One quarter of the world uses the web

November 15, 2009 / Sobering factoid from the World Wide Web Foundation, an organisation trying to make the web truly universal.

[map of World Wide Web penetration by geographic region]
Global web usage, 2009. (Image: WWW Foundation. Data: Internet World Stats.)

An excerpt on global web usage from the (newly redesigned) World Wide Web Foundation site, whence I also co-opted the graphic above:

Only 25% of the world’s population uses the Web, despite the fact that more than 70% (and growing) have access to mobile or fixed communications.

Useful to remember next time the “ubiquity of the web” argument rolls around. The WWW Foundation has a lot of good projects on the boil, of which the program to “teach youth in the most economically-challenged neighborhoods of major cities to develop Web applications” is especially cool.

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