From...

March 15, 1999
Web posted at: 8:37 a.m. EST (1337 GMT)

by James Ledbetter

(IDG) -- From the beginning, the Internet has been touted as the first truly global communications platform. Mostly, that's been hype. Throughout the 1990s, the bulk of the Net's growth has taken place in the U.S. The unabashedly American character of Web content is impossible to overlook.

However, the Internet's demographics are slowly shifting away from U.S.-centrism. Some of the first signs of a more cosmopolitan Net population are visible on the major U.S.-based community sites.

"This will be a very big year for Internet growth in Europe," predicts Jacques Dahan, VP of European operations for San Francisco-based Xoom.com. "And as the Internet takes off in Europe, it is our intention to grow in parallel."

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The Computer Industry Almanac estimates that at the end of 1998, about 52 percent of the world's 147.8 million regular Internet users lived in the U.S. But by the end of 2005, the almanac predicts, the U.S. share of Internet users will have dropped to 29 percent. Much of that growth is likely to be concentrated in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.

Already, some U.S.-based companies see their audiences moving in an international direction. "Approximately 45 percent of our 6.4 million members are from outside the U.S., which is obviously a significant number," says a Xoom.com spokesman. Other U.S.-based community sites report similarly high numbers.

Measuring international traffic with officially recognized yardsticks (or, more appropriately, metersticks) is one of the major challenges these companies face. Statistics from Media Metrix, the most widely accepted tracker of Net reach, don't include non-U.S. traffic.

Media Metrix acknowledges its international blind spot, but says it's taking steps to fill it. Already, the Media Metrix meter is licensed to Sifo, a Swedish firm that is actively measuring Swedish audiences. And Media Metrix is experimenting with gauging Net surfers in Japan, Germany, France and the United Kingdom.

For now, though, Media Metrix's expansion plans are little comfort to those at Theglobe.com. Executives there contend that between November 1998 and January 1999, traffic to its site increased from 6.5 million users a month to 9.5 million users. But Media Metrix figures for the same period show a drop of about 15 percent. "Clearly, there's a huge discrepancy in these reports," says Stephan Paternot, co-CEO with Todd Krizelman of Theglobe.com.

Many Web firms insist they can prove that Media Metrix undercounts their audiences. Xoom.com is certain about the number of international visitors because its site requires all members to sign up with an e-mail address, which reveals a visitor's country of origin. Moreover, Theglobe.com says it has confirmed its numbers through DoubleClick.

A DoubleClick spokeswoman says the firm has a method for recognizing traffic coming from outside the U.S. By those measures, Theglobe.com says, more than 40 percent of its visitors are from other countries.

Some community sites have launched foreign-language affiliates. In March, for instance, Xoom.com launched an Italy-specific site, www.xoom.it. Last week, FortuneCity.com became the first stock with the suffix ".com" to trade on the German Neur Markt.

Still, the lure of an international audience has yet to make most U.S.-based Web sites alter their content. CBS SportsLine argues that its rugby and cricket coverage already attracts a sizable non-U.S. audience; others point out that news and entertainment offerings from places like Reuters are already inherently multicultural.

Because most prominent Web companies now have an e-commerce component, an international audience makes selling online especially tricky. Proportionally, Europeans hold fewer credit cards than Americans do. And Web surfers abroad have shown the same gradual acceptance of online purchases as those in the U.S. Moreover, a company like Xoom.com – which relies heavily on direct e-mail – needs to send e-mail in native languages, an ability it lacks.

Indeed, a truly international Web presence would require offerings in multiple languages, which is beyond the expertise of most Web sites. For now, a good chunk of the non-U.S. visitors to these sites are from English-speaking countries. As Theglobe.com's Paternot notes: "Over 75 percent of Europeans speak a second language. And for 90 percent of them, that second language is English."

But Xoom.com CEO Laurent Massa sees it another way. "If you operate only in English," he says, "you get the early adopters. We want the masses."