Over 1 Billion Internet Users

Some time in 2005, we quietly passed a dramatic milestone in Internet history: the one-billionth user went online. Because we have no central register of Internet users, we don't know who that user was, or when he or she first logged on. Statistically, we're likely talking about a 24-year-old woman in Shanghai.

According to Morgan Stanley estimates, 36% of Internet users are now in Asia and 24% are in Europe. Only 23% of users are in North America, where it all started in 1969 when two computers -- one in Los Angeles, the other in Palo Alto -- were networked together.

It took 36 years for the Internet to get its first billion users. The second billion will probably be added by 2015; most of these new users will be in Asia. The third billion will be harder, and might not be reached until 2040.

AOL's Top 2005 Searches

1. Lottery
2. Horoscopes
3. Tattoos
4. Lyrics
5. Ringtones
6. IRS
7. Jokes
8. American Idol
9. Hairstyles
10. NASCAR

Yahoo's Top Searches of 2005

1. Britney Spears
2. 50 Cent
3. Cartoon Network
4. Mariah Carey
5. Green Day
6. Jessica Simpson
7. Paris Hilton
8. Eminem
9. Ciara
10. Lindsay Lohan

Elfster Simplifies Secret Santa Gift Exchanges

Elfster helps with both organizing an exchange and participating in an exchange.

For organizers, Elfster helps with the logistics of determining who wants to participate, drawing names, and communicating the names that were drawn. All this is done while at the same time maintaining the secrecy of who drew whom.

For participants, Elfster helps find the right gift for the person whose name you drew. For example, you can ask your person questions (such as "What's your shoe size?") that will help you get the right fit. But you are able to ask these questions in a way that will not give away your identity. In addition, participants can keep a wishlist to give their Secret Santa ideas of what might be good gifts.

Self-destructing Text Messages Popular in the UK

"The technology behind StealthText is derived from military technology, so the comparisons with Mission Impossible are justified," said Carole Barnum, chief executive of Staellium UK.

"The ability to send a self-destruct message has massive benefits for people from all walks of life, from everyday mobile users through to celebrities and business people," she said.

The most high-profile case of embarrassing text messages in recent years was the revelations of messages sent from England football captain David Beckham to his personal assistant Rebecca Loos.

Privacy comes at a price. Each text using the system costs 50 pence, though users have to sign up for a minimum of 10 messages.

Are Webpages Getting Bigger?

Our growing problem is Internet traffic. While policing of non-business use is very active, Internet traffic continues to grow. I'm becoming convinced that one of our problems is that average web page size is growing. As more of the world enjoys broadband access, I think web developers have less reason to limit the size of their web pages. Large images, flash animations and other size-increasing content seem increasingly common. Am I right? Can anyone point to a recent study that would support my theory, and help me convince my management that we just plain need more bandwidth?

Experts Can Create Lenses on Squidoo

A lens is one person's (lensmaster's) view on a topic he cares about. More specifically, a lens is a single web page filled with information and links that point to other web pages, to continually updated RSS feeds, or to relevant advertising. It's a place to start, not finish.

Cross About.com, Wikipedia, blogs and social networks. What you get is — Squidoo, the new service launched by author and online marketing guru Seth Godin which allows you to create, manage and maintain web pages or mini guides on various topics. These pages, which he calls 'lenses', put a magnifying glass under a topic, and hopefully filter the information into the perfect starting point for researching a given topic.

"I believe that when you go online, you don't search. You don't even find. Instead, you are usually on a quest to make sense. That's the goal of most visits to Google or Yahoo! or blogs or the Wikipedia. How do you make sense of the noise that's coming at you from all directions?

Surfing the Web From the Bathroom

"A significant number of Americans use the computer connection in the bathroom," said Jeffrey Cole, of the University of Southern California (USC) Annenberg School Center for the Digital Future.

Since people were unlikely to be surfing in the bath, or while brushing their teeth, Mr Cole said he had concluded that many of them went off into cyberspace while on the throne.

"Over half of those who used Wi-Fi had used it in the bathroom," said Mr Cole, remarking that he believed some people in busy homes retreated there for some privacy.

"It wasn't for comic relief - it was a genuine finding," he said, referring to the survey during an advance briefing to amused US congressional staffers.

Wireless Operators Offering High-Speed Surfing

Cingular, the largest mobile phone service provider, joins two other large wireless operators--Verizon Wireless and Sprint--in rolling out third-generation technology that carries data at speeds comparable to landline DSL.

Cingular's initial products are aimed at business customers and limited to inserted radio cards that enable laptop computers to go online. The carrier said it will have consumer-oriented 3G phones available early next year.

The new service costs about $60 a month for unlimited service with monthly rates as low as $20 for limited service. That is comparable to rates offered by other wireless operators.

Use of Firefox and Safari Growing

Safari has become the world's third most-used Web browser while Internet Explorer continues to lose its grip on the worldwide information superhighway.

New research from Web analysis firm Market Share shows Safari with 2.78 per cent of the market, up from 1.56 per cent in December 2004.

The research also confirms the continued rise in popularity of the Firefox browser, now the world's second-ranking Web surfing tool with 8.84 per cent (from 4.64 per cent in December 2004).

Digg to Expand to Include Non-Tech Items

Digg's editorial process is based on its thousands of readers "digging" a story--or voting that it be moved up in the rankings. The more votes a story garners, the further up in the rankings it goes, creating an editorial collective that votes on what stories users see first.

Adelson's hope is that the method will end up being faster and more reliable than both the wholly automated search engines, and the wholly people-powered sites like Slashdot--which relies on human editors to push stories to the front page. "It's incredible how fast it [Digg] is growing. I think one of the reasons why is because it revealed one very serious advantage over those older models," he said. "That is, it's much faster. If you're looking for fresh data, current data, or very dynamic data, a search engine relies on the crawling technology, an editorial board takes days to process and publish."

Adelson said the site has now reached a "critical mass" of users that can sustain entry into categories broader than technology -- sports and business news, for example. "Whatever we choose, we've got good access to a critical mass of people," he said.

Do It All With Glide Effortless

If there was an award for "Most Ambitious New Web Service of 2005," it might well go to Glide Effortless, which a startup called TransMedia launched on Wednesday. Glide aims to let you manage and share music, videos, photos, presentations, and other items online, transcoding them on the fly so you don't, in theory, have to worry about file formats. It's an e-mail program, a contact database, an RSS reader, a photo-printing service, a blogging tool, and a Web site builder, too. And it says it'll soon be a photo editor, a music store, a ringtone vendor, a videoconferencing system, and a whole lot more. Did I mention that it also plans to sell French chocolates? (Note: The last sentence was a statement of fact, not playful hyperbole.)

Describing Glide briefly is practically impossible. To use the service, you upload documents and media files from your PC; a free version of the service gives you 100MB of space, and you can get a lot more by springing for fee-based options. Once files live within Glide, you can get to them from any PC, use them to construct Web sites, and share them. (Sharing can be done with folks who don't have Glide accounts, and it's done through transcoded, streamed versions of files; among other things, this means that you can distribute them via e-mail, but yank them back after a certain number of viewings or a set timeframe.)

Firefox 1.5 Debuts

According to the non-profit Mozilla Foundation Latest News about Mozilla Foundaton, which distributes the open-source browser, Firefox 1.5 offers enhanced securityRelevant Products/Services from Microsoft and privacy Latest News about privacy features, improved pop-up blocking, faster load times and automatic update capability.

"It's going to render your web pages faster, and the automatic update feature will make sure your browser is always up to date," said Mike Schroepfer, Mozilla's vice president of products.

"As a user you will notice the difference with this new version."