Net tops 1 billion Users

In December 2008, the total number of Internet users worldwide surpassed 1 billion for the first time.

According to this report from PC Advisor China tops the list with almost 180 million users (18 percent of the global total).

In second place is the United States with 163 million users.

While the criteria for audience measurement on a global scale can be a little bit tricky, an "Internet user" can be defined as follows:

"The group is made up of people aged 15 and older, using home and work computers. It excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs."

According to the above report, the top 10 countries in terms of online audience are:

1. China: 179,710,000

2. United States: 163,300,000

3. Japan: 59,993,000

4. Germany: 36,992,000

5. United Kingdom: 36,664,000

6. France: 34,010,000

7. India: 32,099,000

8. Russia: 28,998,000

9. Brazil: 27,688,000

10. South Korea: 27,254,000

So, I guess we should learn Chinese as a second language pretty quick!

Imagine the potential in that market. Just China and US alone account for over 300,000,000 users.

The interesting point is that it is not stopping there. According to some estimates 1,000,000 users PER DAY are connecting to the net. In ten months that is ANOTHER 300 MILLION users.

If you are struggling to make ends meet in your local market you had better get smart regarding the internet. This is where the new economy is shifting. Expecting to get a job that pays more than minimum wage in this market may not be too realistic unless you are specializing in certain high demand fields.

My suggestion is keep increasing your knowledge of the internet and keeping building up your economy there while maintaining what you have. Eventually, you may be able to shift to a whole new way of business that will be recession proof or at least keep the wolves from the door.