1998 was the year we entered the Digital Age. 2002 was the year the Digital Revolution became mainstream.
We passed several important milestones in 1998. Households owning personal computers became the majority in the United States in 1998. In 1998, for the first time, United Airlines sold more electronic tickets than paper tickets. They've done so in increasing proportions in every month since. So has every other airline.
1998 was also the year when Judge Starr released his report about President Clinton. That report went online as soon as it was issued. There was no debate about whether it would go online. The only debate was whether or not it would go online before it was released in print form or not. The report immediately became the most popular item on the Web.
Since then more and more households have purchased computers. Many of them bought a computer so that they could go online. Since 2000 an increasing percentage of computer owners have done just that.
Now, according to a report by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, use of the Net has slipped quietly into the mainstream in the United States. There are several signs of this.
First, consider the sheer numbers. According to Pew 60 percent of Americans now have Internet access either at home or at work. That's an important number, but it's not the most important one.
More important is that two thirds of those (40 percent of Americans) have been online for three years or more. That is an incredibly important statistic.
The reason is that it takes time for folks to become comfortable finding things on the Web. For most of them it also takes a while before they buy anything there. By the time they've been on the Net for three years most people are pretty good at finding information that interests them. Many of them have also bought something online.
The Pew results bear this out. 75% of the folks they talked to have had a positive experience finding what they need online. Overall 84 percent of all Americans "have an expectation of finding information online" in at least one of four topic areas: government, health care, news, and commerce. Here's how things look by area.
65 percent of Americans expect government agencies to have information about their services on the Web. Increasingly, they also expect to do some of their business with the government online. This is not entirely new information.
In January of last year the University of Maryland reported that 55 percent of online adults logged on to a government website in 2001 and 21 percent conducted a government transaction online. That's more than the 15 percent who paid their credit card bill online or the 10 percent who traded stocks online.
In my own case I've found all kinds of information online about regulations and tax rates. I've filed tax returns online and paid the license fee for my truck. That's small potatoes, though, compared to some of the things you can do.
Up in Boston there's a public works project called "The Big Dig." It's the largest and most expensive highway project ever. The project has lots of roads and tunnels and will be done in 2004. What's that got to do with the Web?
It turns out that you can take a virtual tour of what the roads will look like, complete with signs. The idea is for regular commuters to get an idea of what they'll be facing, but the site may just be a Godsend for visitors who fly into Boston's Logan airport and encounter the new maze (quaintly called the Central Artery) for the first time.
At the Federal level things are moving apace. There's already a first place to look for anything in the Federal government. It's called FirstGov, appropriately enough, and it describes itself as "Your first click to the US government." Many states have similar sites. You can find most of them by visiting the site for the National Technology Transfer Center.
The Feds aren't sitting on their laurels though. President Bush has just signed a bill authored by Senator Joseph Lieberman called the E-Government Act. The act creates the Office of Electronic Government whose job it is to remove information barriers between federal agencies to give the public easier online access to data and services.
On the health care front, 67 percent of Americans think they can find reliable information about health care or medical conditions on the Net. Recently we had the opportunity to try this out.
The Most Beautiful Woman in the World was showing some symptoms that might mean a number of different things. In years past we would have bugged our friends in the medical industry for insight and talked to lots of other friends who just might know something. We'd hunt out a reference book or two. We still did that, but we also visited several medical information Web sites.
I'd read several studies about the amount of bogus medical and health information on the Web. An example would be a study by the California HealthCare Foundation that appeared in the May 23, 2001 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. It found that Americans may find either inaccurate or incomplete health information on as many as 75% of the sites offering such information.
That may be true but I don't think we had much trouble separating quackery from wisdom. We found the information we needed far more easily with the Web as part of the mix.
We learned that if you're sick, or think you're sick, you can find reliable information on the Web to help you figure out what might be going on and what to do next. We've also found a ton of information on exercise, weight control and nutrition.
Finding news online is almost as popular as reading email. 85% of Internet users expect to be able to find reliable, up-to-date news online. I agree. I do it every day. I still read papers, but my basic daily news gathering starts online and then gets supplemented with TV, radio or paper.
The fact is that just about every major news organization and most of the minor ones are online. This area is undergoing massive changes now as news sites try to figure out what to charge for and how. You can expect several changes here over the next year or so, but news will remain important for net users and they'll be able to find plenty of it.
Then there is commerce. Note that I didn't say "e-commerce." While all the dot-com hype was going on about how online business was inherently different than business in the physical world, most companies have quietly figured out that the Net should be part of their mix, and most Americans have decided that's a good thing.
There is no "online business model." Instead, different businesses use the Net differently. Amazon has turned itself into a giant department store by forming alliances with all kinds of companies who have (gasp!) physical stores and catalogs. EBay has set up an auction service but it has also become an exciting way for buyers and sellers of goods to come together.
Those are online businesses. Stodgy old businesses like Wal-Mart, the Bentonville Behemoth, have learned how to use the Net to expand and enhance what they do in the store. Catalog merchants like Land's End have learned that folks use paper catalogs differently, at different times and for different reasons than they use the Web. They all have a place in the strategy.
More and more the Net is an important, basic part of the way many of us do business. We shop online for Christmas and for birthdays, using wish lists and our own good imaginations. We research purchases online. We hunt for bargains.
We're taking care of our money there, too. In 2002 American Banker found that almost a third of consumers with a personal computer at home used it for online banking transactions. We check our balances mostly, and transfer funds between accounts.
The amount of paper in my mailbox is dropping as I increase my online bill payment. My business sends invoices electronically. There aren't a lot of Americans paying bills online yet. American Banker puts the figure at 15 percent. But that number is growing.
You can expect all these numbers to grow. They'll grow as more folks get computers, connect to the Net and become comfortable there. They'll grow as more kids grow up with the Net and feel as natural using it as their parents do using a telephone. They'll grow as technologies like broadband and wireless connections become common.
Use of the Net will continue to grow but the time has passed for waiting. The Internet has truly moved into the mainstream for many folks. If the findings above don't tell you that, then consider expectations.
58 percent expect to be able to reach someone via email. They're asking, "What's your email?" instead of "Do you have email?"
63 percent expect a business to have a Web site. If your business isn't on the Web, they may not even know you exist.
The message is clear. The Net is in the mainstream now. You should be, too.
RESOURCES
The Pew Internet and American Life Project includes several reports about how we use the Net.
You may view an HTML version of the Pew report "Counting on the Internet" or download a pdf version.
The Federal government gateway is FirstGov. A good pointer site to other government sites including state and local ones is maintained by the National Technology Transfer Center.
Medical Sites
There are two sites that are excellent starting places for all kinds of searches. The one I use as my start page every day is CEO Express.
CyberTimes Navigator is the home page used by the newsroom of The New York Times for forays into the Web. Its primary intent is to give reporters and editors new to the Web a solid starting point for a wide range of journalistic functions without forcing all of them to spend time wandering around blindly to find a useful set of links of their own. Its secondary purpose is to show people that there's still a lot of fun and useful stuff going on out there. The page is developed and maintained by Rich Meislin
Created/Revised/Reviewed: 6 January 2003
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