Online Mainstreaming

First Published: April 1999
Last Update: April 2002
Author: Computer Partners

Everybody's doing it. Sending email, getting their business online and browsing the Web. If you're one of those diehards who hasn't yet made the plunge, you are quickly becoming a minority.

According to Roberta Fusaro in the Feb.3 issue of Computer World, there was more email sent in the US last year than there was regular mail.

The online Research firm of Emarketer.com discovered that 3.4 trillion emails were sent in the US, compared with 107 billion pieces of first class mail delivered by the US Postal Service.

This factor is not surprising considering that email is the primary application used both within local area networks and on the Internet.

Sending file attachments and using a file transfer protocol to send files back and forth is so easy, that once users become comfortable with the technology, they don't want to be without it.

Last year the Internet created around $2 billion in revenue and according to Tom Diederich the falling price of computers is turning the PC into a standard household appliance.

In a study by Dataquest, Diederich reported that the rate of US households owning a PC has doubled over the past three years, boosting the rate from 27% in 1995 to 50% last year.

The good news from these findings is that owners are now being reported from all economic segments of society. In the past, buyers were found to be primarily from those with higher incomes.

Another factor in the Web's growth and popularity is that it is less expensive for businesses to run ads, show product and communicate with customers via website than it is using traditional forms of advertising and print media.

All of these trends have helped to shape the Internet into a serious industry. Being online is no longer just a fad, it's becoming a necessity.

Diederich quoted the Internet Advertising Bureau as saying that last year was the first time Internet ad earnings exceeded the $1 billion mark.

In a break down of the findings, they discovered that 27% of the revenue generated was consumer related, 24% computing related, 16% financial services, 11% telecommunications and 7% new media.

All of these trends are contributing factors indicating that now is the time to jump on board or risk the possibility of being left standing in the dust.