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Nielsen Report Says Internet Usage Flattening

Posted by timothy on from the adding-to-the-divide dept.

Ant writes "This BetaNews story says an analysis of major Internet markets revealed that the time netizens spend online at home has come close to hitting a plateau in many major markets. Nielsen//NetRatings, a syndicated rating system for Internet audience measurement, measured markets in Brazil, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States and found them to be maturing. In contrast, Australia, France, Hong Kong, Italy and Japan experienced double-digit growth. According to Nielsen//NetRatings' press release (PDF) and current news story concluded that mature markets are in wait of "the next big thing" whereas emerging markets were rife with opportunity for companies online. Some of the growth engines cited in the report is the proliferation of broadband and societal changes in media consumption..."

16 of 105 comments (clear)

  1. My internet usage has leveled off, too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Apparently it's impossible to average more than 24 hours online a day.

    1. Re:My internet usage has leveled off, too by datastalker · · Score: 3, Funny

      Plus, since you apparently never sleep, you'll be dead in a week. ;)

      --
      Find out about the Lexus Rx400h Hybrid!
    2. Re:My internet usage has leveled off, too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      But at least I'll die happy in the knowledge I got first post on Slashdot. In fact, I want that on my gravestone.

      Anonymous Coward
      1977-2005
      First Post

    3. Re:My internet usage has leveled off, too by johannesg · · Score: 3, Funny
      You may be interested in my proposal for a 32 hour day, then. You'll get a few hours of sleep extra (in the middle of the day), and since we'll keep the 8-hour working day there will be a lot of hours to spend on actually doing interesting things, such as downloading and burning even more stuff you'll never find the time to look at.

      Who's with me?

  2. Does this mean we get to keep IPv4? by Nice2Cats · · Score: 3, Interesting
    After all the song and dance about how we all have to switch to IPv6 because we are running out of numbers right now, or tomorrow, or next week for sure, does this mean that we can stick with IPv4 instead?

    I'm still waiting for things to fall apart with IPv4...

    1. Re:Does this mean we get to keep IPv4? by gnuman99 · · Score: 5, Insightful
      IPv4 fell apart long time ago. The problem is people don't see it. A parallel is if you go to heavily poluted areas like Bangladesh, where the leading cause of death for traffic cops is lung cancer, people will not see polution as a major concern! Even on days when you can't see half a mile thanks to smog, people say they need more roads and want a car. They don't even mention they want clean air and a quiet environment.

      Exactly the same crap is occuring with IPv4. Sure, there is lots of IP addresses, if everyone gets one number that changes all the time. Then you have to be a second-class "internet citizen", always stuck behind a NAT. Want to run a game server? maybe some bittorrent? Then you have to jump though hoops forwarding freaking ports all the time.

      And let's not get started with port scans, virus probes and spammers wasting your bandwith. And that's on a new IP address. Some places can get a GB/mo of crap like this.

      IPv6 solves all of these problems. No more NAT cruft or virus scans. A new IP address, when not in use, is acutally *clean* (no traffic). IPv6 solve many, many more problems than just increase number of addresses.

      Oh, most people might not know or care, but has anyone seen some of the enormous routing tables on the internet? IPv4 is soooo fragmented, that the routing tables are now a serious problem in scallability of the internet. And everyone is paying higher prices thanks to this.

  3. Time online in February? by wasted · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The statistics in the news article show time online in February 2005. I would expect a decline in time online compared to February 2004, since February 2004 had 29 days and February 2005 had 28 days.

    Then again, maybe they compensated for that descrepancy when computing their statistics.

  4. How? by KillerDeathRobot · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How do they get these net-ratings? A cursory glance of their website didn't reveal much. Is it the same way they get tv ratings? Like, where they send you a little book to fill out and 5 dollars for your time?

    --
    Thinkin' Lincoln - a web comic of presidential proportions
  5. "Internet Usage Flattening" by bigtallmofo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The headline of the BetaNews site seems misleading to me. Reading "Internet Usage Flattening", you might come to the conclusion that the use of the Internet is not growing.

    It appears that the actual Nielson report is just showing that the amount of time an individual user spends on the Internet is not growing. They don't appear to be making any judgements as to additional users coming online.

    From data that I have seen, there are a large number of older people that have no desire to use the internet - ever. As the older population that has never been exposed to the internet and never will dies, they will be replaced by people that grew up with an intimate knowledge of the internet providing substantial organic growth.

    --
    I'm a big tall mofo.
  6. Less use for me. by SteveXE · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I use the net alot less now, got a girlfriend that keeps me happy (as opposed to my ex who kept me miserable), ever since I met her the internet has lost its boredom killing magic and has since become a source of boredom. Of course i still visit /. many times a day, I am still a geek after all.

    1. Re:Less use for me. by madaxe42 · · Score: 4, Funny

      I use the net alot less now, got a girlfriend that keeps me happy

      I generally use some kind of pit to catch mine...

  7. Re:The Plateau by Matthaeus · · Score: 4, Funny

    A lot of home computers are also working on things like DDoS attacks and spamming.

  8. Re:Internet and TV by MyDixieWrecked · · Score: 4, Funny

    "mature markets?"

    "next big thing?"

    hmmmm... yeah, pr0n does spur growth in whatever it gets into.

    wait, that sounded dirty.

    --



    ...spike
    Ewwwwww, coconut...
  9. Internet usage is DISAPPEARING. by IGnatius+T+Foobar · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Actually, it's getting to the point where Internet usage is impossible to measure/meter, because the Internet is increasingly woven directly into the fabric of our lives. The idea of sitting around and "using the Internet" is about as obsolete as the idea of turning on your modem and dialing into your ISP -- in other words, not obsolete yet, but definitely on its way there at a high speed (no pun intended).

    We have AIM on our cell phones. Some of us have computers turned on 24/7 with the speakers turned up loud enough that we'll hear it anywhere in the house when we get new mail or someone in real time wants our attention. We have our telephones and even televisions integrated into the 'net now. Internet usage is everywhere, it's always on, and it's going to be impossible to say "I got online at 7:00 and I stayed online until 9:00."

    --
    Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
  10. Well of course it's fattening... by starwed · · Score: 3, Funny

    Sitting around all day doing nothing but playing warcraft and looking at porn doesn't burn too many calries... oops, misread the headline. :)

  11. Don't believe Nielsen by Phayyde · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Nielsen are the guys that keep TV programming dumbed down by reporting that all consumers want to see is dancing poodles, reruns of sit-coms and bad news.

    Don't believe anything you hear from Nielsen. Their studies are unscientific bunk. To the extent they are given credibility, they will dumb down the internet too.