100 Million Websites Milestone

There are now over 100 million websites on the Internet (based on domain names and sites) with the biggest growth occuring in 2006. This according to Netcraft, an internet tracking firm. Last month alone, Netcraft reports there were 3.5 million sites created and 27.4 million this year compared to 17 million in 2005. (Source: http://news.netcraft.com.)

The drivers appear to be a combination of the user-generated content sites phenom such as blogs and other community building sites, cheaper domains, and the proliferation of small business sites. Wider internet adoption and greater and cheaper access probably don't hurt either. Geographically, it comes as no surprise that the biggest growth is in the US followed by Germany, UK, Canada, and France. (Source: http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/internet/11/01/100millionwebsites/index.html?eref=rss_topstories.)

I wonder how many of these 100 million websites are usable and what is the breakdown between desktop versus mobile sites. Clearly, there would be more of the former versus the latter but I expect that dynamic will normalize over time. Wonder as well what the average number of pages are per site...maybe 5 pages and what is the cumulative size of all these websites. Based on about 2002 stats, 5 exabytes of storage space was created in 2002 and the rate of growth is about 30 per cent a year (based on research conducted by University of California-Berkeley's School of Information Management and Systems professors Peter Lyman and Hal Varian.)

And who's using these 100 million websites?! According to Pew Internet Group, white, urban, adults between the ages of 18-29, with an almost even mix between males and females, are the biggest group online engaged mostly in the following activities: email, searching for info, directions, health info, product/service, weather, hobby, travel, news, surfing recreationally, etc.

The web has been around long enough that from a design and usability perspective, users have come to expect websites to look and function in certain ways. Websites have certain common GUI elements and acceptable design and usability standards have been established. But things change fast on the web and keep evolving, and like most of you, I look forward to the next 100 million sites.

Internet Mogul Ram Shriram @ WebGuild

Webguild - Ram & Safa
Originally uploaded by WebGuild.


Webguild - Wow!!!
Originally uploaded by WebGuild.


WebGuild - Ram Shriram & Daya Baran
Originally uploaded by WebGuild.

The WebGuild 2006 Conference: Web 2.0 - The New Web Thursday October 19 brough out the who's who of the internet world.

Internet pioneer Ram Shriram - Founding Member of Google shared his insights on Web2.0, user generated content and social networks at WebGuild 2006. Ram described “Web 2.0″ as not simply a new technology but an evolution in technology more than a revloution. He said that search has essentially made the world flat and that has put tremendous power in the hands of the average person.

The cost of starting such entities has dropped tremendously in the last couple of years and has removed a barrier that previous existed, he said. He also, shared that the growth of social networking have in part been driven by user behavior enabled by more dynamic content.

Looking forward he predicted that the mobile phone with ever increasing utilization rate and penetration in countries such as China, India, Brazil and Russia will be the under pinnings of the next major trend.

The panel was moderated by Safa Rashtchy of Piper Jaffery and attended by VCs (Bill Tai - Charles River Ventures, Highland Capital, Intel Capital, Shasta Ventures, Clearstone Ventures and more) entrepreneurs, journalists, web technologists, government officals from Poland, England, Australia, Canada and recruiters from Google there to snag some smart folks.

Interview with Marissa Mayer, VP, at Google

The WebGuild 2006 Conference: Web 2.0 — The New Web was on Thursday October 19 and it was highly successful — rich in information and knowledge sharing from the who's who of the web including Keynotes from Ram Shriram, Founding Member of Google, and Marissa Mayer, VP of Search Products and User Experience at Google. I moderated the directed Q&A session with Marissa who was an absolute crowd pleaser. She shared with and provided a great deal of insight to the audience into Google's methodology for delivering its highly successful and timeless user interface.

View photos
of the
Conference. The video of the session with Marissa Mayer, for those of you who missed it or are just looking for a re-cap, will be available shortly.




Updated: Here is the video.

Get What You Want, When You Want It

The mobile web phenomenon is a reality today. No longer is it just about creating sites for desktop PC consumption. The proliferation of mobile devices with web access has changed the landscape of web site access. Mobile devices have become an extension of our arms and being able to access contextually relevant information and content on-the-go is critical to our daily lives for personal and business purposes. The corporate world is hip to this reality and is aiming to be more and more what you want, when you want it. Their corporate-facing sites are taking on a new dimension/face and going mobile. Companies such as Google, Yahoo, and even older-world Cisco and Microsoft have created mobile versions of their web sites. And, these sites are not just your back-to-basics web 0 sites, they come fully-loaded and blinged out with graphics, rich media, and more. They are not simply a duplication of regular desktop version sites formatted for mobile devices, these sites have been adopted for mobile consumption with bite-size chunks of information that users want quick access to. With web sites, companies are one-click away from their customers; with mobile devices, this is more so the case than ever. Clearly, companies not getting on this bandwagon stand to lose. Check these sites out for yourself!

Three Screen View

Being able to access your content seamlessly between your desktop, mobile device, and TV is way cool. The idea of creating once and publishing everywhere has long been talked about and is more so a reality today - thanks to media specific stylesheets and tools that mobify your site by stripping the markup for mobile usability. It lends itself to the notion of universal and contextual design - that is, designs that are relevant to the context of use or access point. Access a site from your PC and you are served up the desktop version; access the same site from your mobile device and you are served up the mobile edition. And clearly, there is a growing reverse access trend to have your TV content accessible from your PC and mobile device.