Net Growth: Out of the haze of...

Net Growth: Out of the haze of cyberspace, where information is mostly free and often inaccurate--especially when it comes to describing the Internet itself--a new estimate emerged last week pegging the elusive number of Net users worldwide at 57 million.

The latest reckoning by well-regarded Internet demographer John Quarterman draws on previous surveys by his Austin, Texas-based research firm, Matrix Information & Directory Services.

Never an easy task, surveying those who traverse the global computer network has become even harder in recent months because of “the spam problem,” Quarterman said. Electronic junk mail from advertisers has become such a nuisance that no one fills out unsolicited questionnaires anymore.

Counting the number of computers connected to the Internet is not quite so difficult, however, and Quarterman used a measure of these “hosts,” combined with previous user numbers, to help calculate the growth rate in the number of users.

He found that the number of people who can send e-mail and retrieve information from the Internet nearly doubled over the last year, as it has for each of the previous three years. He expects the growth rate to remain constant--which means 700 million users by 2000. Much of that growth will occur outside the U.S.

“There is no reason to believe that the current rate of Internet growth cannot be sustained for three more years,” Quarterman said. “If anything, Internet growth conditions will be better.”