the Web Chef's e-Bytes

Global Nibblets - China and elsewhere

ClickZ reports on research by Point Topic reports that China has now passed the U.S. in terms of the number of broadband subscribers.  This isn't surprising given the relative population size of each country, but is an interesting indicator of the changing web penetration rates around the world. 

ClickZ also reported on Nielsen data showing that active Internet users actually declined between August and September 2008 in the U.S., Switzerland, Japan, Germany and the U.K.   It will be interesting to see the October and November statistics, which should reflect the intense worldwide interest in political news and the Obama campaign and subsequent win.  

Web Tidbits - IE and Internet Status

The Global Information Technology Report was released today.  The report prepared by INSEAD and sponsored by the World Economic Forum ranked the U.S. as fourth in Internet infrastructure following Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland.  China advanced in the rankings to 57th.  Other country rankings show up in their table "The Networked Readiness Table 2007 - 2008".  Ranking at the bottom of the list was Chad.  The Executive Summary of the report finds a world of growing interconnectivity with Less Developed Countries leapfrogging older technologies with the installation of WiMax. 

In other interesting statistics, Forrester Research reported a precipitous drop in Internet Explorer's market share with a drop of 11% in 2007 from 88.7% to 77.7% as Mozilla Firefox continued to gain share not only in the consumer market, but also in the enterprise market according to Information Week.  The article also reported that many companies had not migrated to IE7 sticking with the less robust IE6.

Declining Growth in Broadband

The Wall Street Journal has an article "Is High Speed Internet Growth Slowing" that shows that the growth in broadband home users shrank to 1.2 million in the last quarter, a decline of 21% over the same quarter last year.  According to the article over 50% of homes have broadband access, leading to the number of new subscribers is flattening out.  In other broadband penetration datam, Pew Internet reported in their June 2007 Home Broadband Adoption Study that 47% of all adult Americans have broadband access at home, a number that lags in the rural areas where only 31% have broadband access.  They also reported that 40% of African Americans now have broadband access.

Of some concern for marketers is that the U.S. now stands 25th in the world in terms of broadband penetration at 50.1% of households lagging #1 South Korea at 89%, our Canadian neighbors #11 at 63% and even France at 55.5% according to a chart compiled by Point Topic and WebsiteOpitmization.com.  This lower number could mean that aggressive plans to utilize video, audio, podcasts or other web 2.0 technologies could be stymied by the lower penetration rates depending on the segments that companies are trying to reach.

Pew Internet on Online Video Trends

Pew Internet has released their latest research findings on the use of online video.  According to the research report (PDF), 57% of Americans have downloaded online video with 19% doing so on a daily basis.  Not too surprisingly, the numbers are even higher among those using broadband Internet access at home or work where 74% of users watch or download online video.

In terms of content types that were being watched news video was number 1, followed by comedy, music and education.  The research also found that more than half of users watching video were sharing the video clips with others showcasing the viral or word of mouth marketing aspect of this medium.  In addition it was found that few users were paying for online video and preferred professionally produced video to user generated content.

With the CNN Youtube Democratic presidential debates that were recently held we can see how even in politics online video is taking off.

Web Tidbits - Broadband & B2B

Broadband
ClickZ reports on research from Nielsen Net Ratings showing that 78% of Americans are now using broadband to access the Internet.  Average times spent online for broadband users in November were 34 hours and 50 minutes online vs. the narrowband usage of 26 hours and 13 minutes.

B2B Video Channel for Construction Pros
ClickZ also reported on the launch of Cygnus Business Media's new "YouTube" like video channel sponsored by Caterpillar and targeting the construction industry.  The video channel "Forconstructionpros.com" allows manufacturers to pay to post their promotional videos and demos.  When I looked at the site I found that it was missing various useful functions that you find on other video sites like providing the code to allow for embeding a clip into a blog like this one.

Global Tastings - China & Latin America

This is the first of periodic postings on what is happening around the world with Internet utilization, trends and marketing activities.  Keep your eye on "Global Tastings" for future postings of interest.

