The Web Blasts Past One Billion Websites

Perhaps you missed the birthday celebration earlier in the year. Somewhat quietly and without much fanfare, the worldwide web turned 25-years-old back in March.

Do you remember the days when some people used to project that the web would just be a passing fad, a blip on history's radar? I think it is now safe to say that they were wrong.

The web has become such a integral part of the world's cultural fabric that it is now hard for those of us who were living at the time, to remember what life was like back in the dark ages before 1989. (What did I do before there was Google?) It's also easy to overlook just how massively and extensively the web's reach has changed how people live. Following, you will find some interesting (even astounding) facts to drive home the point that our online world is HUGE!

• In recent weeks, the web has blasted through the one billion total websites barrier.
• In the coming weeks, the total number of Internet users in the world will reach three billion. (There are an estimated 7.25 billion people living on the planet today.)
• To date, in 2014, there have been over one trillion Google searches conducted - processing queries at the rate of about 40,000 searches per second.
• Twitter sees about 500 million tweets sent each day.
• Over two trillion YouTube videos have been viewed so far this year. About 80,000 videos are viewed each second.
• Almost 30 billion photos have been uploaded to Instagram this year, with almost 35 million uploaded today alone (and it's only 7:30a PDT).
• That old dinosaur of electronic communication, email, is also holding its own. Close to 55 trillion emails have been sent in 2014. (Unfortunately, I'm guessing that about 54 trillion of these are spam!)

Source: Internet Live Stats
http://www.internetlivestats.com