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UK Accelerates Online
The number of people actively surfing the web from home each month in the UK has grown by 15% to 22.8 million in the past 12 months, according to the latest from Internet audience measurement specialist Nielsen//NetRatings.
Use of high speed Internet connections has also increased dramatically, rising 117% to 11.5 million people in the 12 months to October 2004. This is a majority - just - of the surfing population. High speed connections tend to be the preference in households with five or more people, while smaller households are often sticking with dial-up.
Those with high speed connections average over 32hrs online each month, twice as long as those using dial-up; and view more than three times as many pages - a substantial 1,444 per month.
A wide variety of sites now get a majority of their visitors from the 'high speed' segment, from music and entertainment sites like HMV, WINAMP and Gamespy, News and sports sites like CNET and Premium TV, to commerce sites Ebuyer, Ciao! And NexTag.
Gabrielle Prior, European Internet Analyst at NetRatings, points out that the spread of high speed Internet use from less than a quarter of surfers to more than half in just twelve months means that 'web sites will need to adapt, update and enhance their content to retain their visitors and encourage new ones. In the future, web sites will be 'sped' out of the market, not 'priced out''.
Nielsen//NetRatings' home page is at www.nielsen-netratings.com
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