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March 10, 1999
Web posted at: 4:53 p.m. EST (2153 GMT)

by Maryann Jones Thompson

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(IDG) -- In the early days of the Web, Net surfers were largely young, techie or upscale males - not exactly every marketer's target audience. These days, while the online population has changed drastically, it remains a fairly elite group.

Demographics from Mediamark Research show that Web surfers are approximately twice as likely to have high household incomes, college degrees and management positions than the overall U.S. population. They are also more likely to be young, single and Asian.

Looking back to 1996, it is encouraging that the educational, age and gender profile of the online population is approaching that of the U.S. More distressing is the lack of change in the income profile. But an optimist would point out that as the number of surfers doubled during the past three years, growth in Net use among less-affluent demographic segments has kept up with that of the upper crust.

Geographically, Web users can be found in all corners of the U.S. But according to researcher Inteco, the level of Net use in several major metro areas exceeds the U.S. average.