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Monday, December 31, 2012

Top 10 Most Significant Internet Facts 2012

Right before the New Year Smart-IP makes an overview of the most interesting Internet facts of the leaving year

Smart-IP.net wishes a Happy New Year to everybody and proposes to review, what happened to the Internet in the leaving year 2012. We have collected ten most interesting, at our opinion, facts and analyzed some things and want to remind how it was.


1. Firefox wins version rush

We continued to watch the battle of growing browser's version numbers this year. As you might remember, that was initially started by Google, which promised to release a new version of their Chrome browser each six weeks.

After, we seen that this initiative was picked-up by Mozilla Foundation, which was also promised to release their Firefox browser in the same cycle term.

What we've got at the end?

Google Chrome


Latest stable version: 23.0.1271.110

Before the beginning of year 2011 the latest stable version high number was version 16, so this year we've got seven new releases of the browser, which means we had each new release approximately in 7,5 weeks.

Mozilla Firefox


Latest stable version: 17.0.1

At the ent of year 2011 the latest Firefox stable was numbered 9.0.1, so we had an eight releases of the browser this year, or we had new release each 6,5 weeks.

The two other browsers - Opera and Microsoft Internet Explorer keep work in their own rythms and were staid aside from the versions rush. By the way, this year Opera made several minor releases of their 12 version of the browser and we got new major version with number 10 from Microsoft.

We also have an interesting fact that new SPDY web protocol, developed by Google, is now supported by 3 of 4 major browsers, since it was implemented in Opera, version 12.10. The only one player on the market boycotted its implementation. Of course, it is IE.

2. Google Chrome captured browser's market


Despite the fact, that Mozilla won the versions battle this year, Google won more user's hearts and becomes from now the most used browser in the world, due to browser usage statistics by StatCounter.

Since it was the first time happend in May 2012, when browser from Google beats IE, we keep watching the continue of growing Chrome usage statistics and can say for today, that it is a dominating browser in the world.

In other words, we can remember year 2012 as the year, when the Internet Exploder domination, which started in the late 1990s, was finally stopped.

3. Number of Internet Users stepped over the mark of 2.4 billion

This year we certified a fact of continuing of Internet users growth. 2012 gives to the Internet over 300+ million of new users due to the last number at the end of 2011. It just signals that the Internet is still developed market which is keep revealing its potential.

4. Number of Internet hosts close to 1 billion



Right before the end of 2012 there are around 900 million of functional Internet hosts. It becomes close up to 1 billion and we could expect that this number will be reached the next year. The graph below shows the number of Internet hosts growth provied by Internet Systems Consorcium.

Top 10 countries by number of Internet hosts:

  1. United States - 56,48%
  2. Japan - 7,20%
  3. Italy - 2,89%
  4. Brazil - 2,70%
  5. Germany - 2,32%
  6. China - 2,24%
  7. Australia - 1,92%
  8. France - 1,91%
  9. Mexico - 1,72%
  10. Russia - 1,56%
All other 220 countries keeps together 19,06% of hosts.


5. Google Panda updates


There were several updates for a new Google's Panda search results runking algorithm.

The first one, known as Google Penguin was done on April 24. By estimates, it was affected around 3,1% of search queries in English, around 3% of queries in German, Chinese and Arabic and even more in other "highly spammed" languages. An update was prepared and done, by Google's official notes, to decrease search engine rankings for websites, which violate Webmaster Guidelines. The new Black-hat SEO techniques were also defined in guidelines. The next Penguin update was done on May 25, which affected around 0.1% of queries and another one was done on October 5, and affected, approximately, around 0,3% of queries.

The latest Panda update was done by Google in September. Fewer than 0.7% of queries noticeably affected.

By the way all these updates made a lot of noise in SEO world and there were produced tones of a content in blogs and other websites about "How to decrease negative effect of Google Panda", etc.


6. IPv6 takes almost 1% worldwide

IPv6 deployment continuied during 2012. The main event in IPv6 world this year was, of course, World IPv6 Launch day at June 6, 2012. Let's remind how it was. Major Internet service providers (ISPs), home networking equipment manufacturers, and web companies around the world are uniting to redefine the global Internet and permanently enable IPv6 for their products and services at that day.

By the latest stats from Google during the last year number of IPv6 Internet users increased twice and is now around 1%.

We also want to remind that Smart IP supported IPv6 since February, 2012 and provides a services, which are fully IPv6 compatible. So we can easily answer your "What is my IPv6?" question.


7. Massive Facebook shares drop and increase of its monthly active users up to 1 billion


In August we were a witnesses of how Facebook shares were fall more than half of their initial price. Facebook's fall comes as its peers, too, have faced investor scepticism. There are still a lots of noise and rumors, but only time will show where Facebook will come.

By the way, this year Facebook reaached another big number of 1 billion of active monthly users and Facebook community still continue growing.


8. Massive growth of mobile Internet users


During the year mobile users growth was increased up to 58,35% based on StatCounter global statistics. Another interesting fact that Android devices had bitten iOS since the beginning of the year.

So due to the last data actual for December, 2012, Android devices holds 33,16% of the market. The second position is taken by iOS with 23,24%. Another gamer - Nokia, with Series 40 OS was aggresively penetrated the market in 2012 and now taking 3rd position with 14,86%.

9. Apple becomes most valuable company


With release of iPhone 5 in September Apple becomes "The Most Valuable Company In the History" with market value around $623bn, beating the previous record from Microsoft of $620.58 set in 1999. There is nothing to say more except that fact that it was done in year 2012.


10. Google keeps rank #1 website in the world


Due to Alexa statistics Google keeps rank #1 website at the end of December, 2012. The next position is taken by Facebook. The 3rd position is taken by another service, which is a part of Google as we know, by YouTube video site. Wikipedia is at 6th position, Twitter is only at 10th.


P.S. 


Year 2012 was a year of development and growth for the Internet. We hope this trend will be saved in the next 2013. Thanks for everyone being with us.

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