• by September 21, 2000

In case one of your targeting parameters is gender, I thought you may want to know that the newest eMarketer's eDemographics & Usage Patterns Report says that women now account for 37.1 million of all U.S. adult users, representing 49% of the total active online population. Some research firms have already placed women at 50% or higher, but eMarketer predicts that only by year 2003, the number of American women online will pass the majority mark - 51% - increasing to 78.8 million.

At the end of the day, 2% doesn't really make all that much of a difference, at least in my opinion, so it's probably more valuable to know that Asian households outpace all other race/ethnic groups in the percentage of households online - 54% of Asian households are actively online compared to 39% of white households, 33% of Hispanic households and 30% of black households.

Also, eMarketer found, newly established online services and communities are partly responsible for the rise in Internet usage by senior citizens. Seniors currently have the highest projected growth rate amongst all age groups. Formerly known as the group least likely to be online, seniors have increased their online presence by 38% since last year and by year 2003, there will be 17.3 million seniors online (11% of the total online population).

eMarketer also says the average income of online households will decrease as the number of lower-income families joining the net increase. Workplace net users access the Internet for longer periods than home-based users and both groups are scaling down their consumption of other media in lieu of the Internet.