New Survey Finds Net Surfers Overwhelmingly In Search of Amusement, Not Information
ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 4, 1999--
Study by ProLaunch of 100,000+ Net Denizens Finds Commanding Interest
in Entertainment, Shopping And "Oddly Useful" Web Sites
What kinds of web sites are people looking for online? According
to a new six-month study of over 100,000 people conducted by the
ProLaunch Internet service (http://www.ProLaunch.com), the vast
majority of Net surfers are in search of sites offering cyber-based
amusement and diversion. In fact, the survey found eight out of the
ten most popular web site categories were related to entertainment,
humor or shopping. The only "serious" categories dealt with investing
online and technology news; news categories relating to current
events, general business and sports failed to crack the Top Ten list.
ProLaunch is a free service that delivers a different web site to
the Internet "start page" of its subscribers each time a subscriber
logs onto the Internet. These "best of the web" sites are handpicked
to match the interests of each subscriber, providing a user-friendly
way of discovering what's new and of interest on the Internet. In
conducting this new survey, ProLaunch tabulated the Top Ten most
requested interest categories from its 100,000-plus subscriber base
during the period from July 1 to December 15, 1998.
ProLaunch's study found the Top Ten most requested web site
categories are:
*T
1. Movies
2. Weird, Wacky and Oddly Useful (primarily humor or novelty
web sites)
3. Music
4. Tech/Internet News
5. Travel
6. Television
7. Books
8. Stocks, Bonds, Options
9. Eating Out
10. Computer Hardware/Software
*T
The survey did not include a category for sexually explicit or
sex-related web sites for consideration, as ProLaunch prohibits
inclusion of these sites in its service.
"On one hand, our study contradicts the commonly-held notion that
web surfing is dead, that people simply use the web or information and
communication," says Roger Barnette, president of JuxtaNet Corp., the
parent company of ProLaunch. "The problem is that surfing with search
engines and links is a chaotic process, so people stick to what they
already know. In most cases that means e-mail, chats and portals. What
we're hearing is that, given a convenient means of doing so, people
overwhelmingly want to find out what the web offers in terms of
entertainment, travel, and even "weird and wacky" novelty sites.
Meanwhile, our study confirms that electronic commerce has a bright
future, not only for big brands such as Amazon, eBay, and E*Trade, but
even for lesser-known vendors like Flying Noodle, Powell's Books, and
Live To Play."
ProLaunch is ranked among the Top 500 Most Visited Sites on the
Web according to Alexa Internet. ProLaunch is also star-rated by
Infoseek in its "Use the Net More Effectively" category. Subscription
to the service is free. ProLaunch's privacy policy has received the
TRUSTe seal of approval.
For more information on ProLaunch, visit
prolaunch.com. For more information on JuxtaNet Corp., call
(404) 881-8484, ext.1 or write to JuxtaNet Corp., 1275 Peachtree
Street, Suite 330, Atlanta, GA 30309.
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