10 Years, 10 Ways the Internet Has Changed--And Changed Us

How the Web Has Transformed Business and Human Interaction

1. Growth in the Number of Users.

In early 2002, sources estimated that 58.8% of the US population used the Internet –many of them only at work. At that time there were only 513 million users WORLDWIDE! Today, there are estimated to be more than 2 billion worldwide, 266 million of them in North America.

2. Growth in the Number of Websites.

Today there are probably more than 500 million websites publicly accessible, although no organization actually monitors or controls this data. In 2002, there were about 3 million. Five years ago, Google reported that they had indexed more than 1 trillion web pages—and they don’t index all of them.

3. Broadband Access.

In 2002, the availability of broadband Internet access outside the business environment was new. In fact, in San Antonio, there were many businesses that still used dial up Internet access. In 2003, only 13% of households had broadband access to the Internet. About 70% of homes in the US have broadband access today.

4. Search Engines.

Google began to assume some presence among search engines in 2001. By 2003, it was believed to be used for about 75% of web searches. When I started my business, there were five search engines that had nearly equal shares of web users, including Alta Vista, Inktomi, Ask Jeeves, Google, and AllTheWeb. Together, they probably only represented about 65% of search traffic. There were other smaller ones like Excite, Lycos and Yahoo, too. Today, I monitor only Bing and Google for my clients, as those two represent 85 -90% of search traffic in the US.

5. Mobile Access.

The technology for Wi-Fi was introduced in 1999, but few devices supported it and even fewer access points were available until several years later. I used to get calls from business travelers in San Antonio who were looking for advice on how to find an open Wi-Fi connection in the city. Although Blackberry introduced its first Internet-enabled phone in 2001, “smart phones” only came into general use around 2005. Today, nearly 60% of the phones in use are web-enabled.

6. Online Advertising.

In 2002, Google introduced pay-per-click advertising based on bidding for placement. Prior to that time, online advertising cost was based on either on menu pricing based upon size of the ad or, sometimes, you could pay based upon the number of impressions (views) your ad received. It wasn’t very profitable though, because there weren’t many eyes viewing most web pages. Today, both Google and Bing offer pay-per-click advertising that can be targeted to an area as small as a 10-mile radius around a store.

7. Growth of E-Commerce.

The Web was opened to commercial websites in 1995 and both Amazon and eBay got started in 1995. Neither broke past a billion dollars in sales until 2002. Today, online sales in the US alone represent more than $200 billion in sales. Since 2000, e-commerce has grown by an average of 19% annually, and by the year 2020, it is expected to exceed retail sales from brick-and-mortar stores.

8. Growth of Email Communication.

Email has caused the volume of First Class mailed delivered by the US Postal Service to drop 12% since 2001. And, who doesn’t get far more daily emails than they ever picked up out of their mailbox? Email volume is estimated to exceed 294 billion daily. With email comes speedier delivery and reduced need for paper (and cutting down trees).

9. Local Search.

In 2002, web marketing only really worked for companies that marketed themselves nationally—or internationally. If you were looking for a hair salon, you wouldn’t look to the web because search engines had no way to display local results. In 2004, Google began to offer Google Local, which provided directory listings for local businesses among search results. But Google only began to truly localize search results based upon the location of the searcher—without requiring them to use a city identifier in the search phrase—in October 2010. Less than two years ago!

10. Social Media and Blogs.

Does anyone remember Ryze.com, one of the first social media sites, or Friendster, which was launched in 2002? I had accounts with both. Today, who doesn’t have a Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter account? Or maybe all of the above. Facebook alone has more than 700 million users worldwide. 19 million people follow Justin Bieber on Twitter and 2 billion videos are watched daily on YouTube.

Moveable Type, the first blogging software available publicly was introduced in October 2001. WordPress and Google’s Blogger became available in 2003. Today, there are estimated to be nearly 200 million blogs.

Sometimes when I think back on the years working with the Internet as my medium, I can hardly believe that it has been only 10 years. I remember discussions about creating USAA’s first website around 1996 or 97, and it seems like a lifetime ago. But it has been an interesting 10 years, and I have no regrets that I got on board the Internet superhighway early. I’m looking forward to the next 10 years. Do you think we could possibly see growth and change continue at this rate in the coming decade?