The monthly growth in new internet users has slowed, but as the market matures, the amount of time people spend on line is increasing and money making opportunities are emerging, according to new research from Jupiter MMXI. In October 1999, users in the UK spent an average of four hours online per month, but by April 2001, this figure had grown to over seven hours. Jupiter has also identified two groups of users, Heavy and Light. The former, which make up 20% of the net-using population, account for more than 70% of the total hours spent online by UK users.
Daniela Weiss, UK managing director of Jupiter, said “Since we started measuring British internet usage in October 1999 we have seen the market grow, develop and mature rapidly in a relatively short period of time. With more people spending more time online, our data and analysis shows that there are real opportunities for companies to profit from the web.”
Thanks to the dotcom boom and bust, most attention has been focused on how sites have failed to make money and succeeded in burning it. In contrast Jupiter analyst Dan Stevenson believes there are several areas with potential for making money online including travel, classified advertising, gambling and adult content.
Jupiter’s figures show that in 2000 online travel spending with companies such as Ebookers amounted to just under £500m. Its 2001 projection is over £750m, while by 2005 it expects the market to be worth over £2.7bn.
Classified advertising has also shown itself as an early source of income for the online industry, with a significant shift from print media to new media having already occurred, thanks to the ability to update ads quickly and cheaply. Jupiter’s report says “The online dating market has been particularly successful at generating money from community content.”
Meanwhile gambling is seen as a pioneer in interactive digital TV, which can combine both the transactions and the events bet on in a single screen. Adult sites are not, Jupiter claims, as popular as myth would have it, but they have nevertheless “successfully initiated and developed the subscription-based paid content model.”
The dotcom dreams of riches may not be dead after all, then. Weiss concludes, “Businesses need to understand which approaches work best, and to learn from the experience of other players to maximise their successes.”
