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I call bullshit: one, two, three, four, many more. Perhaps your statistic about Denmark is true (I don't know) but you must have pulled the first figure out of your ass, and your wild speculations have no other ties to reality. Sorry.

Since I don't have any actual experience in selling advertising space on any of the sites I manage(d) I don't know what potential is out there. But, I do know that there was a study done a couple years ago on the effectiveness of Internet Advertising as compared to TV advertising. This study found that any viewing of an add on a website had the same impression value as a 30 second TV commercial(link). It seems to me that because of this, you could charge a flat fee for ad space based on the "lasting impression" that the ad makes on any viewer of the website. The hard part for you would probably be that it may require individual contracts with each advertiser instead of a contract with an ad company.

In a similar vein, you could charge a minimal amount on the number of "unique" views of the ad itself, something like a half cent per or whatever. This could be justified with the same argument that Internet ads have the same value as TV ads, billboards, etc., where you would get paid for people viewing it, not necessarily for people clicking through.

the average user still uses the internet for email, online banking, and news sites. (emphasis mine)

Um, I don't think the average user uses the internet for online banking. Nobody else that I know of does, and a statistic site claims that only 17% of Americans use online banking. Furthermore - although I only use those sites sparingly - I never had any problems banking with Mozilla. Thus, I feel that your concerns are overblown.

We are, in essense, the minority. The majority are those who need to be informed. The guys without computers, the guys without internet service.

You're several years behind the times. A substantial majority of US residents have internet access, see
statistics here.

Beware of statistics... This google graph is very good and someone else has quoted 5% of world wide web viewers are not IE
The internet statistics site estimates 605.60 million online so a litte itsy bitsy (statistically) 5% of that works out at 30.28 million NOT USING IE!

Anyway - besides the point really - it's an enterprise application - how many people (not percent) in the OP's organisation are using IE vs others - if that number is high enough, then go for IE, but make sure you generate standards compliant markup so the enterprises choice of browser is not down to bad coding, but down to features, ease of use, familiarity and other good reasons like that.

There are hardly hundreds of millions of internet users in the world, and only a small percentage of them use P2P file trading apps.

Why don't you take your own advice and "think through your numbers before you blurt them out like that." According to Nua Ltd. as of September 2002 there were 605 million internet users worldwide and I am sure there are more than that today.

The total number of world users of the internet was 605.60 million in 2002. (source: Nua Internet: How many users online)

Of course, not all will be using Windows and not all will be interested in purchasing goods but lets just take the figures for Europe, Asia/Pacific and America which is 560.82 million.

Assume that 90% of people use Windows and IE (which probably isn't too far off).

Therefore in total, the 30 million users that will be using AOL's Mozilla browser will be the ones standing out from a pool of 504.738 million. Put another way, for every 1 complaining AOL'er there will be 16 content people.

Whether this a big enough dent is up to the reader to decide.

Right now, on tdlp.org, there's 458 HOW-TO's and mini HOW-TO's, 826k of man pages (gzipped), and many various other faq's and articles. Google matches about 4 million records for "linux help". I think that it's fair to say that's a VERY big "manual" to search through, espessially if you don't know exactly what you're looking for (ie, "my network card doesn't work").

Like I originally said, and I see being echoed in other comments replying to the same parent, users want to use the computer. No one - except those of us that read /. - has interest in using another system (even if it's superior) if it means they have to spend hours and hours setting it up, tinkering, and reading thousands of lines of technical manuals.

OSDN claims 8.8 million unique visitors (probably a good number to use for the people that are "self-sufficient"). The world has around 6.2 billion people. Thats about 0.14% of the population of the planet that can solve their own computer problems. Obviously, thats not that fair, so saying there's about 605.60 million people on the internet, that's about 1.5% of people that can solve their own problems (interestingly, not far off from my 2% estimate :) ).

Is it really fair to expect those 596 million people to read all that documentation? Do you think they read everything on msdn.microsoft.com when they installed windows? Now try wondering why windows has such a huge market share...

PureFiction writes "Peer networks are gaining some attention these days given advances in much more decentralized search architectures and swarming distribution networks. Research has indicated that these decentralized networks are resistant to legal and technological attacks. The continued proliferation of broadband and wireless networking will ensure pervasive deployment of distributed peer networking infrastructure that will drive significant innovations in personal and community digital communications services."

AND FOR THOSE OF YOU IN A HURRY... A- R- T- I- C- L-
E-. -- S-
U- M- M-
A- R-
Y-

Whoa there a second.

There are several big problems with the treatment of internet access in the modern world.

