World Wide Web Growth

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Over the last 10 years, from July 1997 to July 2007 ^a

The Survey HostCount (a reflection of the number of Web Sites) contined to grow from 19,540,000 (19.5 Million) to 489,774,269 (489.8 Million), an increase of 470,234,069 (470.2 Million), or by a multiple of 24.065 times = 2,406.5%

Over the last 10 years, from July 1997 to July 2007 ^b

The world population continued to grow from 5,905,010,529 (5.9 Billion) to 6,822,991,246 (6.8 Billion), an increase of 917,980,717 (918 Million, or 0.9 Billion), or by a multiple of .1555 or 15.5%

So, one might extrapolate that the World Wide Web is growing at a rate (24.065/.1555) of 154.76 times the current rate of world population growth.

With the rate of conversion of all of the world's knowledge into digital formate let's all hope that the earth does not get hit by a major solar flare; which with a concomitant electromagnetic pulse (EMP) (Wiki definition) might wipe out all data stored in this digital age. ^c

References:

a) The earth is a very big place, and the World Wide Web is doing its best to cover the entire planet. The Web continues to grow every day (Statistics compiled by Internet Systems Consortium, Inc.)

b) There are (click here) people in this world – (population statistics from ibiblio. "not your average library" home to one of the largest "collections of collections" on the Internet, ibiblio.org is a conservancy of freely available information, including software, music, literature, art, history, science, politics, and cultural studies. ibiblio.org is a collaboration of the School of Information and Library Science and the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at The University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill.)

c) Wikipedia - Auroral events of historical significance

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