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How many people still don't use the internet to get information? I couldn't live without it!
My husband, who's in his early 70s - while not a ranter as my dad was, he's still not interested - hasn't a clue, can't turn on the machine, if I die tomorrow he won't know how to get into the info on the bank account and the cds.... So it's more than kind of him to ignore the fact that I spend so much time online. AND to turn a blind eye when I spend big $$ on tech (well, it's MY money really....)
My brother, a vp at a major national defense corp, who uses the intranet at work but can't figure out how to use a search engine (and he's younger than I am....)
His wife, who thinks a browser is her Gateway....
You are right, but I guess I am so self centered (in my own web world) that I figured everyone is on the internet bandwagon since my world revolves around it.
The strange side of this is the person actually contacted me soliciting content. I tried to give her great exposure for free. Since she didn't understand how a website could drive customers, she said she had to think about it...not that I am waiting. We receive so many content submissions it is neither here nor there if her content is published. The topic matter was a good idea, so I thought we could give her a chance. (oh well I tried).
The kicker is, our site ranks #1 in Google, MSN, Yahoo for the search term that would drive customers to the article (above major TV shows and trade magazines for the main search keyword.)
I can't stand the thought of myself missing a golden opportunity, I just had the opportunity to see it happen to someone else.
Recently I told her that more than thousand people each day visited my website. She kept silent for some seconds and then replied: "How do all these people from all those different countries know you?" She thought that all these people personally knew me and therefore visited my website. Although she used search engines herself she couldn't understand that others also used them...
Now both want to get involved in ecom.. Makes me laugh.
Saw an article in the Daily Telegraph several Students (20ish) said they couldnt imagine a world with out the internet!
Research is SOOOOO much simpler. So is "shopping" - where I live there ISN'T any shopping! Keeping in touch - email is so much simpler than snail mail. With my genealogy stuff online, it's far easier for others to access it. And on and on....
I remember once in the early 90s, before she started using the internet, she told me in all seriousness how all computers have the numbers "666" ingrained in the microchips, that all computers serve the devil.
Nowadays she's very happy to use ICQ, MSN, e-mail, internet, and faxing from her Mac.
Where do people get such strange ideas? Must be ignorance and superstition.
Guess we're still a very primitive race.
My mother, for example, was on the phone to my sister who was telling her about a store online that had something my mother was after. My mum couldnt find the site (it turned out she had put the URL in wrong) and suggested that perhaps the website wasnt avaliable in the south of the country!
And whilst my sister was at university about 10 years ago, she did an assignment solely about the internet. Nothing specific, it was just a new resource that had only just been introduced to the university. All her research for previous essays, and all research for future essays, had been done from books.
The first thing I do now when I see an essay question is go straight to google!
That was around 1995 boy have we moved on.
2 billion people, or over a third or the world's population, don't have access to electricity. A fifth of the world's population don't even have access to a water supply that is fit to drink. Can't live without the internet? Let's drag things into a little perspective, don't you think?
encyclo, I agree. When I tell people that I'm not on the grid, don't have a telephone line, and have no cable T.V., no internet, they ask "How do you live?" My reply? "Quite peacfully really."
I have my servers stored at work (of course), and I use the internet at work, and I live perfectly. I look at it as -- If I were to lose the internet, I'd be out of a job, not a life...
-- Zak
I know many other people who are completely unwired. They might own a cell phone and digital camera, but are scared to death of touching a computer. My M.I.L. was given a digital camera and a really nice color printer... she keeps buying new memory cards for her camera so she doesn't have to erase them, and she uses them like floppies. To see her photos from xmas 2003 she'll switch the memory card and you have to look at them on the little screen on the back of the camera. She has yet to print out a single picture, because she's scared of plugging the wires together.
Some luddites are admirable for not being caught in the net. With others you've got to wonder...
What she REALLY wants is for me to come over and re-program all the blinking "12:00" displays throughout the house.
Thank god the power only oges out a couple times a year.
Then again, between that and daylight savings... That's 4+ home cooked meals a year.
How many people still don't use the internet to get information? I couldn't live without it!
According to the International Monentary Fund 6.8% of the world population has ever used the internet.
They state that 407 million people use or have used the internet.
There are 5.98 billion people in the world.
Which means that 5.578 billion people haven't ever used the internet.
[imf.org...]
The only person I personally know in my private life who builds web sites is my grandson.
I just had a verbal workout trying to explain the benefits of submitting content articles on high traffic websites for exposure and their business branding purposes etc. I am talking some MAJOR focused free advertising exposure for their niche, and because of their "old school local" thinking, passed up an incredible opportunity...just because they couldn't grasp the magnitude of the internet concept. No skin off my nose, but it was just so very sad.
It could have been me you spoke with.
When I get cold called I give the impression that I know nothing about the internet and leave the caller frustrated that I can't see this potential he's raving about.
That's because I don't have the time to tell (the often very inexperienced internet marketeer) that I already have active PPC campaigns, that I've acquired various strategic content sites to drive traffic to my ecommerce site, that I've got an affiliate program and other sales generators in place etc. If I bother to take the time to explain this all to him he's going to reply that his solution is better than anything else around - because that's what he's paid to say/that's what's he's been brainwashed into believing. The best stand to take is that you don't know anything about the internet and that you don't care. That's the most efficient way of getting rid of these cold callers (not that you are one of course).
It's like the Beverly Hillbillys Online.
Funny thing is that my brother never goes online at all. He has e-mail at work, but that's it.
This woman does not own a computer. She has a typewriter. She admits to never having seen her own website. Is there an e-mail account? Well she's heard of e-mail, but has never used it. That website is out there, it ranks on Google, but in order to contact the artisan you have to pick up a phone.
After a long day of hacking out ASP and SQL, there is something very inspiring about that.
Did anyone hear the one about the typewriter convention that was in Vegas the same time as PubCon 2004?
They grapple with it like a child with a too-small coat. I /gave/ my dad a newly refurbed iBook for a trip to France and by the time he took it over there, he'd never even opened it. Then he left it there, not interested in figuring it out (yes, it was plugged in, I told him about the two-week battery).
When I sent them a copy of my second novel, on a CD, in txt format and doc format, they couldn't figure out how to open the file. In fact, they had to call a computer guy who owed them hours to come over and do it for them.
I feel the most sorry for the iBook...
It could have been me you spoke with.
I am sure it was not you I spoke with :) .(Sorry if I didn't explain clearly in the first post...I reread it and sure enough I sounded like I was selling!).
This person was soliciting ME to publish an article/idea in our online "magazine",which she mistakenly thought was available in print.
I guess the head scratcher for me was how a business person in the year 2005 would think of expanding a business and not consider using or understanding that the internet as a viable option. This person wanted to increase business and didn't beleive the benefits of internet content exposure...it just seemed a little odd.
Just think of all those people who haven't seen the internet yet...talk about opportunity to expand :)
Just think of all those people who haven't seen the internet yet...talk about opportunity to expand :)
My parents as well as many other people their age (and sadly.. even mine) don't know about it. Yes I am from the USA and yes we had computer classes in school, but many still don't get it.
My parents are 50 and 49.
