Broadband users are on the web more often and view more pages than dial-up users, according to Comscore, but they don’t appear to have any special interest in content designed for their speedy connections.
| Broadband | Dial-up | |
|---|---|---|
| Average Days per month per user | 30 | 18 |
| Average Pages per Usage Day | 131 | 108 |
| Average Minutes per Visitor | 1,850 | 1,119 |
| Average Pages per Visitor | 3,882 | 1,921 |
They use “Radio”, “Movies”, and “Multimedia” more than dial-up users, but they use “Taxes”, “Shipping”, and “Classifieds” a lot more, too. A lot of the differences in their habits can be accounted for by their greater household incomes.
| Broadband Visitors As % of Total Visitors | |
|---|---|
| Total Internet | 32% |
| Taxes | 55% |
| Radio | 52% |
| Shipping | 52% |
| Car Rental | 49% |
| Politics | 49% |
| Classifieds | 48% |
| Jewelry/Luxury Goods | 48% |
| Movies | 47% |
| Hotels/Resorts | 47% |
| Weather | 47% |
| Home Furnishings | 47% |
| Consumer Goods | 46% |
| Multimedia | 46% |
| Online Gambling | 46% |
| Comparison Shopping | 45% |
There’s little or no evidence in this study that broadband users are looking for broadband content. And once you account for the fact that they were probably heavier than average users when they had dial-up connections, it’s even unclear how much of their increased usage is due to their higher-speed connections.
It’s probably not a mistake to think that the one-third of US Internet usrs who have broadband will mind slow sites less than the two-thirds who have dial-up. But thinking that broadband users demand a new kind of Web is a mistake.