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

Price

[Jonathan]

Having a lower price isn't really the advantage of Internet shopping -- the point is that brick-and-mortar stores quite often don't have the products you want. I simply can't find the books, movies, or CDs I want to buy locally, so I buy on-line.

Re:Price

[Lars T.]

And on behalf of all the privacy paranoids out there: they don't know who bought what.

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...

MSN is only popular

[Starship Trooper]

because it's the default homepage for Internet Explorer, and as we all know, 90% of people don't bother to change their defaults. I wonder how many of those MSN hits are people who actually stay on the site, compared to those who just let IE load it up on startup then immediately go somewhere else.

yeah right

[vsync64]

online shoppers believe prices are lower in brick-and-mortar stores

Working in a brick-and-mortar store, let me just tell you:

HAHAHAHAHA!

We routinely sell items for at least twice the PriceWatch price. And people continue to buy from us.

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.

Old Timers vs. Newbies

[GreenHell]

*cough* *cough* I would like to point something out about this article vs. the item it points to, and I quote:

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.

While I haven't reached the stats on online shopping yet (at 95 pages, this thing is massive), but I would like to point out to the submitter of this article a few stats from one of the charts (new users (those less than one year) and very experienced users (five or more years in 2001) that is located on page 18):

1. Chatrooms:
   • New users: 6.5%
   • Experienced users: 1.6%
2. Games:
   • New Users: 5.7%
   • Experienced Users: 2.8%
3. Download Music:
   • New Users: 2.0%
   • Experienced Users: 2.8%

Now, last time I checked, 2.8% > 2.0%, so while, yes, newbies do play games and hang around chat rooms more (geez, they had to do a survey of that? I could have told them that), it seems that the 'old-timers' are (slightly) more likely to download music.

So let this be a lesson for you: Always make sure your facts are correct when submitting an article, it's a little less embarrasing.

Portals?

[The Ape With No Name]

MSN

Looksmart

InfoSpace

Yahoo

Personally, my portal is Google for searching, Mutt and Sendmail for messaging, and /. for lameness....

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.

How to Spin Surveys

[Alien54]

The suggestion that comes to my mind is, "strongly" and "weakly" are weasel words that the surveyors can use to nudge the outcomes of the survey any way they like.

Mosty professional surveys by politcal consultants do that anyhow, by prefixing the survey question with biased viewpoints.

For Example:

1. Are you in favor of Advancing Technology?
2. Are you in favor of Innovation?
3. Are you in favor of Making Computers Easier to Use?
4. Would you consider supporting Microsoft if I told you that Microsoft was a Leader in Innovation, Advancing Technology, and Making Computers Easier to Use?

You would? Could you sign this petition?

End result: Most People support Microsft for being a Leader in Innovation, for Advancing Technology, and Making Computers Easier to Use

You can see how the biase was applied. you list out all the good things that people agree with, then align your candidate, product, company etc with the desired characteristics. This is far more complex then finding out how people really feel about something. But most posters are truly clueless about reading human emotion, and so you use a simply list.

For example "Strongly supporting the war " covers a world of sins, including Strongly supporting with an Evil Laff, or with Anger, or with Pain, or with Joy (happy to go to war) or what ever.

So it really depends on what the purpose of the survey is. Simply put while a majority of Americans do support the war, many do so with some kind of second thoughts. It is definitely not "Rah Rah Rah!" for this whole thing.

While surveys should ask what you "need to know", what you think you need to know, and what you really need to know often differ. To say that 90% of the people support the war is misleading if you do not know that many people have reservation, and will cut someone to ribbons when they start to really screw up.