A number of key findings about Australians' internet use have been announced as part of the latest installment of the Digital Futures Report, Australia's contribution to the World Internet Project.

Key findings include:

Australians shop till they drop online
Australians may be the world's most avid online shoppers, bargain hunters and browsers according to the latest Digital Futures Report. Fifty-seven per cent of Australians search the internet for something to buy at least once a week and more than half buy something online every month. Read more here.

Australians prefer not to pay for digital information
Seven in ten Australians are unwilling to pay for news and information obtained from the internet. Most users rate the internet as important or very important as an information source, but there is a strong view that content should continue to be free. Young Australians are even less willing to pay for internet content, with more than three quarters of those aged under 24 saying they are not prepared to pay up. Read more here.

Australians favour internet freedom - with limits
Australians are overwhelmingly in favour of free speech and freedom to criticise their governments on the internet - but equally strongly of a view that children's content should be restricted. Notably, given the current debate on internet censorship, eighty-three per cent of Australians believe that children's internet content should have restrictions and that responsibility for this should be shared. Read more here.

The full report can be viewed at: http://cci.edu.au/publications/digital-futures-2010

CCi Digital Futures 2010: The Internet in Australia presents findings from the second survey of the Australian component of the World Internet Project.

The report provides an overview of the study, presenting a broad picture of the Internet in Australia, with comparisons to our earlier 2007 study, and to the international findings of our partners in the World Internet Project. It deals with the impact of the Internet on Australian social networks, media, and business, and aspects also of current Internet politics and policy.

QUT Urban Informatics iPhone app DispoMaps version 2 by Jan Seeburger now available

http://bit.ly/cR2YN3

DispoMaps enables you to share your current location on an online map with anyone. The map is constantly updated as you go, using your iPhone’s GPS.

The World Internet Project has released its second annual global findings on the impact of online technology - a five-continent collaboration creating an international picture of change produced by the Internet. The World Internet Project Report includes new findings about how the Internet is used and how it affects a variety of beliefs, attitudes, and behavior around the world.

Media commentator Margaret Simon's reports on the latest findings from CCI's Digital Futures project, the Australian branch of the World Internet Project.

Eight hundred Australian internet users responded to the question “A daily newspaper costs around $1.50. How much would you be prepared to pay to read an online newspaper?”...

Read the full story at The Content Makers

The CCI's Digital Futures Project has just released the First World Internet Project Report.

This marks the first time that a worldwide partnership of research institutions has compiled data on the behaviour and views of Internet users and non-users. In 2008 participating countries included Australia, Canada, China, Columbia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Israel, Macao, New Zealand, Singapore, Sweden, United Kingdom and the United States.

In the past two months the Digital Futures team has been traveling the country talking to the various chapters of the Australian Computer Society.

The internet is everywhere: at work, at home, and on the move. And if the federal government has its way, it will soon be in every school.

But despite its ubiquity, we know very little about how the net is used, where and by whom. The World Internet Project is attempting to answer these questions and the Australian arm of the project has just released its initial findings with some surprising results.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority has just announced that four new members will be joining its Communications Consumer Consultative Forum (CCF) including CCI's Julian Thomas. Julian is Professor of Media and Communications at Swinburne University of Technology and heads the International Creative Content Cultures and Australian Advantage program at CCI.

The main report from the survey will be released in April 2008. Thereafter we will be preparing for publication a number of articles based on the survey findings. In addition we will be providing presentation briefings to organisations including Telstra, the Australian government’s Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, and Multimedia Victoria. The first international comparative report from the broader project will be published in the first half of 2008.

In 2007 we hosted Professor Fred Fletcher as a Visiting Professor at Swinburne. Professor Fletcher is a distinguished Canadian media scholar. Based at York University, he is a key member of the World Internet Project.

The first survey has now been completed. It was administered by the Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviewing team at the Swinburne University of Technology’s Australian Centre for Emerging Technologies and Society. We achieved the 1,000 responses we were aiming for and met quotas in terms of gender, region and age.

In July 2007 the Institute for Social Research and CCI jointly hosted the annual World Internet Project 2007 partners' meeting at the Melbourne Museum over three days (July 10-12). The 22 members in attendance represented 12 countries; in addition to the members, speakers and CCI and ISR staff, they were joined by representatives of Multimedia Victoria and the Department of Communications and Information Technology and the Arts (DCITA).

The meeting was a great success, and attracted significant coverage in The Age newspaper, which published some of our interim findings from the survey.