Internet usage has seen a significant growth over the past month, according to Internet researcher Netcraft. In the firm's September 2006 Web Server Survey, it received responses from 96,854,877 sites, an increase of 4.2 million from last month's survey. In the first five months of the year, the Internet added an average of 2.75 million new hostnames per month, but since June, that average has more than doubled to 5.4 million sites per month.
Internet usage has seen a significant growth over the past month, according to Internet researcher Netcraft. In the firm's September 2006 Web Server Survey, it received responses from 96,854,877 sites, an increase of 4.2 million from last month's survey. In the first five months of the year, the Internet added an average of 2.75 million new hostnames per month, but since June, that average has more than doubled to 5.4 million sites per month.
Netcraft says growth is being driven mainly by two trends: the popularity of blogging services, and the battle between Microsoft and Google for new users for their Web platforms. Netcraft reported significant growth in Microsoft's free blogging and networking service, Windows Live Spaces, which added 1.3 million hostnames last month. Google, on the other hand, added 459,000 hostnames, primarily at Blogger, its free blogging service.
The survey suggested that recent gains at these free services have begun to outstrip growth at paid Web hosting providers. Netcraft says the success of these services in recent months represents a growing challenge to traditional hosts, especially as they gain usage among small businesses, typically a key target market for paid hosting.
The large growth at Microsoft continues to influence the market share for Web server software. Microsoft gains 1.1 percent share this month, while Apache declines by 0.9 percent.
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