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Virtuality today
An international statistic about internet usage. Where does Australia stand?
This internet site provides interesting statistics regarding internet usage, penetration, and growth. 70.2% of Australia's population or in other words 14'729'000 people are connected to the internet. This penetration rate is similar to the one in North America (69.7%). However, it is interesting to note that North America's growth rate is below the one of Australia. Between 2000 and 2007 we observe in Australia a growth rate of 123.2%. Moreover, it is worthwhile to mention that Oceania covers 1.7% of the world's intenet users! Especially the growth rate of 123.2% is very interesting. (Source: Internet World Stats)
What does virtuality mean for your businesse?
It seems the use of the information highway has changed a lot of processes in our lives. It opens up great possibilities for businesses to sell their products and services online, assist customers in forums, faq, live chats or by email. On the other hand it saves a lot of time for the customer. He does not have to call expensive and time consuming hotlines to book flights, hotels, train tickets. He can virtually organize most of his daily duties, pay bills, go grocery shopping and have them delivered at home.
Today it is very important for businesses in all industries to have a 'virtual business card' because a high percentage of possible customers (70.2% of all Australians) search for services they need on the web, compare after they selected a few 'favorites' and buy the product or service. More than 50% of online sales have been purchased by women.
Now what are the criterias to be selected (as a business) for 'further inspectation'?
Very important: the website needs to be found in search engines! For that you need a web designer who is familiar with SEO (search engine optimization) and the content should be chosen wisely since every title, description of image, text, downloadable brochure, simply everything will be spidered, ranked and given out by search engines. Therefore it is important to think about planning 'matches' in the website's content and write descriptions especially for the search egnines. Further it is important to let the customer feel the corporate identity, make content accesible and userfriendly. The customer should find the requested information intuitiv. Who is your client?
What does 'virtuality' in todays age mean for individuals?
Besides finding information, making transactions, buying and booking all kinds of services, keeping in touch with virtual communities, assessing online classes, online voice calls, video conversations ... It opened a door to the future, I personally never could have imagined just a couple of years ago. I remember the time around 15 years ago, where we did not even dream about such possibilities. Video Conference for example was something that was used only by banks or other big, international companies. Today we all can have it! Some say that the web makes people lonesome. But for a lot of people who would have been really lonesome 15 years ago, it has opend a huge amount of possibilities to connect with other people. We can have all sorts of 'buddies' who are available when we go online. If we'd rather like to spend our time on something else, we just make ourself 'invisible' and nobody will bother us anymore. Isn't that nice?
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Newsflash
- We have been productive in the last months.
- RealWorldEconomics Website is now online!
- We will be mentioned in 'Digital Family Album Special Occasions' which will be published in fall 2007
- Virtuality today
- How to find out what style of a website suits you
- 10 tips to make a website more successful
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