One Billion Internet Users

I have no idea how they figured this out but I saw the number on the Internet so it must be close. It was paired with the projection that the number of users will double in the next 10 years. This also sounds pretty accurate when you consider China and India.


These sort of stories always remind me of one college administrator I spoke to in 1994 about the Internet. I had basically suggested to him in a piece of email (he had his secretary print it for him so he could read it before our face to face meeting) that it might be a good strategy for Dickinson College to consider how technology might be used to better connect with alumni.

Without patting myself on the back too much (I was simply standing on the shoulders of visionaries like Lycurgus and the BlogDog) I then listened with shocked disbelief as this man said he didn't think anybody would use it. He meant email but he might as well have said the Internet. Much to his credit he did change his tune a couple of years later and my alma mater is as wired as any campus in the country. Though I will always fondly think of him as the man who "didn't think anybody would use it." I will probable still regard him this way whenever the Internet reaches 2 billion users.