2001 UCLA Internet Census

Merry_B.Buck writes: "UCLA's Center for Communication Policy has finished its second annual survey on Internet usage. Some interesting claims: online shoppers believe prices are lower in brick-and-mortar stores, and experienced Interneters are less likely to use chatrooms, play games, and download music than their newbie counterparts. An unrelated report from Forrester Research claims that Internet newcomers tend to gather at LookSmart and MSN portals, while old-timers prefer InfoSpace and Yahoo. [I'm suspicious of both surveys -- neither had a Cowboy Neal option.]"

Comments

Niche Market

[kawaichan]

Online will always be serving the niche market, not the mainstream, I mean I rather drive down to the nearest futureshop to get my stuff rather ording it online and have to wait for it.

If oldies don't download music, p0rn, what do we do? paying 40 bucks a month just for slashdot?

I personally don't use any of those crappy portals, Google all the way!!!

Charts?

[The Great Wakka]

One of the charts looks like this, I kid you not...

All of the different education levels rose in percentage from 2000 to 2001! Apparently in 2001 381.7% of people on the internet had some level of education... hmm...

survey techniques.

[Alien54]

somehow surveys that just ast what a person does without asking how they feel seems a little off base.

a better example is one I 've seen at radio free nation, where the current survey asks if you stongly support the war, or is it worried support, or relectant support, or conversly strongly oppose, or is it worries opposition, or reluctant oppsition.

There's a bunch of folks who think everyone's crazy!

This woould show soft the support for a position is. I can imagine a similar survey on the internet experience, Micorsoft, or Open source, or whatever.

How many people would have reluctant support of Microsoft, or are frustrated by their ISP?

more than one way to skin a cat.

Growth of the Internet itself

[bstadil]

These report is pure drivel. There is a very interesting report / Rebuttal from Odlyzko of University of Minnesota about the growth of the Internet itself. It seems that the numbers banted around is between 400% year and Zero. Second the makers of these reports can't do basic math.

Re:MSN is only popular

[HMC CS Major]

because it's the default homepage for Internet Explorer, and as we all know, 90% of people don't bother to change their defaults Unless you buy your computer from an OEM, such as HP, which sets their startup page to a yahoo based, but HP customized portal.

Online shopping *can* be more expensive...

[bnavarro]

...If you have to pay for both sales tax AND shipping.

I have found living in California, where many of the e-tailers are, that having to pay CA sales tax (& sometimes even being forced to pay the higher Los Angeles city rate, even though I don't live there), and having to pay $2-$5 for Shipping & Handling per item, totally wipes out any online discount off of the retail price for a product.

See, B&M Stores do bulk shipping from major distributors, so the actual shipping cost is low enough to them so that they can "eat" the cost -- actually, the cost winds up being built into the retail price nicely for them (Plus, you pay the cost for the "final mile" shipping, by driving the merchandise to your house).

Online stores don't have that luxury. Their shipping costs are much higher. So they have to tack on the shipping costs, or lose a bundle, and go dot-bomb up.

I have no problem with this. But, when I am also forced to pay sales tax, the price of the product is likely to be un-competitive with the final B&M price, even though they have to charge sales tax too.

So every time I hear mom & pop stores and state governors whining about lost revenue to Internet sales, it really boils my pot. Because if they have their way, and ALL Internet sales are charged state sales tax regardless of point of origin (to say nothing if the govt. one day decides to levy a special federal level Internet tax on purchases), all online shopping will be un-competetive price wise, and nobody will buy anything online except for those hard-to-find items. And guess what, people? those hard-to-find items won't be there if companies can't make money off of common items as well!

What about Pricewatch / Shopper / etc?

[Hobart]

Brick and mortar stores have cheaper prices than online, eh?

• I guess that
• these sites have
• a lot to learn
• about that then ;-)

Who Did They Survey?

[Amerist]

How did this Internet surveys even get off of the ground? While MSN and Yahoo are certainly two of the most prominent search-engines around I myself still shun Yahoo because of its commercialism and MSN because I never know if I can trust the outcome of what I'm searching for.

Ever since I first discovered AltaVista I used it over Yahoo. Then, ever since I discovered Google I used it over Altavista. One would expect that as an Internet user "matured" they would move away from gaudy directory services and see the appeal of a less complex and more raw interface that brings them more direct information like Google.

I find it extremely hard to believe that Google didn't show up in the top two of "mature" Internet users.

(Of course being able to set my language to Gaelic on Google didn't hurt either.)

Amerist.