One issue is that telcos and cable companies imitating telcos are in control of the market. These companies take the physical asset cost saving approach of assuming certain peak loads and usage patterns per customer per hour of the day. The problem is that internet service is not a static one use service like the telephone was originally. As deliverables and uses change and grow, so do the bandwidth needs. This messes with those lovely assumptions about how much time and how much data each customer will expend while using their connection. In fact when people started using modems in large numbers the telcos started crying about how it was screwing up their careful usage calaculations because a modem user staid online for hours when the usage rates were calculated for the average 3 minute phone call. The internet is not a bloody phone system. Deal with it. There is a ton of dark fiber laying around out there that is not being used despite having already been paid for and having the hardware to connect it all. Give me the fiber link to my bloody house and light all the fiber out there before you start charging me more based on poor customer usage predictions.

Another issue is that american buisness has a horrible case of short sightedness (encouraged greatly by the reactionary and short sighted tendencies of the stock market). Bandwidth does not incur huge ongoing costs. Bandwidth incurs a huge initial cost (the laying of fiber/copper, routing hardware; etc) followed by rather reasonable maintenance costs (in most cases cheaper than regular telco lines). There are three ways to recoup your losses from the initial setup:

1) Charge a huge amount of money for use of the service because (in a wonderful self fulfilling prophecy arrangement) you have decided that not enough users will purchase the service.

2) Charge a very low amount of money for the service in the hopes that you will gain enough customers fast enough to reduce cost of operation per customer.

3) Charge a moderate amount of money to attempt to get as much back initially as possible while not alienating an overly large chunk of your customer base with prohibitive rates.

For a while now providers have been going with option number 3 (which makes the most sense) and charging about $50 a month for high speed access.

The recent moves towards usage caps is mostly in reaction to hemoraging money from failed or miscalculated ventures elsewhere and is an attempt to belatedly go back to option nubmer 1. Option number 1 being a huge reason why ISDN never really took off despite being around for a long time.

Now this trick (basically a big bait and switch) of hooking customers at a moderate pricing scheme and then swapping it out for an expensive one will work in the short term, but it is ultimately going to wind up less profitable than charging a lower amount for services and increasing your customer base by nearly 10 times. Right now the US is way behind other countries in terms of broadband deployment. And it is not so much because the infrastructure isn't there. It's because the costs are still outside the comfort levels for most consumers.

Leave broadband unlimited at $50 for decent (read higher than 512Kbps downstream/128Kbps upstream) connections and add lower cost plans at $12-$20 per month for low speed (below 512/128Kbps) and you will see a huge jump in subscribers that will also even out your bandwidth usage per customer (most people don't eat nearly as much bandwidth as gamers and the like do) and allow you to expand services.

The below is way oversimplified, but helps illustrate the point a little.

Current US households with broadband is estimated at ~15 million. 15 million households with broadband now at $50/month = $750 million.

Assuming you would keep those subscribers (with no usage caps) but offer the lower speed (again with no caps)at around $20 and you can add the remaining US households (85 million of them) for an addition $1.7 billion a month.

This brings the theoretical total to $2.45 billion per month or $29.4 billion per year.

With 605.6 millions of internet users, worldwide (according to kadius) 1-2 one-thousandths of a percent that's still 6056 replies to spam. With that many replies and close to zero cost one could make a decent business... sadly

If this fellow had been a professional (earning money from these hacks), then he'd be living in a secret compound provided by his employers in Iraq/Korea/China. True, the internet bandwidth isn't that great there, but a good hacker doesn't need it.

Dsl reports has a nice article on how "South Korea has been officially crowned broadband champions of the world."
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/18147

This site also has another one...
http://www.nua.ie/surveys/?f=VS&art_id=905358189&r el=true

i also read somewhere that 2/3's of korea has at _least_ a 6mbps line into their homes.

Im just assuming whoever was paying him forgot to buy him his secret compound

What happens when they get hungry inside that compound?

Indian online population: 3.3 million.

Total world population online: 580 million.

So... they probably won't care that much. It just makes it a stupid move on the part of the Indian ISPs, who are facing a cash crunch due to shrinking subscriber numbers (see the first article).

Indian online population: 3.3 million.

Total world population online: 580 million.

So... they probably won't care that much. It just makes it a stupid move on the part of the Indian ISPs, who are facing a cash crunch due to shrinking subscriber numbers (see the first article).

According to this survey ofglobal and asian internet-connected systems the US/Can have 181M systems online vs 33M in china.

do the math: Current stats from the ISS say the ratio of systems is about the same as the reatio of attack traffic.

