Survival of URLs / Plain text / Non-American users

[Eric Rumsey]

Re: On Mean time of Survival of URLs
Re: Do people "pass by" plain-text sites?

Some observations that seem to apply to both discussions ...

I run the Hardin Meta Directory of Internet Health Sources, which  provides
coverage of the best "link list" sites in health and medicine, a very
minimally graphic operation.

For this site, we're beginning to check the connection rate of links on
link lists that we include. We're finding that non-American sites are
over-represented in the lists that have superior connection rates ... This
seems to be an indication that non-American sites are paying more attention
to maintaining their lists. I wonder if American net users are too
preoccupied with the graphics on the Web to be paying attention to the
nitty-gritty details, like connection rates.

The use and expressed interest in our mainly text site seems to be skewed
toward non-American users also, as indicated particularly by e-mail
comments, seeming to show that non-American users are more interested in
text sites.

So, in reply to both threads - In talking about survival of URLs or
interest in graphics/text, be careful to define your population - in both
cases the situation may be quite different in different parts of the (net)
world.

   --Eric

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Eric Rumsey, Hardin Library for the Health Sciences
University of Iowa, Iowa City IA 52242
<eric-rumsey at uiowa.edu>
319-335-9875 (voice), 319-335-9897 (fax)
Hardin Meta Directory of Internet Health Sources
http://www.arcade.uiowa.edu/hardin-www/md.html
Featured in Internet Medicine (Lippincott-Raven), June 1997
Reviewed in Consumer Reports, Feb 1997, p 29