Internet population tops one billion
By Dave Parrack
The Internet has changed the lives of so many of us so profoundly that it’s often easy to forget how many people still aren’t online. The Internet population has now officially passed the one billion people mark but that’s only around 20 percent of the world’s total population. The tubes could get a whole lot busier yet.
The Internet is, for my money, the greatest invention of the last 100 years, although it wouldn’t be much use without that other relatively recent invention – the PC. When you venture online these days, it’s very easy to take the whole thing for granted, as if it’s always been there, and has always been this good. But it hasn’t, and is actually very young.
Despite its youth, the Internet has grown by a huge amount since its creation in the 1960s. What started as a 4-node network between selected American universities has now grown to serve over a billion people worldwide.
ComScore recently released figures showing that December 2008 saw the number of people classed as being online passing one billion for the first time ever. Although, as TechCrunch points out, Internet World Stats claims the figure was already 1.5 billion last June.
ComScore included everyone over the age of 15 who accessed the Net during the month of December. The study even showed which areas the Internet was most used in. Unsurprisingly, China came out on top with 179.7 million users, while the U.S. was its only close competitor on 163.3 million.
Worldwide Internet Audience
Asia Pacific: 416 million (41.3%)
Europe: 283 million (28.0%)
North America: 185 million (18.4%)
Latin America: 75 million (7.4%)
Middle East & Africa: 49 million (4.8%)
While these figures are undeniably impressive, it does mean that less than a quarter of all people on this planet are accessing the Internet. There are potentially another four billion people ready and waiting to get online if only they had the ways and means.
I don’t know about you, but I already find the Internet slow on occasion due to those heavy traffic times. How will the tubes ever manage under the weight of five times as many people? Better enjoy that almost-carefree surfing while you only have 999,999,999 other people to worry about.
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January 24th, 2009
The Internet as a Network was only initially thoughtup in the States but was then immediatly developed by many countries all over the world. United kingdom was creating a network, hence doing the exact same thing at the same time,And the net as we all know it today was actually invented by the British.
I suppose a good analogy would be to say U.S. created Dos and then U.K. created Windows.
Going along your lines we should actually be praising the inventor of the internet for the internet, heck lets go with the guy that discovered electricity.
Dave seriously your as blinded my american propaganda as the americans are.
Idiot !
January 24th, 2009
sorry abouve should read
“Going along your lines we should actually be praising the inventor of the computer for the internet, heck lets go with the guy that discovered electricity.”
January 24th, 2009
sorry, above should read
“Going along your lines we should actually be praising the inventor of the computer for the internet, heck lets go with the guy that discovered electricity.”