Results from the first world-wide web user survey

The explosion of World-Wide Web (WWW) across the Internet is staggering, both in terms of number of users and the amount of activity. However, to date, no reliable charac-terization exists of WWW users. In this paper, we report results from a survey that was posted on the Web for a month, in January of 1994. There were several goals moti-vating our survey. First, we wished to demonstrate a proof of concept for WWW technologies as a useful survey medium. Second, we wanted to beta-test the design and con-tent of surveys dealing with the Web. Third, as mentioned, we hoped to begin to describe the range of Web users. In one month, we had over 4,700 respondents to our survey. Their responses helped us to begin to characterize WWW users, their reasons for using the WWW, and their opinions of WWW tools and technologies