Attack traffic: CN=42291 / US 222907 = .1897

Connected sys's: cn=33M / us=181M = .1823

From following incidents.org and my own experience I'd say that .cn has a rep more becuase when you deal with an attack from asia in general the problems of contacting the admins to notify / etc are much more difficult.

My own experiences have been mixed, Contacting site owners in asia has been more spotty than for US/EC sites, and in the event of something serious its a lot more expensive to pick up the 'phone and call china to discuss a problem.

arin.net, ripe.net, apnic.net all work well for tracking down system owners, but the contact problems across continents remain.

According to this survey ofglobal and asian internet-connected systems the US/Can have 181M systems online vs 33M in china.

do the math: Current stats from the ISS say the ratio of systems is about the same as the reatio of attack traffic.

Attack traffic: CN=42291 / US 222907 = .1897

Connected sys's: cn=33M / us=181M = .1823

From following incidents.org and my own experience I'd say that .cn has a rep more becuase when you deal with an attack from asia in general the problems of contacting the admins to notify / etc are much more difficult.

My own experiences have been mixed, Contacting site owners in asia has been more spotty than for US/EC sites, and in the event of something serious its a lot more expensive to pick up the 'phone and call china to discuss a problem.

arin.net, ripe.net, apnic.net all work well for tracking down system owners, but the contact problems across continents remain.

• USA: 166 mio (32%)
• Europe: 155 mio (30%)
• Asia/Pacific: 144 mio (28%)
• Latin America: 25 mio (4,8%)
• Canada: 14 mio (2,7%)
• Rest: 9 mio (1,7%)

It's more like the streets, the railways, the telephone, the postal system... each country contributes for its own part.

Yes, TCP/IP may have been invented in the USA, while the WWW was invented in Europe, the telegraph was invented by an italian and the Diesel-engine by a german... but now we all use the technology, and there is no single "owner".

The Internet is not US-centric and neither should be so

I suspect porn probably peaked as share-of-sites five ir six years ago, when the net was mostly used by horny geekboydom, and not many other people.

The number of horny geekboys on the net has probably stayed close to the same, but women are now the majority of US Internet users, and the average age of net users is up too. (Can't find that stat.)

Enon

Most of comercial website in Malaysia is using english without having Malays version.
Take a look of this comparison from a survey survey from Nua.ie :-
1.5 Million Malaysian online and ONLY 40,000 for indonesian.

but take a look at Here at dmoz.org
Webiste on Malaysian is only 188
but website on Indonesian is 2,014

whose fault is it?

Most of comercial website in Malaysia is using english without having Malays version.
Take a look of this comparison from a survey survey from Nua.ie :-
1.5 Million Malaysian online and ONLY 40,000 for indonesian.

but take a look at Here at dmoz.org
Webiste on Malaysian is only 188
but website on Indonesian is 2,014

whose fault is it?

Just look at the Net access numbers. Less than 0.7 percent of the Arab world is online. South Africa and the Seychelles are the only parts of Africa with more than one percent penetration. The numbers aren't all that much better for South America, and, significantly, the world's most populous countries, China and India, lag behind the rest of Asia.

These percentages are not all that revealing, though. The important thing is the percentage of new Net users is climbing. In all those areas, the number of people with Net access is small, but the rate of increase is impressive.

Because of the infrastructure problems, only those who can afford Net access in each country spend money getting online. That means that only the very wealthy can reap the benefits of interconnectedness in those places - so, to answer your question, one of the early effects of Net access in many of these countries has been (and will continue be) the exacerbation of class disparities. We can only hope that will change, as Net access gets cheaper - but it will be terribly cruel for years as the impoverished around the globe see the fruits of the Net dangling in front of them, just beyond grasp.

There are other interesting implications, like the effects on cultural understanding. James Burke commented in an interview some years ago that he hoped the Internet would have the effect of forcing Americans to see how different the rest of the world is. I haven't noticed the kind of cultural broadening he imagined, but it may be forced upon other nations. So much of the Internet is in English, and so many important services and products originate in the English-speaking world, that late-comers to the Net may find their cultural identity under attack. One hopes that cultural-specific Net services will arise to meet their needs.

And, finally, there is little evidence as yet of the Net's liberalizing political influence. In fact, we are still in the awful early stage, where countries like China are placing stringent restrictions on Net access and are deciding which Web sites are acceptable for their population. Hopefully, this will diminish with time, but it is possible that these regimes may just grow more desperate as their control of information wanes - and desperation can lead to dangerous unpredictability.

We've got some more articles posted on our Equity page.

A. Keiper

Just look at the Net access numbers. Less than 0.7 percent of the Arab world is online. South Africa and the Seychelles are the only parts of Africa with more than one percent penetration. The numbers aren't all that much better for South America, and, significantly, the world's most populous countries, China and India, lag behind the rest of Asia.

