Several news stories have noted that China's internet user base increased by more than 70 million in 2007 to a count 213 million at year's end. Little noted is that 23 percent of these users use the internet from mobile devices, the remainder counted as broadband users.
The statistics, released by the China Internet Network Information Center and reported by ChinaTechNews do not seem to specify how many of these mobile users also use broadband, and I can't find data on whether people use broadband at home or at work.
CINIC also reported (translated) that almost 40 percent of users said the top reason they used the internet was for instant messaging, edging out e-mail as the top application.
A dispute that could affect the roll-out of broadband over power lines, which some hope will one day compete with cable and DSL services, went before a federal appeals court on Tuesday, but no immediate resolution occurred
This article gives some usage sttistics for some types oif business user. =They are high at first glance - but then you remember the volume of input material they need to pick from. Also, the upbeat story comes from a private 'social network like) application - i.e. a closed system. It also notes the need to protect the data.
'I admit it; I'm cynical when it comes to advertising and marketing. I believe that the sole purpose of advertising is to convince me to part with my well-earned and limited supply of money and persuade me that I want things that I don't.
Who asked marketers to join readers online?
Shopping online requires trust between buyer and seller: often, each relies on the other's reputation. Today, a Waltham, MA, startup called TrustPlus is releasing a new product that collects information about online reputations so that people can better manage their own, and investigate others'.
"The Web 2.0 revolution has peddled the promise of bringing more truth to more people -- more depth of information, more global perspective, more unbiased opinion from dispassionate observers. But this is all a smokescreen. What the Web 2.0 revolution is really delivering is superficial observations of the world around us rather than deep analysis, shrill opinion rather than considered judgment."
...sell-by date. Only recently, Rupert Murdoch was being lauded for rediscovering his touch by lavishing $580m on MySpace. Now, even that's beginning to look vulnerable. Asked if he was worried about readers abandoning his newspapers for MySpace, Murdoch shot back: "I wish they were. They're all going to Facebook at the moment."
Murdoch's put his finger on the underlying problem with social-networking sites: they don't actually do anything. We do all the work for them. When users start migrating to rival sites they can't retain people by offering new features or extra storage, because that wasn't what tempted people to them in the first place. They were pulled in through fear of social exclusion.