Top Internet cities get more wired
| • | Table: Web-savvy towns |
By Justin Pope
Associated Press
BOSTON — Silicon Valley still rules the wired world, but Boston and Salt Lake City made huge strides in an annual survey of America's most Internet-savvy cities.
Advertiser library photo • June 15, 2001
Boston jumped 12 places to No. 4 on this year's list, published in the May edition of Yahoo! Internet Life magazine. Salt Lake City jumped 23 places to sixth, though the magazine said it could be a one-time spike caused by the recent Winter Olympics.
John Sacrosante works in a computer lab at a homeless shelter in San Jose, Calif., which kept its hold as one of Yahoo! Internet Life magazine's three most wired cities.
San Francisco; San Jose, Calif.; and Austin, Texas, maintained their grip on the top three spots, which they have held in all but one of the five surveys. The issue hits newsstands April 16.
Don Wilmott, the magazine's technology editor, said the biggest news may be the fact that numbers were up almost everywhere, despite the recession. It took a score of 36 out of 40 to win this year, up from 33.3.
"Everyone's getting better," Wilmott said.
The magazine uses a formula that measures more than just Internet use and high-tech jobs to get a sense of which communities make the most of the Web. Wilmott said the analysis includes basic stats, the extent to which businesses are online and how sophisticated the users are.
"We measure that by how often they shop and how many have gotten fast access," he said.
The formula also includes an evaluation of content available in the area, including a ranking of how well local government uses the Net. That helped give Boston a boost.
"It really is one of the best city Web sites," said Wilmott of cityofboston.gov. "This year we're really emphasizing the idea that city government needs to start moving itself online and letting people know that as a way to make people more wired."
This is the first time the magazine has not tinkered with the formula from the previous year, allowing a true comparison.
Top-ranked San Francisco has the highest percentage of households using the Internet (78.8), ranks second in online spending per user ($356) and domains per 1,000 firms (4,163), and sixth in broadband use and interest (54.9 percent). The data is compiled from Forrester Research and Mat-
thew Zook of the Internet Geography Project.
The magazine ranks 86 metropolitan areas. Other big movers included Los AngelesiLong Beach, Calif., which jumped from 18th to 10th. Seven of the top 21 areas are in California.
The bottom three this year were Tulsa, Okla., Scranton, Pa. and Gary, Ind.
