Emerging Trends in the WWW User Population

Vast amounts of attention and resources have recently been devoted towards the World Wide Web (WWW) [Berners-Lee 94], but relatively little research has been conducted that examines Web usage and societal implications. With the goals of understanding the Web user population and promoting the Web as a viable surveying medium, GVU's WWW User Surveys were initially conducted during January 1994. Subsequent surveys were administered approximately every six months thereafter. The surveys employ non-random sampling techniques, which limit the ability of the results to generalize to the entire Web population. Each survey is conducted using the limited interactivity of the Web, where users point and click on responses within their Web browsers and submit results to a centralized server for processing. Each survey is conducted for a one month period. This paper examines the emerging trends of the WWW user population