Internet statistics

From Internet Stats

• 1,319,872,109 thousand people use the Internet.
• 38.7% of users are from Asia.
• The word growth average of users across the world from 2000-2007 is 265.5%.
• 20% of users around the world use the Internet regularly.
• 71.7% of North American users use the Internet regularly.
• In Europe, Germany is the country that uses the Internet the most, followed by the United Kingdom and then France.

In the UK, according to National Statistics:

• 84% of households have a broadband connection.
• 65% of men and 55% of women use the Internet.
• Whilst a slightly higher proportion of men use the Internet for shopping, women buy clothes and groceries over the Internet more than men.
• Most UK users use the Internet to check their e-mail. Other main uses include shopping and just general browsing.

The net population has definitely grown considerably in the last decade, making the potential audiences for blog sites extremely substantial. However, the stats also show that the Internet is used for various reasons.

First ever blogger?

This site was created in 1987 and but the same site also claims that in 1983 'Mod.ber' was created by Brian Redman...

The Chicago Reader was created in 1985 according to this post...

This article claims that the blog is 10 years old, so, in effect, Dave Winer created the longest-running web log (Scripting News).