The Internet Index

Number 16
Inspired by "Harper's Index"*
Compiled by Win Treese ( treese@OpenMarket.com)
20 December 1996

Here is Internet Index #16 and the directory of all editions.

Number of state attorneys general working with the US Food and Drug Administration to evaluate regulation of fraudulent medical claims on the Internet: 39
Source: Boston Globe, 20 October 1996

Number of major corporate Web sites surveyed for e-mail capabilities by the Wall Street Journal: 24
Percentage of those sites that never responded: 38
Source: Wall Street Journal, 21 October 1996

Number of hours in which Reebok attempts to respond to e-mail requests: 24
Source: Wall Street Journal, 21 October 1996

Cost of an hour of Internet time at Beijing's Internet Cafe, in yuan: 30
Approximate cost of that hour, in dollars: 3.60
Source: Boston Globe, 9 December 1996

Estimated number of Internet users in China at the end of 1996: 100,000
Source: Boston Globe, 9 December 1996, citing Chinese official predictions

Estimated number of adult Americans who use the Web daily: 9 million
Source: Wall Street Journal, 21 October 1996, citing a survey by Find/SVP and Jupiter Communications

Percentage increase in number of frame relay (a wide-area networking technology) customers worldwide, from January, 1994, to January, 1996: 900
Source: Communication Systems Design, October 1996

Percentage of revenue Cisco Systems hopes to be processed online by July, 1997: 30
Source: http://techweb.cmp.com:80/cw/webcommerce/web1209-1.html

Number of Federal court class-action securities complaints available online: 64
Source: http://securities.stanford.edu/

Number of Web sites warned by the FTC that they may be operating illegal pyramid schemes (approximately): 500
Number of lawsuits filed by the FTC alleging online scams: 15
Source: http://moneydaily.com

Number of occurrences of the word "the" in documents indexed by Alta Vista: 432,118,690
Source: http://altavista.digital.com/cgi-bin/query?pg=q&what=web&fmt=.&q=the

Amount spent by MCI upgrading the Internet backbone, in millions of dollars: 60
Source: Edupage, citing Broadcasting & Cable, 25 Nov 1996, p62

Percentage increase in Internet traffic, per month, estimated by MCI: 30
Source: Edupage, citing Broadcasting & Cable, 25 Nov 1996, p62

Number of "wanted posters" posted on the Wells Fargo Bank Web site: 11
Number marked "arrested": 2
Source: http://www.wellsfargo.com/wanted

Advertising revenue on the Web in the third quarter of 1996, in millions of dollars: 66
Percentage increase from the second quarter: 43
Source: http://www.jup.com./jupiter/release/nov96/adspend/adspend.shtml


Copyright 1996 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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