One billion users of the internet

Clockwise: Smart Monitor feature for remote monitoring, functions diagram, system status and configuration panel of the Smart Attendant.

In the beginning, the Internet was created to carry out a war of indescribable violence. It began with the need to create a communication technology that could carry on after a nuclear strike that would allow data to be transferred even when telephone exchanges were smoking ruins. The Pentagon's DARPANET was the great-great grandfather of the system that now allows us to download illegal MP3 songs. It is truly remarkable how the Internet has grown. Even ten years back, the most of its users were "geeks"; and now, it's the default way to do business in many countries.

Some time in 2005, we quietly passed a dramatic milestone in Internet history: the one-billionth user went online. They are no central to register of Internet users, so we do not know who that user was or when he or she first logged on. That user could be anyone: probably a teenager from South Korea first discovering the fun and excitement of online gaming.

This is according to estimates by researchers of the firm Morgan Stanley. The research titled "Global Technology/Internet trends" also says 36% of the Internet users are now in Asia and 24% are in Europe. Only 23% of users are in North America, where it all started in 1969 when two computers -- one in Los Angeles, the other in Palo Alto -- were networked together.

It took 36 years for the Internet to get its first billion users. The second billion will probably be added by 2015 and most of these new users will be from Asia, especially from India and China. The third billion will be a lot harder, and might not be reached until 2040, not unless when the word "internet" will be as common as the word "electricity". In 2002, it was estimated that there were 605 million Internet users. Since then, Internet use has grown by 18% per year -- certainly not as fast as in the nineties, but it's still a respectable percentage.

As the user base of the internet grows, so will e-commerce. It usually takes people two to three years from when they first get online to feel confident enough to do shopping online. This means that e-commerce sales will at least double from their current level when more of the current billion users start shopping online. However the billion-user Internet is a highly diverse environment and has moved far beyond the elite in Silicon Valley and other global technology hubs. Now there are hundreds of millions of old people online and there are even more users without fancy university degrees. The difference between the elite and the mainstream users is getting bigger and bigger every day, and the users are no longer you'd expect.

This also means that for e-commerce to fulfil its potential to double, sites must be a lot more systematic and smooth. Selling to the 200 million early adopters was relatively easy. The 800 million users who are now starting to shop need much smoother sites; the next billion will require even higher usability levels.

It's interesting that by 2015, the Americans, who created the internet, will be less than 15% of internet users and will likely account for about one-third its value.

The internet was designed to evade control, to seek ways around information blockages, because it was supposed to survive the end of the world. Now it has a billion users using it for entertainment, business, research, communication and what not. Putting aside the details of how to make the multi-billion-user Web work, the very fact that it's realistic to expect the second billion users point to interactive media's compelling value. People all over the world are experiencing unprecedented levels of empowerment: being able to do things is why the Web has grown so fast, and will continue to grow for years to come.

Acknowledgement: Thanks to Jakob Neilsen and the researchers of Morgan Stanley for their research on the topic.