The Internet Index

Number 26
Inspired by "Harper's Index"*
Compiled by Win Treese (mailto:treese@openmarket.com)
Co-author of Designing Systems for Internet Commerce
17 February 2000

Here is Internet Index #26 and the directory of all editions.

Number of issues of the New Yorker that include, in the text of an article, a sample of the output from the Unix traceroute command: 1
Source: New Yorker, Dec. 6 1999, p. 100 (thanks to Jeff Mogul)

Budget requested by President Clinton for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to enforce regulations of prescription drug sales on the Internet, in millions of dollars: 10
Source: Boston Globe, December, 28, 1999
Budget requested by the U.S. Department of Commerce for tracking e-commerce, in millions of dollars: 3.5
Source: Wall Street Journal, February 8, 2000

Reported approximate number of stock options received by William Shatner for advertising for priceline.com: 100,000
Source: USA Today, December 28, 1999, p.1

Amount budgeted by Rhode Island economic officials to lure Massachusetts Internet companies to the state, in dollars: 110,000

Amount Microsoft failed to pay to renew registration for the domain name passport.com, resulting in an outage for many Hotmail users, in dollars: 35
Source: USA Today, December 29, 1999

Percentage of full-time, four-year college students in the U.S. who use the Internet: 90
Source: The Industry Standard, February 7, 2000 citing Student Monitor

Rank of "Pokemon" among the most popular search terms at Lycos for 1999: 1
Source: Lycos 50

Number of times President Clinton mentioned the Internet in the 2000 Statue of the Union address: 6
Source: text of the address
Number of broadcast-quality responses from members of Congress posted at FreedomChannel.com: 75
Source: The Industry Standard, February 7, 2000

Amount of campaign contributions on-line to John McCain in the first two days after he won the New Hampshire Republican primary, in dollars: 1,000,000
Source: McCain campaign press release, February 3, 2000

Estimated percentage of online orders from women for the 1999 holiday season: 50
Source: RetailTech, February, 2000, citing Bizrate

Maximum percentage of foreign ownership permitted by China for Chinese Internet content or service providers: 50
Source: Wall Street Journal, January 26, 2000

Estimated number of Mexicans with Internet accounts in 1999: 916,000
Source: Wall Street Journal, January 25, 2000

Number of record companies suing mp3.com over a new digital music service: 10
Source: Wall Street Journal, January 24, 2000

Percentage of Internet users who "like spam or have some use for it": 3
Source: Infoworld, January 24, 2000, citing a Gartner Group poll

In 1999, average percentage increase in stock price for pure Internet companies at IPO: 233
Source: Wall Street Journal, Dec. 27, 1999
Number of Internet startups with Queen Elizabeth II as an investor: 1
Source: The Industry Standard, January 31, 2000


Copyright 2000 by Win Treese. "Harper's Index" is a registered trademark of Harper's Magazine Foundation. Send updates or interesting statistics to treese@openmarket.com

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