Aydogan Durmus PhD akademik web sayfası

Aydoğan DURMUŞ Ph. D.

Anasayfa I Biography I İletişim I Linkler I Arama

Ekonometri Dersi

The Determination of The U.S. Internet Users’ Characteristics,
Dynamic Preference Change and
Rendering of The Leading Edge Internet Users By an Econometric Study

By

Aydogan Durmus

Advisor: Professor Salih NeftciThis study contributes to the literature on the Internet users’ characteristics and Leading Edge Internet Users in U.S. There are two essays;

The first essay advocates that the U.S. is leading the world in the use of information technology. However, in U.S., some regions and segments of the population are more likely to have access to this technology than others. The dichotomy between those that have and those that do not have access to information technology is referred to as the “digital divide”. Policy makers or analyst that focus on the digital divide consider the issue important because modern social interaction “e-society” requires increased use of computers and information systems. Third industrial revolution in U.S. brings a major contribution to the U.S. economic growth since last decade “e-business”. In this study, we try to summarize the U.S. Internet users profile showing how Internet users profile changed during 29 months period. Monthly data were provided by Media-Metrix Company. Data were categorized by sex, region, household income, household size, age group, web page category, domain name, and utilization frequency. Data contain two sections; the first group is actual data sets (it comes from tracking meter at the end of each month) and the second group is potential data sets. A methodology was utilized to create time series to provide time-base-change for any demographic characteristics during 29 months, and to identify online users’ monthly web-site preference and changes month by month.

The second essay: Lead users are users whose present needs will become general in a marketplace in the future. Since lead users are familiar with conditions, they can serve as a need-forecasting laboratory for market research. For marketing purposes, such as determining right audiences for right product, leading edge users must be found out to address the target groups’ needs correctly. Also by monitoring leading edge group, next generation customer needs can be fulfilled which in turn will save time, cost and human efforts. We tried to analyze leading edge Internet users to identify the most notable users’ characteristics. Data set, which covers 29 months regarding US online users, was provided by Media-Metrix. The econometric method utilized in this study has enabled us to find out that leading edge users have the following characteristics; have household income level ($25K-$40K), have children (or no children), household size 5+, have connected the Internet from Pacific region, were Female 18+ and Male 18+ shows. Hypothesis test carried out on the leading edge Internet users using leading group variable on the leading index proved that leading group prediction was highly close to actual Internet Users data. These results shall be utilized by online marketing companies to predict potential customers’ future needs and demands. This approach is expected to save time and to reduce the cost associated with advertisement campaigns, which are unplanned rightly or targeting right user groups