Despite predictions that America Online"s Internet service would fall by the wayside once people no longer needed their "Web training wheels," a new study said AOL continues to lead all other Internet service providers (ISPs) worldwide "by a large margin."
The study was released today by e-business information provider WebSideStory"s StatMarket unit, which gathers data on global Internet user trends by monitoring traffic to 125,000 Web sites.
According to the study, AOL"s share of global Internet usage as of Feb. 27 was 13.58 percent. Road Runner was in a distant second with a share of 2.76 percent.
Road Runner is owned by AOL Time Warner, the study noted.
UUNET is third in global usage share with 2.18 percent, followed by Canadian ISP Sympatico (1.04 percent), Mindspring (0.79 percent) and T-Online (0.61 percent).
"Some people thought as the Web matures, AOL"s usage would go down. They saw AOL as "training wheels" for the Internet," said Geoff Johnston, StatMarket"s vice president of product marketing. "The Web is maturing - some people have been on for five or 10 years - but AOL still is doing well.
"The fact that their usage is higher on weekends is an interesting side note," he added. "AOL doesn"t care if you use them because users pay a flat fee. In fact, they"d probably prefer that people only use them two days out of seven. But this shows people are going on the Net on weekends, because our sensors don"t count people who just log on and check e-mail."