© by Mark Ollig
Locating a trustworthy website displaying the statistical activity of the internet in near real-time, can be challenging.
What assurances would one need for having confidence in the statistics?
For me, one famous person who made a huge contribution in how we maneuver through the internet sufficed.
Tim Berners-Lee is recognized as the inventor of the World Wide Web, commonly called the Web.
He began working on it in 1989, and in 1990 wrote the software code for the first web browser called “WorldWideWeb.app.”
“In providing a system for manipulating this sort of information, the hope would be to allow a pool of information to develop which could grow and evolve . . . This is why a web of notes with links (like references) between them is far more useful than a fixed hierarchical system,” Berners-Lee wrote in March 1989.
Not long ago, Berners-Lee posted a message over Twitter, citing statistical internet data from Internet Live Stats, located at www.internetlivestats.com.
Internet Live Stats statistical information has also been quoted by the World Wide Web Consortium, and the World Wide Web Foundation.
Internet Live Stats clients include BBC News, United Nations Conference Rio+20, U2, Wired, and Kaspersky Lab.
The accuracy of its internet statistics is overseen by what they say is “an advanced algorithm.”
Internet Live Stats gleans information from more than 250 sources, which is used to process data by their statistical analysis team.
“We are an international team of developers, researchers, and analysts with the goal of making statistics available in a dynamic and time relevant format to a wide audience around the world,” its website says.
While looking through many separate groups of continually changing statistical internet peg counters, I felt assured the information I was seeing on this website was accurate and reliable.
Here are the internet daily statistics I captured from March 29 as of 4:30 p.m. (CDT):
• Internet users in the world: 3,599,700,025.
• Total number of websites: 1,170,187,522.
• Google searches for today: 3,535,307,707.
• Tweets sent today: 449,158,019.
• Videos viewed on YouTube today: 4,080,307,971.
• Photos uploaded to Instagram today: 45,950,614.
• Tumblr posts today: 72,751,296.
• Facebook active users: 1,877,561,264.
• Twitter active users: 307,926,726.
• Skype calls today: 149,857,235.
Computing hardware sold March 29, up until 4:30 p.m. (CDT):
Computers sold today: 388,297.
• Smartphones sold today: 2,765,053.
• Computing tablets sold today: 342,611.
Total number of internet users for the year 2016, starting with the most by country (top 201 countries were listed):
• China: 721,434,547.
• India: 462,124,989.
• US: 286,942,362.
• Brazil: 139,111,185.
• Japan: 115,111,595.
• Russia: 102,258,256.
• Nigeria: 86,219,965.
• Germany: 71,016,605.
• UK: 60,273,385.
• Mexico: 58,016,997.
• France: 55,860,330.
The Marshall Islands, called an “island country” has the fewest number of internet users, with 10,709.
The statistical history for the US shows in 2000, there were 121,869,116 internet users; we have more than doubled the number of internet users in 16 years.
In 2000, China had 22,553,646 internet users, while India recorded 5,557,455.
Global internet users reached 1 billion in 2005, 2 billion in 2010, and three billion in 2014; I estimate this number will pass 4 billion during 2018.
There is still no internet access for approximately 3 billion people around the world.
An internet user can be defined as “an individual, of any age, who can access the internet at home, using any type of device and connection.”
An accompanying counter at www.worldometers.info showed the current world population at 7,494,294,203.
These statistical counters constantly update their number totals.
Individual group number totals increased as I watched; it was interesting to witness the changes occurring in near real-time.
Embedded website code for individual group statistical counters can be purchased by websites for 90 days use, or on a yearly basis.
For fun, I selected these daily-tracked counter categories to learn what my yearly cost would be:
• Total number of websites.
• Videos viewed on YouTube.
• Google searches.
• Tweets sent.
• Internet users in the world.
The order summary said a yearly client license to provide these daily statistics on my website would cost $1,440.
I imagine, yearly client licenses is how Internet Live Stats helps finance their website without any advertising popups.
You can view and purchase a counter’s embedded code for your website at http://www.worldometers.info/licensing/order.
Be sure to follow my no-cost daily messages over Twitter at @bitsandbytes.
On a personal note, April 6 would have been my father’s 87th birthday.
Happy birthday, Dad. You are missed by all of us; rest in paradise.
(Below clip art license-to-use purchased by Mark Ollig)
