The future of your business; think internet
Businesses of all size need to heed the call of the internet. It is the future of commerce and the choice destination of a new generation.
In the 2007 Digital Future Project, authored by the USC-Annenberg School Center for the Digital Future, 43% of respondents reported feeling the same about their on-line community as their real life community. The internet is becoming and has become an integral part of many people’s lives.
The Digital Future Project also found that in 2006, the number of Internet users in America who keep a blog had more than doubled since 2003 to 7.4%. The influence of those blogs has been instrumental in creating a new source of news and views.
According to market research firm, comScore Networks, the number of internet users worldwide rose 10% in just one year. The U.S. led with the greatest numbers-153 million. China followed with 86.7 million, which was a 20% year over year increase. Even stronger growth was found in India with 21.1 million users, a 33% increase!
What does this mean for the future of individuals and companies? As an internet-savvy generation matures, more activity and more commerce will occur in cyberspace. This will prove to be a bonanza for tech-focused companies utilizing the internet to transact business.
The Pew Internet & American Life Project found that 39% of adult internet users used the internet to search for a good place to live. In the 18 to 29 age group, that number rose to 50%. This data is of great importance, indicating that internet users are willing to trust the internet for one of life’s most important decisions. This portends a comfort level in those people who have grown up with the internet that was nowhere to be found a decade ago in the same age group.
MySpace, the social networking and journal cyberspace community, passed the 100 million user mark in 2006. A great many MySpace users are in their teens and twenties with just as many in their thirties. The success of MySpace is testament to the growing dependence on the internet for a new generation.
Another popular internet destination is YouTube. YouTube, which was bought last year by Google, is a video-sharing mega site. Those who use the YouTube website can upload videos, while viewers of the videos can rate them. The number of views of each video is recorded on the same webpage. YouTube has surpassed MySpace in the number of visits it gets daily. Like MySpace, the average user is a teen.
As the YouTube and MySpace generation reaches the age of consumerism, their comfort level and dependence on the internet will usher in a new era of on-line revenue and focus for corporations and small business. Cyber businesses will eventually surpass brick and mortar businesses as the destination of choice for goods and services. Companies that want to capture the biggest fish in the pond will need rich content for their websites. The new generation of web-shoppers will be a discerning bunch.
Copyright 2007 K Richard Douglas
