[ Sample | Summary | Voting | Access | Devices | Sites | Companies | Conclusion | Appendix ]

Summary

• 83% of respondents expect to be voting electronically in referendums by 2010, and 35% expect this by 2002. Elections may take a little longer, but 70% still expect electronic voting in them by 2010 and 22% by 2002.
• Most households will be online in ten years time, with 97% of people expecting more than half to have connections. Four fifths of respondents expect the majority of households to have broadband access by then.
• Wireless hand-held devices look set to be ubiquitous ten years from now, with 96% of respondents expecting to use them at least once per week in 2010. PCs won't be disappearing, with 87% expecting to use desktops or laptops regularly.
• The chances of most currently popular sites surviving ten years at the top are slim, with only Amazon.com, AOL.com, Microsoft.com and Yahoo.com given greater than 50% support.

In comparing the views of British and American respondents, I expected to find differences resulting from the varying states of the Internet in each country. The US is often regarded as being up to two years ahead of the UK in its acceptance of the Net and the maturity of the industry. Differences were rare however, suggesting Britain will catch up with America over the next decade.

• Expectations of when electronic voting from home will occur are very similar. The only exception is that a higher percentage of Americans expect political referendums to allow this by 2002 (43% compared to 31% of Britons).
• Although levels of Internet access are far more advanced in America right now, respondents expect levels to equalise over the next ten years with the vast majority of households having access.
• Compared to their British counterparts, few Americans expect to use set-top boxes or games consoles for Net access in 2010, only 31% and 10% for each method (67% and 64% for Britons).
• When asked to pick websites that will make the top twenty over the next ten years, the BBC was a popular choice among the British.
• The Americans were slightly more optimistic about the future for today's websites and traditional non-Net companies.

[ Sample | Summary | Voting | Access | Devices | Sites | Companies | Conclusion | Appendix ]