Internet facts

Dutch internet users:
* spend 2.3 billion euro online in 2006
* spend 3.9 billion euro online in 2007
Traditional Dutch retail had a total turnover of 86 billion euro in 2007
Popular items online are clothing, electronics, books, cd’s, dvd’s, travel bookings and insurances. Food is not that popular. The only retailer doing good business online is supermarket chain Albert Heijn
More info: Blauw Research

The power and influence of the people
Authorities (governments, brand) have to compete against the authencity of the blogging or ‘hyving’ peers in the target audience

In 2008 the consumer is online because of:
* Information
* Communication: 80 mld emails and sms-messages are send per day
* eCommerce: € 130 mld in EU
* Community: 250 mln internet users on social networks
* Entertainment: 100+ mln YouTube playbacks per day

What’s happening?
Everything we see and read about online startups, social networking, new technologies etc. are just symptoms of one big movement: people are back at the village square, talking to eachother, learning from eachother, telling eachother about what they saw, do, wish, want, like, hate, think, dream of etc. Brand just HAVE to be there on the same village square: talk to the people, listen to the people, interact with the people…

The importance of aesthetic webdesign
There’s lots of evidence that beauty enhances usability.
(Norman, Donald. Emotional Design. New York: Basic Books, 2004.)

Research confirms that users make aesthetic decisions about the overall visual impression of web pages in as little as 50 milliseconds (1/20th of a second).
(Lindgaard, G., G. Fernandes, and C. Dudek. “Attention web designers: You have 50 milliseconds to make a good first impression.” Behavior & Information Technology, 25:2 (2006): 115-126.)

These instant visceral reactions to web pages happen in virtually all users, are consistent over visit length, and strongly influence the user’s sense of trust in the information. In short, users have made fundamental, consistent, and lasting aesthetic decisions about the credibility and authority of sites before major eyetracking events begin.