CHINA
CNN reports on the growth of Chinese web usage with 123 million Chinese now online and 788,400 websites in China according to the China Internet Network Information Center.  77 million or 2/3 of Chinese are now using broadband services.  See my other recent posting on broadband in the USA and elsewhere in the world.

LATIN AMERICA
An e-Marketer study reviewed on iMedia Connection on the growth of the Internet and Broadband utilization in Latin America had some interesting facts:

% of the population online

• Argentina - 24.9%
• Brazil - 16.4%
• Chile - 37.1%
• Mexico - 22.2%

Broadband Growth 2004 to 2005

• Latin America - 77%
• Western Europe -  42.2
• Asia Pacific - 37.7%
• US - 27.7%
• Canada - 18.3%

Broadband Trends

Catalogo 2006 - 01
Originally uploaded by Gerard Girbes.

Internet Retailer reports that nearly 70% of American homes subscribe to an Internet service with 60% of those using high speed broadband access according to research conducted by the Leichtman Research Group.  The research also indicated a growing interest in broadband among those currently using narrow band access.  Anecdotally I can report that my 85 year old father has just converted to broadband access.

Meanwhile eMarketer reported that residential broadband prices around the world are continuing to drop.  They also indicate that prices in North America are about "6 times that paid in Japan or South Korea and 4 times that paid in France.  Spain and Hong Kong reportedly had the highest costs for 1 Mbps of bandwidth at $13.44 and $7.69 respectively.

Pardon Me, but what REALLY are the facts?

Statistics have always fascinated and repelled me.  I hated my undergraduate statistics class and muddled my way through my graduate class with a far better teacher and book to help me along the way.  If I had been more attracted to statistics, I might have pursued my PhD...

The fascination comes about with data and how the questions asked, methodology used, population studied, sample size selected, time period of the research, researcher bias etc. can all lead to different results. 

The latest W I D E discrepancy in Internet statistics has to do with data on broadband and Internet access penetration.  The General Accounting Office (GAO) in a recently published report (GAO 06-426, May 2006) reported that about 30 million American households have adopted broadband and that 41% of American homes do not have Internet access.  Their data was compiled by analyzing Knowledge Network/SRI's "The Home Technology Monitor: Spring 2005 Ownership and Trend Report".  This data is somewhat different then the Nielsen/NetRatings data (Press Release March 14, 2006) that shows that 74% of American homes have Internet Access (which I think would imply that only 26% DO NOT have Internet Access) and that of these 68% use broadband an increase of 13% over 2005.  This represented 95.5 million active users from home.

I suspect some of the discrepancy has to do with the timing of the two study samples - Spring 2005 vs. Feb 2006.  However, the numbers give me pause, as I look at current Government data showing a less evolved market and private industry data showing a rapidly evolving market with the subsequent consequences to marketing and communications planning.

Where do you think Internet and Broadband penetration are currently at?

U.S. Technology Laggard?

Lately there have been various reports indicating that the U.S. is falling behind in the adoption of new technology.  The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reports that while the United States has the largest number of broadband subscribers at 49.3 million, it ranks 13th in broadband subscribers per 100 inhabitants with 16.8/100.  This trails countries like Iceland ranked # 1, Korea # 2 and Canada # 8 (the number one country in the G7). 

The bigger part of the story is the transition to new fiber-based connections in countries like Japan and South Korea who are seeing declines in DSL and Cable connections as a result.  These newer connections will allow even greater data throughput.  It is estimated that on a monthly basis the average American generates 1 gigabyte of traffic, while Koreans generate 5.5 gigabytes according to the Economic Strategy Institute (ESI).

ESI has published a report called "America's Technology at Risk" that states that in terms of wireless cell phone technology adoption the U.S. is ranked #42 in the world.  The report also reviews the declining R&D investments by American telcos.

Analysts suggest that this growing disparity is in part due to government policies in other countries encouraging standardization, growth and delivery of services versus our laissez faire business model.  This in turn has led businesses to be more willingly to invest in newer business ventures and technologies that capitalize on the more advanced technology. 

These leapfrog nations could find themselves technologically far ahead of the United States as we continue to rely on legacy technologies and under-invest in the continued growth of critical infrastructure.