But no - that's the average number of hits for the site for Go-Jamaica in any one month. That's a growth rate of just over 10 million hits per year since the site's inception in February 1997. In Jamaica, The Observer site reported 10.58 million hits for May 2001. "Hits" are the number of requests to a Web server. "Page views" indicate the number of times Web pages are displayed.

Go-Jamaica has now exceeded the three million mark in page views per month. Gleaner Online Web activity outstrips that of many regional newspapers in the United States. The Eastern Florida regional news site by the Herald Tribune claims 1.5 million page views a month.

The growth experience is not limited to the volume of news readers, but includes other key features such as e-commerce.

Notwithstanding change-resistant scepticism toward using the new medium, Web Forrester Research, a media research firm, predicts that worldwide e-commerce spending will reach US$6.8 trillion by 2004, with North American shoppers commanding the lion's share. Since Go-Jamaica launched its award winning E-commerce Shopping Mall early in 1998, the per transaction sales activity has quadrupled annually.

In response to the growing preference for the convenience of on-line credit card transactions, Go-Jamaica now also offers the public an on-line payment interface that enables the placement of Gleaner classified ads in the paper via the Web. Loyal readers have quickly embraced the new facility.

Advertising good sense

When comparing ad prices to consumer eyeballs, advertising in the digital media is surprisingly cost effective and presents a good compliment to a print campaign. According to a Forrester study endorsed recently by the Online Publishers Association, an advertiser who spends about US$0.14 cents per individual to reach the readership base of a print publication will pay cheaper prices, usually in the single digits, to reach the same, if not larger base when advertising online.

Are online readers worth reaching? The same study indicates that 44 per cent of Web users now mention the Internet as a growing element in their shopping habits. Online advertisers are able to develop product and brand awareness among a key demographic group that is well educated and has disposable income. Companies that still consider the Internet to be an afterthought adjunct to brick and mortar sales and marketing are losing ground to savvy competition and are trying to catch up.

How many online?

Most studies of Internet activity preface their findings by announcing that there is no reliable way to determine the exact number of individual users on the Internet. That being said, CommerceNet estimates that there will be 490 million Internet users by year-end 2002.

This number is probably on target, if not conservative, since the number of on-line worldwide users as of December 2000 was set at 418 million by NUA, a widely quoted Internet survey group based in Ireland. Jamaica has been one of the leaders in Internet usage in the Caribbean.

According to the most recent report available, the International Telecommunications Union estimated that there were 60,000 Internet users in Jamaica way back in December 1999. That same study quoted Trinidad at 30,000, the Dominican Republic at 25,000, the Bahamas at 11,3000, and Barbados at 6,000.

The future

If past indication of Internet growth is an indication of the future, the prognosis for continued user expansion should be favourable. And, many of these users are sitting at an office, earning a paycheque, with money to spend. ComScore Networks reports that 52 million Internet users come from the U.S. workforce. That's 42 per cent of all U.S. traffic. Worldwide traffic levels rest around 296 million. Enough said!

Log on to www.go-jamaica.com to see what else we offer. Or call us on 932-6073 Monday - Friday for more information on our other services. For instance, you've seen the advertisement for our "Summer Special" Web site development offer. Let us help you get online.

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