount of money or more compared with last year, while only 23 percent plan to give less.
Convio, which helps nonprofit organizations with marketing and fund-raising, stressed the importance of an online presence for charities. The survey discovered that charity Web sites have the biggest influence on a consumer's decision of whether to donate (44 percent), followed by word of mouth (40 percent).
About 56 percent of those surveyed believe that nonprofits have made it easier to donate online, while 46 percent think that charity Web sites make it easy to find the information they need in order to decide whether to give. And 39 percent said they made an online donation after visiting a nonprofit's Web site.
"Despite the difficult economy, American consumers will be going online in record numbers to support charitable causes in the final four weeks of the year," Convio CEO Gene Austin said in a statement. "As we enter the critical holiday giving season, charities that have focused on their online fund-raising and marketing programs stand to benefit from the changing demographics and behaviors of today's consumer. The Internet provides a cost-effective and efficient channel to engage consumers and allow a charity's most ardent supporters to help tell the story."
To ask questions about online support for nonprofits and compile survey results for the study, conducted from October to November 2009, Convio commissioned Forrester's Technographics. Convio's projections for U.S. online spending during the holiday season are based on the survey results, data from its own clients, and other industry studies.
