What Drives People to the Web

What kinds of services, you may be wondering, are people looking for on the Internet? Eight or nine years ago, the Internet was largely a research medium, meaning that people would hit the Internet to try to find information about something fairly academic or obscure. This is not surprising, given that universities were the first groups to start putting their content online.

Today, the number of reasons people head to the Internet has grown dramatically and includes the following:

To research, compare, and purchase products

To find and interact with other people (business colleagues, friends, romantic interests)

To get daily news and information delivered in real time

To search for and find information about any topic or organization of interest

To deliver and promote their own messages and products to others on the Web

To watch or listen to events, online and otherwise, delivered in a variety of audio and video formats

To educate themselves via online classes and enrollment in universities

To play games and entertain themselves

To complete all sorts of personal and professional tasks that can now be done securely online, such as online banking, personal finance, investing, tax submission, travel, donating, and procurement


These items run the gamut of professional and personal, and they cross demographic lines. What is common among most online users, though, is that they begin their online usage with a focused purpose, and that focus then bleeds over into surfing for things that interest them throughout the Web