Submitted by acohill on Fri, 10/28/2005 - 14:46
Use of the Internet is booming in the United States. A new study released by the U.S. Census Bureau shows big changes from 1997.
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40% of all adults in the U.S. use the Internet to get weather and sports, up from 7% in 1997.
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47% of U.S. adults use the Internet to get news and other information, up from 2% in 1997. This is why newspapers, in their traditional form, are in such trouble--half of all adults use the Internet to get news. There is no reason why newspapers can't get in on that action, but they would have to develop a new business model that is Internet-centric rather than paper-centric.
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In one of the most interesting pieces of data, more than 39 million households shopped online in 2004, up about 10% from the previous year. So there is a lot of money changing hands on the Internet, and local small businesses need to become more savvy about getting in the game, just like newspapers.