These percentages are not all that revealing, though. The important thing is the percentage of new Net users is climbing. In all those areas, the number of people with Net access is small, but the rate of increase is impressive.

Because of the infrastructure problems, only those who can afford Net access in each country spend money getting online. That means that only the very wealthy can reap the benefits of interconnectedness in those places - so, to answer your question, one of the early effects of Net access in many of these countries has been (and will continue be) the exacerbation of class disparities. We can only hope that will change, as Net access gets cheaper - but it will be terribly cruel for years as the impoverished around the globe see the fruits of the Net dangling in front of them, just beyond grasp.

There are other interesting implications, like the effects on cultural understanding. James Burke commented in an interview some years ago that he hoped the Internet would have the effect of forcing Americans to see how different the rest of the world is. I haven't noticed the kind of cultural broadening he imagined, but it may be forced upon other nations. So much of the Internet is in English, and so many important services and products originate in the English-speaking world, that late-comers to the Net may find their cultural identity under attack. One hopes that cultural-specific Net services will arise to meet their needs.

And, finally, there is little evidence as yet of the Net's liberalizing political influence. In fact, we are still in the awful early stage, where countries like China are placing stringent restrictions on Net access and are deciding which Web sites are acceptable for their population. Hopefully, this will diminish with time, but it is possible that these regimes may just grow more desperate as their control of information wanes - and desperation can lead to dangerous unpredictability.

We've got some more articles posted on our Equity page.

A. Keiper

Just look at the Net access numbers. Less than 0.7 percent of the Arab world is online. South Africa and the Seychelles are the only parts of Africa with more than one percent penetration. The numbers aren't all that much better for South America, and, significantly, the world's most populous countries, China and India, lag behind the rest of Asia.

These percentages are not all that revealing, though. The important thing is the percentage of new Net users is climbing. In all those areas, the number of people with Net access is small, but the rate of increase is impressive.

Because of the infrastructure problems, only those who can afford Net access in each country spend money getting online. That means that only the very wealthy can reap the benefits of interconnectedness in those places - so, to answer your question, one of the early effects of Net access in many of these countries has been (and will continue be) the exacerbation of class disparities. We can only hope that will change, as Net access gets cheaper - but it will be terribly cruel for years as the impoverished around the globe see the fruits of the Net dangling in front of them, just beyond grasp.

There are other interesting implications, like the effects on cultural understanding. James Burke commented in an interview some years ago that he hoped the Internet would have the effect of forcing Americans to see how different the rest of the world is. I haven't noticed the kind of cultural broadening he imagined, but it may be forced upon other nations. So much of the Internet is in English, and so many important services and products originate in the English-speaking world, that late-comers to the Net may find their cultural identity under attack. One hopes that cultural-specific Net services will arise to meet their needs.

And, finally, there is little evidence as yet of the Net's liberalizing political influence. In fact, we are still in the awful early stage, where countries like China are placing stringent restrictions on Net access and are deciding which Web sites are acceptable for their population. Hopefully, this will diminish with time, but it is possible that these regimes may just grow more desperate as their control of information wanes - and desperation can lead to dangerous unpredictability.

We've got some more articles posted on our Equity page.

A. Keiper

Just look at the Net access numbers. Less than 0.7 percent of the Arab world is online. South Africa and the Seychelles are the only parts of Africa with more than one percent penetration. The numbers aren't all that much better for South America, and, significantly, the world's most populous countries, China and India, lag behind the rest of Asia.

These percentages are not all that revealing, though. The important thing is the percentage of new Net users is climbing. In all those areas, the number of people with Net access is small, but the rate of increase is impressive.

Because of the infrastructure problems, only those who can afford Net access in each country spend money getting online. That means that only the very wealthy can reap the benefits of interconnectedness in those places - so, to answer your question, one of the early effects of Net access in many of these countries has been (and will continue be) the exacerbation of class disparities. We can only hope that will change, as Net access gets cheaper - but it will be terribly cruel for years as the impoverished around the globe see the fruits of the Net dangling in front of them, just beyond grasp.

There are other interesting implications, like the effects on cultural understanding. James Burke commented in an interview some years ago that he hoped the Internet would have the effect of forcing Americans to see how different the rest of the world is. I haven't noticed the kind of cultural broadening he imagined, but it may be forced upon other nations. So much of the Internet is in English, and so many important services and products originate in the English-speaking world, that late-comers to the Net may find their cultural identity under attack. One hopes that cultural-specific Net services will arise to meet their needs.

