By Matt Broersma, 2 January 2004 15:00
NEWS The web may have popularised the internet, but most users now connect to the net using non-browser applications, according to figures released this week.
Media players and instant-messaging applications are now by far the most popular internet applications, dwarfing the web browser, according to December figures from Nielsen//NetRatings released on Tuesday. Seventy-six per cent of active internet users access the net using a non-browser application.
The internet is increasingly working its way into applications outside the browser, blurring the lines between the desktop and the online world, according to Nielsen//NetRatings.
Nielsen//NetRatings analyst Abha Bhagat said in a statement: "With 76 per cent of web surfers using internet applications, functionality has grown beyond the browser to become a fundamental piece of the overall desktop."
The most popular application in December was Windows Media Player, reaching 34 per cent of internet users; AOL Instant Messenger (20.27 per cent); RealNetworks' players (19.76 per cent); MSN Messenger (19.31 per cent) and Yahoo! Messenger (12.26 per cent).
The web browser Mosaic, introduced a decade ago, made the internet more accessible to non-technical users by adding a graphical user interface, but industry observers say the spread of internet applications is taking the IT industry into a post-web world.
Matt Broersma writes for ZDNet UK
Comments
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1. John Walsh
Is this story evidence of techie anti-web sentiment? The Nielsen//NetRatings figures show that 75 per cent of web surfers ALSO use apps other than browsers (i.e. NOT that use of other Internet apps is ‘dwarfing’ use of web browsers). The key to the story (which, admittedly, is a little ambiguous) is the Nielsen//NetRatings figure of 3 hours usage per month for non-browser apps.
2. Brian Catt
This is making news out of false definitions, quite spurious column filling. The news is that internet enabled applications are increasing Internet ultisiation withdedicated applications.
Peer to peer exchange is a new application, maybe replacing FTP a bit but not significantly. Instant messaging is an incremental peer to peer application unrelated to browsing or web based information. Neither of these replace browser functionality, which is essential to visit and browse web sites as it ever was.
You can't vist a web site without a browser, period. Further it isn't a good idea to do commerce using dowloaded clients, as Tesco found out, maintaining this downloaded base leads to too many problems. The vendor needs to control the application interface, so the client must be dumb, and the Browser is an ideal cross platform standard. Ask Amazon.
Brian Catt.
3. anonymous
Nonesense. Unworthy of you. An online browser is usually a browser in use. Most users aren't even aware that their instant messaging application is online or that their media player is updating their media library. The real story here is the bandwidth wasted by these applications doing poitless things online. Please don't waste our time with such fatuous content.
4. anonymous
Your article tells me that more and more users are avoiding or not using browsers but NOT how to find those ways of doing so (other than MSN and the like).
Please advise,
5. anonymous
This article is poorly worded and misleading. Yes, many users now connect to the net using non-browser applications IN ADDITION TO web browsers.
6. Frank DiSalle
This may be a sign that Internet users have become more passive. Just as millions of people "only" listen to radio, or watch TV, or use a telephone, doesn't mean that there is not a multibillion industry "behind" those activities.
Were it not for the active uploaders, and online movie makers, there would be nothing to watch or listen to.