INTERNET FACTS PART III

This final part in our series of articles about facts online looks at the mammoth volume of data transmitted online, some of the lesser known statistics about the history of the web and the biggest players in the world of eCommerce.

Again we've tried to put the figures into some form of reasoned context. The vast numbers involved are growing by the day, at a quite phenomenal rate. How long before we end up quoting the number of grains of sand on earth to put the internet into context? Come back in 5 years and we reckon we'll be there!

1. In the last year, over 78 Exabytes of data have been transmitted online. One Exabyte is 1,000 Petabytes. One Petabyte is 1000 Terabytes. One Terabyte is 1000 Gigabytes. One Gigabyte is 1000 Megabytes. Putting that into context, all the words ever spoken by human beings (in all languages), could be stored in approximately 5 Exabytes. So, that's a lot then!

2. In 2008, the USA spent $215 billion online.

3. The internet security company, Sophos, discovered a new infected web page (i.e. virus infected) every 4.5 seconds in 2008.

4. Addiction to the internet is now a recognised medical disorder. It is called IAD (Internet Addictive Disorder) or IOS (Internet Overuse Syndrome).

5. Google paid $900 million just to be the search provider on MySpace.

6. Amazon.com used to be called Cadabra.com. It was renamed because.

7. In the early days of search engines, Yahoo! listed search results alphabetically.

8. In 1998, a survey showed that the internet could be attributed to declines in social relationships and an increase in isolation. However, more recent studies by the same company now suggest the opposite. The internet is now said to have a positive impact on social and psychological well-being.

9. Approximately 30% of internet fraud victims are caught out by scam e-mails - the other 70% are largely conned through direct web access and, in particular, online auctions.

10. Amazon is the UK's favourite music and video retailer, and is the third most popular online retailer overall in the UK.

11. Amazon is the force behind web retail sites for a number of other big name brands. It operates websites for Target, Marks and Spencer, Sears Canada, Timex, Mothercare and Lacoste. They also power AOL's shop.

12. eBay is the UK's No.1 eCommerce site - a staggering 50% of UK internet users visit eBay once a month.

13. The average eBay UK visitor looks at 266 pages a month and spends 2 hours on the site.

14. eBay has 233 million registered users.

15. The most expensive item ever sold on eBay was a private jet - for $4.9 million.

It's no surprise that, in the UK alone, there are a collosal 298 Internet Service Providers (ISP's) vying for your business. You can still get standard dial up services (as in the old modem dial up services) but the vast majority now offered packaged broadband deals. As 1gb connection speeds are already available in cities like Tokyo, you can expect to see them in the household in the next 10 years.