Ecommerce

Online Shopping by AOL Members Reaches All-time Record in March Quarter;

AOL Members Spend $6.7 Billion Shopping Online In the FirstThree Months Of 2001
America Online, Inc., the world's leading interactive services company, today announced that AOL members spent an all-time record $6.7 billion shopping online in the first three months of 2001. [Business Wire]

Content partners

Resume.com to Offer Resume Writing Services for Boston.com's BostonWorks; Additional Services Include Career Counseling and Interview Preparation
Resume.com Solutions Inc., owner of Resume.com and 1-800-WRITERS, announced today that it is providing business writing services for the BostonWorks career management section of Boston.com. [Business Wire]

Access

KC online

[From Scotti] According to Industry Standard, Kansas City has 51% of the metro
population online at work or home on a regular basis, with a total
online population of 800,000.
Industry Standard states that Kansas City is "more connected" than
Dallas, Atlanta, NY, Chicago, Phoenix and St. Louis.
The 40 major communities and 15 counties which comprise the bi-state
Kansas City metro region have all embraced the vision of Kansas City
as "America's SmartCity®".

Ecommerce

Consumer spendign at AOL up 70%
(Dulles, Va.) AOL Time Warner Inc. said on Wednesday that its AOL members
spent a record $6.7 billion shopping online in the first three months of
2001. This was up 70% from a year ago. The figure included travel
purchases, one of the largest online markets.
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010523/wr/media_aoltimewarner_shopping_dc_1.html

Revenue streams

AOL To Raise Monthly Fee By 9%; Revenue Expected to Jump
Dulles, Va. -- Dulles-based America Online announced on Tuesday that it
has raised the price of its unlimited Internet service by 9% to $23.90 per
month.
[NOTE: this continues to imply that ISP services can be quite profitable for us, IF we do not have to spend significant funds marketing them]

ECommerce

Clicks and mortars thrive
Jupiter Media Metrix says online retailers will ring up $34 billion in sales this year, increasing to $104 billion in 2005 and $130 billion in 2006. Those predictions are down slightly from last year's forecasts ($36 billion in 2001 and $118 billion in 2005). The firm points out that in March 2000, 62 percent of the top 50 most-visited retail Web sites were Net-only operations; the remainder were brick-and-click stores. This March, only 44 percent of the top 50 were Web pure-plays.

Business models

Mondex: UK users would pay for content
May 18 2001: Internet users in the UK would be willing to pay for online content, according to a new survey from Mondex.
Of those polled, 57 percent said they would pay for online searches, archived news articles, music downloads, weather reports, railway timetables, online directory assistance, horoscopes and financial advice.

They would be willing to pay the most (GBP1.12 each time) for financial information, followed by pre-paying for mobile airtime online (GBP1.11), playing an online game (GBP1), and online searches (GBP0.69).

Men tended to be more extravagant than women, saying they would pay up to an average of GBP0.19 per item than women would.

Mondex says that paid online content could be worth GBP2.6 billion a month in revenue for UK firms.

Demographics

comScore: Internet access goes mainstream
May 18 2001: Internet access among African-American households, low-income households, and seniors in the US rose steadily last year, according to ComScore Networks.

Internet penetration among African-American households rose 35 percent between April 2000 and April 2001, and now stands at 51 percent.

Access among households with annual incomes under USD25,000 grew 28 percent in the same period to reach 36 percent, while access among households earning USD25,000 to USD50,000 increased by 17 percent to 56 percent.

Connectivity among households whose eldest member is over 64 rose by 25 percent to 27 percent, while connectivity for those aged 55 to 64 rose by 20 percent to 57 percent.

ComScore also found that households in the West of the US are most likely to have Internet access, followed by those in the Northeast, and the South. Overall, 58 percent of all US households now have Internet access.