What is the most popular activity for Internet users over Internet Web?

1.Getting knowledge

2.Check E-Mails

3.Download songs & movies

4.Using social networks

5.Job seeking

6.Internet Banking

7.Chatting

8.Internet callings

9.E-Trading

10.Mobile downloads.

While the PC is the dominant means of gaining access to the internet, IDC expects the number of mobile devices accessing the internet will surpass the number of online PCs by 2012:

• Users will access the internet through more than 1.5 billion devices worldwide in 2008, including PCs, mobile phones, and online videogame consoles.
• By 2012, the number of devices accessing the internet will double to more than 3 billion, half of which will be mobile devices.

The World Wide Web
Tim Berners-Lee created user-friendly “Web pages” that could travel over the Internet, a network built to shuttle research between universities. The world logged on: 747 million adults in January.

E-mail
Tech’s answer to the Pony Express . Programs such as 1988’s Eudora made it easy to use. In-boxes have been filling up ever since. Nearly 97 billion e-mails are sent each day.

3Graphical user interface (GUI)
Most computer displays were blinking lines of text until Apple featured clickable icons and other graphic tools in its 1984 Mac. Microsoft’s Windows took GUI — pronounced “gooey” — to the masses.

AOL
AOL turned people on to Web portals, chat rooms and instant messaging. Early subscribers paid by the hour. AOL once boasted 35 million subscribers. It bought Time Warner for $106 billion in 2001.

Mosaic/Netscape
Created by Marc Andreessen and others, Mosaic was the first widely-used multimedia Web browser. Spin-off Netscape Navigator ruled the ‘90s until Microsoft’s Internet Explorer took off around ‘98.

Yahoo!
Stanford University graduate students Jerry Yang and David Filo created this popular Web portal in 1994. It remains a favorite for email, photo sharing (it owns Flickr) and other services.

eBay
Thanks to eBay, we can all now buy and sell almost anything (skip the body parts). eBay has 230 million customers worldwide who engage in 100 million auctions at any given time.

Amazon.com
Jeff Bezos’ baby began as an always-in-stock book seller. It survived the tech bubble and now is the definitive big box online store. It was the second most-visited online retailer in December, after eBay.

Instant Messaging
LOL! Web surfers began to “laugh out loud” and BRB (“be right back”) in the mid-‘90s, with the launch of ICQ and AOL Instant Messenger. Millions use it to swap messages and photos, even telephone pals.

Broadband
The answer to the drip-drip-drip of dial-up, high-speed Internet service fuels online entertainment. About 78% of home Internet users in the U.S. have broadband, up from less than 1% in 1998.
 

Here’s what others say about Internet 101:

“Internet 101: A well-organized overview uses simple language to explain all basic concepts of the Internet. The site can serve as a primary source for students, providing a solid and easy-to-understand foundation for the beginner…”
- Yahoo!

“Internet 101 is one of the best sites for parents, grandparents and, yes, even kids to learn about the Internet and how it works.”
- WABC-TV New York

“Internet 101 contains all you need to know about the Web, viruses, newsgroups, how to chat, how to search.”
- AT&T Labs

1)      Email
2)      Web surfing and searching
3)      Chatting
4)      Blogging
5)      Seeking Jobs, marital or business alliances (Social networking)
6)      E commerce/ Ebusiness/ E trading/ E learning (commercial)

The Internet Usage of an individual depends on various factors such as Availability of computer with net connection-connection speed and type of connection at work or at home with or with out restriction for use personal or for work related, Age, Working-Net savy or not, Non working-Retired-net savy or not, Sex, Type of work if working, Habits if retired, Freelancers and so on. In most cases where people are near a computer. The usage by an individual picks up once he finds out what all he can do or get from Internet use. Internet usage also depends upon what kind of a person, the user is - for example a person irrespective of age and sex  who has developed bad habits may be watching audult sites all the time or when ever he gets an opportunity. In general most people use internet for checking mail or better I should say deleting junk and unwanted unsolicited mails and activities associated with how to stop such mails. Second most popular usage is to search for information and activities related to gathering information depnding upon individuals: these mat incude not just searching the net for information but also sending mails to the network of funds and reading mails received, start discussions, subscribe to related free or paid news letters and journals etc. The ranking according to me is as follows:

1. Email 

2. Web surfing and searching

3.Ecommerce/ Ebusiness/ Etrading/ Elearning     

3. Chatting

4. Business/Brand promotion through advertisement or web site development

5. Blogging

6. Gaming and entertainment

7.   Seeking Jobs, marital or business alliances

8.Conducting and attending Webinars

9. Eservice, Econsultancy and Egovernance

10.Freelancing

11.Epublishing (books or research journals)

12.   Participating in social or professional networking sites

13.Business Process Outsourcing

14.Offshore project development and implementation

15.  ECRM

16. Virtual office or remote project implementation or work collaboration   

17. Watiching Sports (Cricket, Football, tennis, Olympic, Asian Games etc), movies and events 

18. Any other (specify)

In my case, I am not that much expert in this area. However after knowing how to operate the computer, my first activity has been e-mailing. Then searching answers for certain topics in the web sites. The recent one is participating in the Too Step sites which attracted  me very much. This is because I am a freelancer to express my opinions in this forum. Thanks & Regards to too-Step.

Thanks for the referral. 

Initially email was considered the most popular activity for Internet users when Internet was introduced approximately 25 years ago. From my observation, web surfing and researching has become the most popular. Even I spent most of my time when on internet doing research work. However, I would support  George Vargese order of popular activity  especially the first three. I would classified chatting on the same level with email or above since the young population don't email but chat with web cams at their disposal. Even some chatting are done as an official medium. Emails are limited now for official document and forward mails. Social websites are even replacing emails.

It is difficult to assess the changes in the ranks in the near future. However one thing for sure is that there could be improvements in all of the above mentioned activities. We have already moved from dial up to high speed internet/broadband.

As per my knowledge goes, it is No.1 option i.e. e-mailing.

As per my knowledge goes, it is No.1 option i.e. e-mailing.