• by Masha Geller , January 25, 2002

If you’re interested in geo-targeting your online ads, this latest batch of data should be of some interest to you. The latest release from Nielsen//NetRatings reveals that Pittsburgh took the No. 1 spot as the fastest growing wired city in the U.S., jumping 20.4% year-over-year this past December to 1.2 million Web surfers.

Salt Lake City took second place as its Internet population grew 20% to 973,000 surfers while the surfing population of Phoenix jumped 17% to 1.4 million. The Internet population of Raleigh grew 13.4% this year, reaching 821,000 surfers. Rounding out the top five fastest growing wired cities, Philadelphia posted a 12.8% increase to nearly 3.1 million Internet surfers.

"While large metropolitan areas such as San Francisco, Seattle and New York may have been earlier adopters of Internet technology, we are now seeing cities in middle America post considerable gains as those residents integrate the Web into their everyday lives," said TS Kelly, director and principal analyst at NetRatings.

Rounding out the top ten list were Cleveland, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Kansas City, and Detroit.