Nielsen Report Says Internet Usage Flattening

Ant writes "This BetaNews story says an analysis of major Internet markets revealed that the time netizens spend online at home has come close to hitting a plateau in many major markets. Nielsen//NetRatings, a syndicated rating system for Internet audience measurement, measured markets in Brazil, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States and found them to be maturing. In contrast, Australia, France, Hong Kong, Italy and Japan experienced double-digit growth. According to Nielsen//NetRatings' press release (PDF) and current news story concluded that mature markets are in wait of "the next big thing" whereas emerging markets were rife with opportunity for companies online. Some of the growth engines cited in the report is the proliferation of broadband and societal changes in media consumption..."

"Internet Usage Flattening"

[bigtallmofo]

The headline of the BetaNews site seems misleading to me. Reading "Internet Usage Flattening", you might come to the conclusion that the use of the Internet is not growing.

It appears that the actual Nielson report is just showing that the amount of time an individual user spends on the Internet is not growing. They don't appear to be making any judgements as to additional users coming online.

From data that I have seen, there are a large number of older people that have no desire to use the internet - ever. As the older population that has never been exposed to the internet and never will dies, they will be replaced by people that grew up with an intimate knowledge of the internet providing substantial organic growth.

They are wrong usage is increasing

[konmaskisin]

All major telecoms now route calls over IP; massive private networks now exist that are based on IP technology; my stereo talks to my portable music player using IP.

The internet is one of the most valuable human made public goods on the planet and it must remain open and standards based.

Surveys that suggest that the internet is "over" or was a failed experiment because kids in the suburbs have stopped downloading music are not only wrong they have an ulterior motive.

Re:Does this mean we get to keep IPv4?

[gnuman99]

IPv4 fell apart long time ago. The problem is people don't see it. A parallel is if you go to heavily poluted areas like Bangladesh, where the leading cause of death for traffic cops is lung cancer, people will not see polution as a major concern! Even on days when you can't see half a mile thanks to smog, people say they need more roads and want a car. They don't even mention they want clean air and a quiet environment.

Exactly the same crap is occuring with IPv4. Sure, there is lots of IP addresses, if everyone gets one number that changes all the time. Then you have to be a second-class "internet citizen", always stuck behind a NAT. Want to run a game server? maybe some bittorrent? Then you have to jump though hoops forwarding freaking ports all the time.

And let's not get started with port scans, virus probes and spammers wasting your bandwith. And that's on a new IP address. Some places can get a GB/mo of crap like this.

IPv6 solves all of these problems. No more NAT cruft or virus scans. A new IP address, when not in use, is acutally *clean* (no traffic). IPv6 solve many, many more problems than just increase number of addresses.

Oh, most people might not know or care, but has anyone seen some of the enormous routing tables on the internet? IPv4 is soooo fragmented, that the routing tables are now a serious problem in scallability of the internet. And everyone is paying higher prices thanks to this.

Re:Switch to IPv6? Not gonna happen

[jrcamp]

As far as I'm concerned NAT is a workaround, not a solution to IP address shortages.

Internet usage is DISAPPEARING.

[IGnatius T Foobar]

Actually, it's getting to the point where Internet usage is impossible to measure/meter, because the Internet is increasingly woven directly into the fabric of our lives. The idea of sitting around and "using the Internet" is about as obsolete as the idea of turning on your modem and dialing into your ISP -- in other words, not obsolete yet, but definitely on its way there at a high speed (no pun intended).

We have AIM on our cell phones. Some of us have computers turned on 24/7 with the speakers turned up loud enough that we'll hear it anywhere in the house when we get new mail or someone in real time wants our attention. We have our telephones and even televisions integrated into the 'net now. Internet usage is everywhere, it's always on, and it's going to be impossible to say "I got online at 7:00 and I stayed online until 9:00."

Re:'linux distros'?

[CastrTroy]

Yes, it's kind of weird. People justify they're need for tons of bandwidth by the need to download linux distros. I'm using high-speed-lite, which is equlivalent to 5x dial-up. For the one time I need to download a distro maybe every 2 months (that's exagerrating, it does a fine job. I don't know what people are doing downloading a new distro every 4 days, but it seems a little unnecessary to me. In reality, you need about 1 distro a year.

Don't believe Nielsen

[Phayyde]

Nielsen are the guys that keep TV programming dumbed down by reporting that all consumers want to see is dancing poodles, reruns of sit-coms and bad news.

Don't believe anything you hear from Nielsen. Their studies are unscientific bunk. To the extent they are given credibility, they will dumb down the internet too.

Re:How?

[Doc Ruby]

With anonymity so important to Internet culture, especially compared to TV viewing, isn't their sample skewed, self-selected by willingness to be recorded? Wouldn't the most obsessive Net consumers, porn surfers, tend to bring the average way up, while also being the most underrepresented in their samples? And how do they rigorously account for differences in willingness to be logged, across cultures like East Asian and Western European? Maybe mostly the willingness to be recorded has saturated in the US.

Internet apathy and the thirst for knowledge

[CarpetShark]

From data that I have seen, there are a large number of older people that have no desire to use the internet - ever. Am I the only one astounded by some peoples' disinterest in the 'net? I mean... kings used to spend a fortune on what, today, would amount to a small local library. And they would consider that a huge resource, in the knowledge is power sense. I'm sure I recall historical tales about the quest for the sum of human knowledge. The Internet, by comparison, really is getting close to the sum of human knowledge, in the sheer variety of information available, the speed at which new events are documented by it, and the level of worldwide, interpersonal communication involved. I can't imagine anyone not wanting to spend time just seeing what's out there, unless they simply don't realise what's out there.

Japan has faster connections

[dweezeldude]

I think a lot of the growth in Japan is because the connections speeds are much faster. http://bbpromo.yahoo.co.jp/ There are more services such as TV. Japan is already pulling fiber into the home at + 100MBS. http://www.gate01.com/. And of course the wireless 3G networks. It is not uncommon to see mini laptops on trains with 3G Wireless cards at 380KBS. Of course the majority of cellphones are just used as Instant Messaging machines. You are not allowed to talk on cell phone on the commuter trains. It seems to me that the more bandwidth offered is realated to the services that are available. I would not be surprised to see Japan sustain the high growth rates for some time. There is currently a major battle in the media. It is complicated but basically the Internet firm Livedoor is buying up the old business of Radio and TV. The internet firm Livedoor is pursuing the marriage of interactive TV. Conversely, I think the US has reached a plateau on speeds and is still trying to get "High Speed" faster than 56KBS to the consumer. Until the US populace has breeched the boring aspect of waiting for content to load, I think usage will stay flat. If the US brings Fiber to the home there will be a similar effect of high growth rates.