Sorry, DJ, you'll probably want to skip this one, but it was too good not to share:
>>Analysis: The Web's true digital divide
Tuesday, 17 July 2001 13:29 (ET)
By STEVE SAILER, UPI National Correspondent
LOS ANGELES, July 17, (UPI) -- The much-discussed "digital divide" in Internet access is closing steadily. Yet a spectacularly detailed new source of data on what sites Web surfers visit suggests that a chasm remains
between how the highly educated and the less educated use the Internet.
This implies that the Internet will never provide a magical cure for economic inequality, and may in fact widen the gap.
The ambitious Internet marketing researcher comScore automatically collects complete Internet usage data -- both sites surfed and online buying -- from 1.5 million Web-connected PCs each month. These are split among
home, work, university and international users.
All of these participants are volunteers who allow their behavior to be recorded in return for comScore accelerating their downloads. comScore guarantees their anonymity.
The comScore database is designed to help corporate advertisers. Chairman Gian Fulgoni, former CEO of marketing research giant Information Resources Inc., lauds his database as "the 'Holy Grail' that Internet executives and
marketers have been waiting for." Yet, it also offers the analyst of social trends and patterns a trove of data on what interests different kinds of people.
Chicago-based comScore compiles demographic profiles of the visitors to the 5,000 most popular Web domains (not counting pornographic sites, which comScore does not track).
The data are remarkably sensitive and can pinpoint seemingly obscure interests.
For example, it can identify those Web sites whose audiences are most tilted toward Asian-Americans. Many will be surprised to learn that, leaving aside domains specifically aimed at immigrants or Asians, the most
Asian-oriented general interest site is StreetRacing.org. Its visitors are 25.1 percent Asian-Americans, even though Asians make up only 4.6 percent of online Americans.
Other hot-rod Web sites with audiences that are highly Asian include SuperCars.net, Acura.com and OverBoost.com.
Because the American media pay little attention to young Asian-Americans, their fascination with modifying mundane four-cylinder Japanese imports into what they affectionately call "rice rockets" was completely off the media's radar, until the movie "The Fast and the Furious" became a surprise hit last month. And even in the movie, the Asian characters were relegated to being the bad guys.
In contrast to the flamboyant tastes of traditional hot rodders, Asian-American preferences are so understated and refined that it's been easy to overlook this entire social phenomenon. For example, a 20-year-old Japanese-American fellow who lives across the street from me has a compact
Acura sports coupe with $15,000 worth of modifications, including a nitrous oxide injection system. Still, if he hadn't gone over the upgrades with me, I probably never would have noticed there was anything unusual about his car.
Yet, this quiet hobby jumps out from the comScore data.
Because the media cover African-American avocations much more avidly than Asian-American interests, the Web sites with the largest shares of visitors who are black are more predictable. For instance, highly black-skewed domains include NBA.com, Bible.com, FootLocker.com and child rappers' sites LilBowWow.com and LilRomeo.com.
The comScore database is so large that it can also identify those Web sites that least interest blacks. Out of 5,000 Web sites, the 10 where blacks make up the smallest share of the audience: LLBean.com (clothes for the Puritans' descendants, whether genealogical or pychological); USGA.org (the blue-blooded United States Golf Association); CountryStars.com.
Also, RedSox.com (the Boston Red Sox baseball team -- very few blacks visit any baseball Web sites); HarleyDavidson.com (motorcycles); GoCampingAmerica.com; Metallica.com (a metal rock band); NASCAR.com (stock
car racing); TheRainForestSite.com; and AKC.org (American Kennel Club).
To validate the representativeness of these 1.5 million computers that comScore tracks, the firm interviews 1,000 random American households per week about whether they are online. Its latest surveys find the gap between blacks and whites is rapidly vanishing due to three times faster growth
among African-Americans. Today, 51 percent of black households are online, vs. 59 percent of white households. (Overall, 58 percent of American households have an Internet connection.)
Further, less rich Americans are closing the gap with the affluent, largely because the wealthier segment is now almost saturated. Among those making over $75,000, 83 percent are already online. And so is 74 percent of
the $50,000 to $75,000 group. Yet, even among those making under $25,000, 36 percent are now on the Web. And that segment grew 28 percent in the last year.
Among those over age 55, 37 percent are now using the Internet, and they make up the fastest-growing segment.
Yet, a more detailed comparison of the Web surfing habits of Americans from different realms of society suggests that hooking everybody to the Web will not mean that all Web surfers will soon be created equal. Adding the other 42 percent of households to the Web will only increase the number who don't use it to make money.
By sorting the top 5,000 domains in order of the educational level of their American visitors, what jumps out is that the people with the least education seem to have the most fun on the Web.
The six Web sites most oriented toward people who have never been to college are ZapSpot.com, FunFlat.com, HaHaSoFunny.com, TiggysRibTicklers.com, eflectiveGreetings.com and BingoFun.com.
In contrast, the six most skewed toward the highly educated include three legal sites (WestLaw.com, Lexis.com, and Martindale.com), a textbook publisher (Reed-Elsevier.com), the Chronicle of Higher Education trade
journal (Chronicle.com), and a Chinese business portal (Sina.com).
It appears that the less-educated use the Web to amuse themselves and their friends. In contrast, the well-educated use the Web as part of their careers.
CastleMountains.net ("Your source for the best free greetings!") is a representative example of a downscale site. This distributor of whimsical virtual gewgaws that your e-mail buddies might get a kick out of comes in as
10th most popular among households with no more than a high school education. Further, it winds up dead last out of 5,000 sites among households headed by holders of grad degrees and among households with over $100,000 in income.
WestLaw.com, however, the site with the most educated audience, features this announcement under "what's new": "KeyCite Notes -- view cases and other sources, with citations counts, that cite a case for a particular legal
issue." Whew, who wouldn't want to get an e-mail from his best friend with that included in it?
After my wife and I spent 15 enjoyable minutes at CastleMountains.net looking at pictures of cute babies and funny monkeys and trying to answer riddles about fruit ("Q. Why did the melon get married in a church? A. She
can't elope!"), she said, "Maybe people with graduate degrees just don't know about these sites."
Or perhaps they are too busy at grinding away at other post-grad skewing domains such as BarChart.com, Senate.gov, UN.org, Law.com, FindLaw.com, and USLegalForms.com. There are quite a few sites in the Grad Degree 100 devoted
to making business travel reservations and quite a few for users of electronic organizers. Even the rare sports site is not too pulse-quickening: for example, Cricket.com and NCAABaseball.com.
For pure reading excitement, though, I must give a plug to No. 64 on the Grad Degree 5,000, VNY.com (Virtual New York), where you can always find the latest United Press International stories.
The serious press will be amazed to learn that No. 53 in terms of best-educated audience is Matt Drudge's political tabloid DrudgeReport.com. Establishment journalists love to look down their noses at Drudge for breaking the Monica Lewinsky story and for his addiction to headlines about
vicious animals eating people. Yet, venerable mainstream magazine Time.com ranks only No. 1,208 for most-schooled readers.
The serious point, though, is that connecting everybody to the Web isn't going to reduce economic inequality.
Putting all the information in the world at everybody's fingertips most benefits those who have a knack for digesting and efficiently making sense of information. From the comScore data, it appears that people with the
brainpower and the self-discipline to make it through many years of schooling are using the Web to make money, while those who didn't like school are using it to enjoy themselves and stay in touch with pals. Those are by no means bad uses.
Yet, as an economic tool, the Web most helps those who could already intellectually help themselves.<<
vny.com |
