Tidbit Archive
| Most of us take the operations of the Internet for granted.
We boot up our computer, dial up our ISP (unless we are lucky enough to
have a dedicated, always-on connection), and begin surfing, checking our
e-mail, etc. We know little about what goes on between our keyboard
and the web site with which we are connecting (or trying to connect).
This kind of transparency is essential to the Internet's user-friendliness,
as well as its growth, penetration, and potential as a commercial
medium and global information and entertainment resource.
Nevertheless, anyone interested in technology and the future ought to have some idea of how the Internet is structured and why it behaves the way it does -- for example, what makes it so painfully slow sometimes or why do sites fail to load altogether sometimes then pop right in when you hit the reload button? Like a highway, the Internet is subject to traffic congestion. Like a postal service, it sometimes loses packages (or, in this case, the packets of data into which Internet communications are broken up). And like any other communication system, sometimes it takes longer to respond than other times. Because of the very nature of the Internet and the way in which it developed, it is full of sites that collect and distribute information about it, providing statistics on Internet usage, traffic reports, maps of its structure, and descriptions of all aspects of its operation. Some of the most interesting, most of which are accessible to non-techies, are listed below. |
Links:Internet Traffic Report -- monitors flows of data around the world, provides a numerical index of the amount of traffic as well as more esoteric stats such as response times and packet loss
NetCopter -- real-time information about the performance of major Internet service providers (ISPs) in the U.S.
Concentric Network's traffic report (response time for reaching various destinations via major networks in the U.S.)
Internet.com's "Big Picture Stats Toolbox" -- current statistics on everything from how much time the average user spends online to the top 10 banners, to the percentage of the population using the Internet in various nations
The Internet Index -- an interesting collection of facts, factoids, and statistics about the Internet, modeled on Harper's Index, collected and published periodically by Win Treese
Links to Internet statistics and demographics sites from the Library of Congress
WebSideStory's StatMarket -- a source of Internet statistics and demographics primarily for e-commerce (also source of the ticker at the top of this page)
An Atlas of Cyberspaces -- graphical representation of the geographies of cyberspace; see, especially the strikingly beautiful geographic maps showing the density of Internet connections around the world
Russ Haynal's "Internet: The Big Picture," showing the various elements of the Internet and how they relate to one another, with links to more information about each element