Canadians Spend Most Time Online
PrintThe average Canadian spends more time online than a user from any other country, according to a new report from comScore. The data indicates that, on average, a Canadian spends more than 2,500 minutes online a month. We'll save you the trip to the Google calculator; that's nearly 42 hours. Israel was the runner up with only 2,300 minutes per month.
These numbers are buoyed by the fact that a huge proportion of Canadians are online. Internet penetration in Canada is 68%. By contrast, it is only 59% in the US. Add to that the fact that Canadians watch more YouTube videos per capita than the rest of the world, and the stereotypes begin to melt away.
Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter have also proved very popular up north. These services were adopted early and continue to be used by a disproportionate number of Canadians. Our friends to the north are also more active on Wikipedia than their population would lead one to believe, making over 200,000 edits per month. It's clear; Canada loves the Internet. Time to catch up everyone.
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Jox
December 29, 2010 at 10:14am
It's a little known fact that the internet was created by a French-Canadian man who lived in an insane asylum in Chicoutimi. It's said that he got the idea by tying strings to the maple trees on the grounds of the asylum and watching the sap "packets" drip down the strings in a process akin to downloading a large .JPG at dialup speeds.
-Jox
zzjjj81
December 29, 2010 at 5:22am
They really need to atop telling how many apps they have. Most of them are just plan stupid or double. Man I still only have like 4 app as the rest were crap or time consuming looking for a useable one.
Gezzer
December 28, 2010 at 9:20pm
Actually I'm not surprised how hard the spam is to catch. Think about how lopsided a fight it is. I'm sure that the spammers out number the people trying to stop them by at least a factor of a hundred.
But anyway, as a Canadian I don't think our weather is as much of factor as many non-Canadians think. Unless your talking about Cold Lake or Thunderbay, it's not that bad, and most people spend a lot of time out doors despite the weather anyways.
From what little I know on the subject I've heard that our broadband penetration rate is very high. Not only that but our roll out was quite early as well. I remember getting cable broadband 12-14 years ago, and I live in a small Vancouver Island city. Having less providers does have it's benefits it seems. I just wish I didn't have to pay so much for my current ADSL. But what you going to do?
Ghok
December 29, 2010 at 8:00pm
Yeah, it was rolled out really early up here. I remember being on broadband before most of my friends online even knew what it was. Haha. But yeah, it's not as good as it once was. Thankfully I get my internet through a reseller (an awesome company with high quality cheap internet!), which means it isn't so bad.
ddimick
December 28, 2010 at 8:58pm
I'll add that Jon took the time to personally respond to my not-terribly-polite email rant on Christmas Day, and I'm really happy to see that this is as big a deal for the MPC staff as it us for us.
moko
December 28, 2010 at 7:27pm
even here in georgia.....when its winter,i spend more time on the comp.
and thanks Jon for working on the spam....I know its more attacks the bigger you are
nforce
December 28, 2010 at 7:05pm
That might change with the CRTC allowing Bell to charge UBB to the wholesalers. The rates they are going to charge might put Canada far from the top.
Asterixx
December 28, 2010 at 5:30pm
Not hard to see why. It's bloody cold up here. That and the CRTC ensures that Canadian television sucks. Hell, we can't even watch the newest season of Futurama here because the American network that carries it is not available here thanks to the CRTC. And thanks to the internet, I've seen every episode.
Caboose
December 28, 2010 at 6:03pm
lol so true. Now, if only the CRTC would get off their fat asses and actually do something to encourage competition among ISPs and help consumers...
chronium
December 28, 2010 at 6:17pm
That won't happen while its made up of ex bell, rogers, and telus ceo's.
Eoraptor
December 28, 2010 at 5:27pm
""Internet penetration in Canada is 68%. By contrast, it is only 59% in the US."" Gee, is it any wonder why American internet customers are getting fed up? Charged though the nose for second rate infrastructure when we freakin invented the internet?!
*ahem* obligatory canada joke, of course they spend all their time online, what else is there to do in Canada? *ducks flying produce*
polobunny
December 29, 2010 at 4:14am
You wouldn't do other crap either if it was so cold fire froze.
Besides, nothing beats laughing at americans "driving" in the snow on Youtube. Oh boy. :')
Deanjo
December 28, 2010 at 6:35pm
"what else is there to do in Canada?"
Laughing at the U.S. provides great endless hours of fun.
The Big B
December 28, 2010 at 5:27pm
If this advertising clothing sites doesn't stop showing up on the comments on this site I am not going to be coming back. It wasn't a big deal at first but after weeks of nothing being done about it I have had enough. Maximum PC its time for you guys to take control of your own site. I can't take anyone seriously who doesn't care about the legitimacy of their domain.
JonPhillips
December 28, 2010 at 5:37pm
Big B: Actually, we are very aware of the problem, and recently paid for and installed an anti-spam module that is killing the vast majority of the spam before it gets posted. (This after testing the module on our staging server for a number of weeks.) What we have here, to some degree, is a case of "If you only knew what ISN'T getting through the filter, you might actually be impressed. " At any rate, I am continuing to monitor the spam, training the sniffer so that we can kill the spam messages before they actually get posted. The bottom line is we DO in facr "care about the legitimacy" of this website. It's just a bit harder to kill spam than you might think.
Zachary K.
December 28, 2010 at 6:02pm
let see some statistics! (who doesnt love some good statistics btw?) like how many spam messages don't even get posted.
JonPhillips
December 28, 2010 at 6:56pm
On Christmas Eve, 42 spam attempts were blocked, and 41 other comments (a few of which were spam, it turns out) were let through. On Christmas day, 40 messages were blocked, and 7 were let through (perhaps showing that spammers work on Christmas day, but regular folks are too busy with opening presents and enjoying good times to post on our website). Dec 26: 22 messages blocked, 57 let through (many fewer spam attempts -- were our tormentors getting discourgaed by all the blocking?). Dec 27: 22 blocked, 59 let through. Today: 17 spam comments blocked thus far.
livebriand
December 28, 2010 at 5:34pm
I completely agree. How do they not trigger the spam filter? Perhaps an IP ban will suffice. Where are the moderators? For a short while they were doing something about the spam, but not it's back. Also, any idea why these are all .us domains?
JonPhillips
December 28, 2010 at 5:45pm
One of your moderators is right here. An IP ban probably wouldn't do it. I'm not sure about what "short while" you are referring to, but the chronology of spam abatement basically goes like this:
1) We had a very aggresive spam filter that seemed to kill all the spam, but also killed way too many legitimate posts. That made everyone hate us.
2) We got rid of that filter, and instituted easy kill switches for all moderators. Suspending a user kills not only the user, but also all of his/her spam. But this system only works when all mods are vigilent, and when the spam doesn't come in crushing waves. In the last few months, the spam overwhelmed the mods. God only knows why THIS site is being targeted, but it doesn't really matter, I guess. People in a foreign land are being paid pennies on the dollar to spam this site; they don't care if the ads are effective. They are just trying to make a buck (or a penny).
3) This bring us to the last few days. We are now paying for a commercial spam filter that uses its own algorithms and also allows us to build a blacklist. I am playing with blacklisting, and am committed to making the "job" of spamming so difficult for the spammers, they just give up and hit other sites.
JonPhillips
December 28, 2010 at 5:47pm
I'll add that even without my blacklisting, the spam filter is working. Again, this is sort of a case of 'If you only knew what WASN'T getting through."
Mighty BOB!
December 28, 2010 at 9:54pm
Nice to see some mods actively posting in the comments these days. FOr the longest time the spam would go away, but the whole site administration seemed distant and unreachable.
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