It’s now about 20 years since the start of the popular internet. I’m using the word “popular” because technically, it first started during the Sputnik 1 project, waaay back in 1958, for use by the Soviet Union. It was only in the early 90’s that it was released for commercial interests. It’s mid 2009, and the world’s still just warming up to the internet. The growth in the number of people using it for different purposes(email, chat, P2P, browsing, VoIP, gaming, VPN and so much more) is truly astounding. Here are a few statistics for 2008 from a survey, aptly titled- The Exploding Internet, based on the usage of the internet.

1. $6.8 trillion- Value of eCommerce spending on the internet in 2008, which is roughly 15% of the world’s GDP.
2. 50%- Estimated annual growth rate of internet traffic.
3. 210 billion- Number of emails sent daily in 2008.
4. 78%- Percentage of the above figure which is SPAM, or unsolicited email!
5. 72.5%- Percentage of the American population using the internet, which translates to 220 million individuals.
6. 19%- Percentage of the Chinese population using the internet, which is 253 million people, clearly overtaking the US in terms of number of users.
7. 2012- Year in which Asian internet users will outnumber their peers in North America by 3 to 1. This includes almost 500 million Chinese users.
8. 3- Predicted position of India on the hierarchy of internet using countries by 2012.

Just an indication of what is truly the next revolution.

Source: http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/2988/27062201.jpg