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Industry Trends
Women continue to surpass men in overall online use!
Web usage is at a constant increase among both genders. Fifty-five percent of homeowners who have at-home access to the Internet use their home computers once or more a week for professional or work-related activities.
But recent Internet trend reports are showing that women are surpassing men in overall online use. And while the number of women online has climbed, the numbers are expected to continue to rise.
An eMarketer.com study shows that 51.6 percent of women are accessing the Internet. For men, usage is up 48.4 percent. This is a 12.4 percentage increase since 2000, while males' use is up 3.2 points.
Industry reports show a trend toward a significantly wider gap between men and women by 2011.
How are women spending time on the web?
While an increasing number of women are turning to the Internet to use e-mail and chat rooms and forums, the most common reported online activities for women include (in no particular order):
- Personal communications and email;
- Entertainment news and gossip;
- Style/fashion updates;
- Social interaction like using forums or chat rooms to share concerns and opinions on current topics, forwarding jokes and funny stories, collaborative problem solving;
- Planning events;
- Personal information gathering, like religious or spiritual information;
- Seeking health-specific information, and other personal information;
- Travel research, buying travel tickets, maps and directions;
- Research for job-related activities;
- Help on career subjects;
- Shopping;
- Social networking using social or professional sites, like Facebook or LinkedIn and
- Online games and contests
More and more women are online daily!
Women are spending a lot of time online. In a study conducted by pewinternet.org, 2003 statistics show that 58 percent of women responding to the survey report that they regularly use the web.
By 2006 the number grew to 69 percent. By 2007, 71 percent of women surveyed say they use the web almost daily.
While shopping, travel research, event planning and seeking health and personal information on the Internet is occasional online activity for women, many women are visiting the Web daily for social networking, emailing and forums, and to view entertainment and style photos and information, and pursuing hobbies and interests.
And because the Internet provides a gateway to information at anytime of the day or night, information not as easily accessed in other mediums, like television or newspapers, is a big draw for women.
Internet usage surpassing television usage!
After tracking common Web user activities among all male and female users to the Web, Forrester.com found that time on the computer has surpassed time spent watching television.
Industry tracking studies are consistently reporting increasing numbers of Internet users who access the Internet for information they were unable to catch on television, or information unavailable on television.
More women turn to the Internet to pursue their hobbies!
- More women are playing online games than men.
- While male video gamers still outnumber women, women are making a huge impact in the world of online gaming.
- According to John Kirriemuir of D-Lib Magazine, while males are using the web for sport-related games, female-oriented online games have attracted larger population of female players.
- Kirriemuir also refers to a U.S. survey that found that within a 3 month period, women over 40 occupied a significant proportion of online gamers.
- A Pew telephone survey conducted in February-March 2007 found the online hobby population has grown from some 45 percent of U.S. adults in 2005 to 59 percent in the first quarter of 2007.
- And a survey released by Nielsen Entertainment last year indicates that 64 percent of online gamers are female.
Web content has a big impact on women's lives!
Because of the easy access into areas where women have the greatest interest, including hobbies, personal connections and personal information gathering, more and more women value the Internet for its limitless genre of information.
In fact, in a memo by Mary Madden, "Internet Penetration and Impact," 60 million Americans say that the Internet helped them make big decisions or negotiate their way through major events in their lives.
And further, according to Madden, many Internet users, including women, say they looked to the internet for help during a crucial or important live experience, such as a loved one's recent health crisis.
More and more Internet users are using high-speed access!
With higher Web usage, comes a need for high-quality Internet service.
Studies conducted by emarketer.com show that more than nine in 10 online households with income levels of $75,000 and higher have high-speed access.
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