What surfers are doing on the net

Jupiter Media's European Online survey revealed that by the end of 2002 only 10% of Europeans will have paid for content online.

Forty percent of Europeans would not consider paying for content in the future.

Of those prepared to put their online hand in pocket, 23% would be willing to pay for music, 17% for video and, a perhaps surprisingly high, 16% for news and archives.

Impulse buying

Less surprising is that of the £140m spent on online content this year, nearly half was on pornography.

While the success of paid-for content remains to be proven, net shopping, on the other hand, is looking healthier according to the survey.

A quarter of European net users have made a purchase online and nearly half of these admit that they make impulse buys on the net.

Online sales will be worth £40bn by 2006.

Mobile money-spinner

For companies determined to find new ways of reaching customers, text messaging will continue to be a huge money-spinner the survey found.

Premium SMS is being widely deployed by a range of companies such as Coca Cola and the TV firm behind the UK reality TV hit Big Brother.

Coca Cola found that a 40% of responses to a competition offered via SMS were not directly targeted, illustrating the power of so-called viral advertising campaigns where users pass on information to friends and family.

Companies are adopting an ever-more creative approach to SMS campaigns found Jupiter.

A Swedish travel company found that sending out SMS messages advertising holidays yielded double the response if they were sent out on rainy days.

Jupiter estimated that the SMS market would be worth £2.3bn by 2002 with the average user spending over £2 per month.