AIMIA unveils web history project

Peter Dinham
Monday, 03 August 2009 10:40

Business IT - Technology

“The goal of the History of the Australian Web Project is to provide a similar chronicle of Australia’s Internet and for it to become a captivating resource for students, industry commentators and others locally and around the world.”

Key findings of the project include:

•    Australian Internet usage grew faster than penetration: Australia’s active Internet audience grew 60% (from 7.2m people to 11.7m) but in the same period our (Australian) use of the internet more than doubled.  In terms of page views per person, usage grew 120% (595 to 1307) and time spent per person grew 126% (9.25 hours per month to 21 hours per month).

•    Australians become social – Social networking sites like Faceook.com and the youth-oriented social networking website Bebo.com have had a dramatic increase in both number of users and use over the past three years.  Bebo has shown the fastest growth in terms of amount of time spent on the site.  Since its appearance on the Australian Charts in 2005, Bebo.com has grown to attract more than 1.1 million Australians on a monthly basis and the site holds their attention    for two hours on average each month.

•    Australians love to search:  In the last five years, use of search engine portals, notably Google and Microsoft’s Live.com (now Bing.com) has grown dramatically.

•    Online retail is taking off – in 2008, online retail emerged as one of the highest growth sectors in Australia’s  Internet.  Australians' use of online retail aggregators, comparison shopping and auction sites were among those with the highest growth in terms of time spent on website properties in 2008.