In this post I am going to continue to present statistics of Internet usage. My goal is to show you factual data of the changing market. Like I alluded to in the previous post, I think most of these facts can easily be assumed, but it is always good to back up those assumptions with real facts.

I pulled the following stats from the Digital Center .

• For the first time, the percentage women Internet users was higher than the number of men in 2006.
• More than three-quarters of Americans are Internet users; 77.6% of Americans age 12 and older go online.
• More than 2/3 of Americans (68.1%) use the Internet at home, a substantial increase from the 46.9% of users who reported home Internet use in 2000
• Among users age 17 and older, almost 2/3 of the Internet users (65.8%) consider the Internet to be very important or extremely important source of information for them. This is up from 56.3% in 2005
• The number of online purchasers rose to its highest level in the history of the study (51.1%)

The Internet was created in the late ’50’s and grew to encompass the WWW in the late ’80’s. The generation Y group,  also known as the “Net Generation” a term created by Don Tapscott in his book “Growing Up Digital” , and who are people that were born between 1980-1994, were born into this technology. This group completely relies on the Internet for it information. In fact, I would guess that many have rarely ever picked up a phone book to find a phone number or address. This group holds the availability of choice in very high regard. Don Tapscott states that “N-Geners are not viewers or listeners or readers. They are users. They reject the notion of expertise as they shift through information at the speed of light by themselves, for themselves. It is difficult to convince them that they must have anything. Other industries can learn what the software and video game industries have already adopted - make your product free to use for a limited time. If it’s use becomes integrated into the N-Gen routine, making activities faster, brighter, and easier, then the product becomes indispensable and the companies can begin to charge.”

This information establishes a new user and a new consumer you need to be concerned about when think of where your company is going to be in 5 years. Generation Y is coming to the forefront in the Real Estate and Mortgage market. These are your future customers and may even be your customers now.
I am going to leave it there for this post and will pick up here asap in Part 3.

Part 1
Part 3

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