Internet Usage Statistics

For six years, The Center for the Digital Future at the USC Annenberg School has been studying the habits of Internet users, reporting their data each year in a report entitled “Surveying the Digital Future.” The results of this year’s report mark a few, interesting demographic milestones.

77.6 of Americans aged 12 and older use the Internet, but for the first time, a higher percentage of women use the internet versus men.

The percentage of Internet users making online purchases rose to 51.1 percent, the highest level since the study began.

Also on the rise are the number of hours spent online per week (8.9) and the number of users who say they spend less time in front of the television as a result of Internet use (35.5).

Read a PDF summary of the report.

Corporate Reputation

Corporations do realize that negative publicity and other media can damage their reputations. The main focus here, is that some corporations do not understand the damage that can be done right around their webpage.

Negative and inaccurate information -- from articles to product reviews to grassroots sites created by disgruntled customers or employees -- is often ranked prominently under company-branded keyword searches, making this information highly visible and accessible to important company constituents. In a networked environment, where good -- and bad -- news can be passed on virally in an instant, it can also be deadly to corporate and brand reputations.

This is where SEO and reputation marketing come into play. Some business people do not normally put those two together when they are thinking of their firms' reputation.