And, finally, there is little evidence as yet of the Net's liberalizing political influence. In fact, we are still in the awful early stage, where countries like China are placing stringent restrictions on Net access and are deciding which Web sites are acceptable for their population. Hopefully, this will diminish with time, but it is possible that these regimes may just grow more desperate as their control of information wanes - and desperation can lead to dangerous unpredictability.

We've got some more articles posted on our Equity page.

A. Keiper

Here are some thoughts on MP3 and the music biz, which I sent to Nua's Trendmuncher list a while back, which may be of interest.

I saw a strategy report about the "information superhighway" and its impact on the major labels which fell off the back of an ad agency a friend worked for. It basically discussed disintermediation and the opportunity for artists to go direct once they'd gained exposure via the labels. Labels have very little brand equity - the consumer doesn't care whether their favourite band is on Sony or PolyGram. The report recommended that labels take ownership of the musical brand, and to increase creation of "talent-independent brands", which I thought was pretty amusing.

What happens to talent in this scenario? Niche markets are getting bigger, sure. These niche, virtual markets have always existed in some sense. The various forms of dance music take this to a new level, relying on home-recording and word-of-mouth marketing, and they're building new musical economies which operate outside the record industry distribution systems.

But I don't think the labels are shaking in their boots around MP3. Sure, a large part of their business model is based on controlling distribution, and MP3 doesn't allow that. But neither does audio cassette tape. There's a lot of music in the world, and the labels have a powerful, vertically-integrated infrastructure (label-publishing-magazine-TV-Radio-retail-games-e tc.) for defining a consensus musical reality around a small part of that world of music. Working in music retail taught me that most music consumers do not want to filter through everything that's there to work out what they like, any more than they want to configure their computer operating systems or customise their car. Another factor is that music consumption is often a social experience - you want to be able to talk to your friends about the music you like, especially if you're a young person using music as one of your forms of subcultural differentiation. That requires consensus reality.

Labels don't "discover talent" and release it. They supply well-defined and segmented markets with a measured stream of product. Sometimes talent exists with that product half-there, requiring only a bit of tidying up. Other times it's easier to sit some pretty girls down with a songwriter, a producer and a video-maker and generate it that way. Sure, not everything makes money, and occasionally something crashes into another market segment (like Gorecki). But generally the labels have a well worked out procedure for getting people to like and buy stuff, which isn't very "talent-dependent".

I see popular music and MP3 as kind of analagous to cinema and video. The video revolution allowed wider distribution for a lot of new forms of "film-making", and even the opportunity for distribution of pirated home-taped versions of big name movies. But people spend more than ever on the experience of seeing a piece of Hollywood cinema when it comes out.

The major labels and other big media companies understand that experience. They may not understand the Internet very well, but then neither does your average music consumer. Even if the labels take a year to get SDMI (or something like it) working, they've got enough mass properties locked up in tight contracts to make consumers want to pay for the experience of their product.

My dad's fond of the expression "there's little in the world which can't be overcome by brute force and ignorance." The labels still have the brute force (global brand creation). They're starting to lose their ignorance.

Danny

Internet Commerce -- http://aerial.icvp.com

I am an African and a daily slashdotter and I like OSS and all that good stuff. However, I have been dissapointed by the tone of some guys who seem to think that Africans are (1) Not on the internet (2)Do not need to be on the internet.

This is all about communication people! Do you think there is anyone who doesn't need more ability to communicate? How could that possibly be negative?

For a report on the existing infrastructure check out this

As to the people who say we should deal with the food supply first .... Man!! What kind of economics is that? How can you deal with one issue in isolation to others? So we just stop all economic activity/life and concentrate on agriculture for oh 50 years or so. Puh - leaze!!
How realistic is that? Overall economic growth will increase income and opportunities for a lot of people and be a much more long term solution than airlifting another aid package.

To the people who ask "do African really want this?" I can only speak for the people I know and the answer is DEFINITELY YES!! I don't know one African no matter how radical anti - west etc. who would be against this kind of development. OK not everyone knows about the Internet, but even the "average guy on the street" knows that (1) its brand new amazing technology (2) Its good for the continent's economy and will make it more attractive for international business.

Who would be against that?

For the guy who who said something like "AFRICA HAS A LOT OF F*** PROBLEMS!! So don't even try to deny it!" Hey, nice to see you know the glass is half empty. Sure they are problems, but what continent doesn't have problems? What exactly is the thrust of that particular argument? Problems exist and they should be dealt with, and stronger Telecommmunications infrastructure is part of the solution.

Well, thats the end of my rant.

I can't wait for this thing to become operational!

Robert Rwebangira

NUA has a good section for information on the proliferation of the internet on the African Subcontinent.