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.

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 ;-)