F/Nazca, in its 3rd research on internet access in Brazil, shows that Brazilian people has been using the internet in lan houses (29%), at home (21%), at friends’ and relatives’ (21%), at school and university (10%) and in public centres of access.

This means that there is been, probably, a democratization of the internet access. Of course the majority of users are in classes A and B, but C and D also use it, regardless the age or region. The investment in free access places and in universities and schools is the major factor for this continuum growth of internet access.

Last year (2007), for the first time in the country, it was sold more computers – 10.7 million – than TV sets – 10.5 million. When you install ten computers at a school in the Northeast, allowing them to be used by the whole community, you are making a revolution, says Ari Meneghini, executive director of Interactive Advertising Bureau Brazil (IAB). It is still hard to analyze all that, but changes are happening. Who is economically excluded is not necessarily excluded from the internet.

In 2007, Datafolha had an estimation of 41.6 million internauts in Brazil. But according to this new study, from F/Nazca, there are 59 million internet users in the country. The researches were done based in different methodologies, but the lesson learnt is that the internet is reaching Brazilian people.

Elections

Because of the elections this year in Brazil, there were some restrictions for the candidates. It is not allowed to have blogs or communities during the campaign. This is something that the majority does not agree with. As the content of the internet is made by the public, and if they want to see or to read about someone’s ideas on any subject they will go after it – which is different on TV, where you watch everyday at a certain time the candidates’ speech -, it should not be prohibited to use the technology to reach people. Like Barack Obama had done, using Twitter, Orkut, Facebook, blogs, etc, the candidates would have had here the same opportunity, as people have nowadays great access to the web. More than it was ever imagined.

(based on Ultimo Segundo article from August 5th)

This entry was posted on sexta-feira, agosto 8th, 2008 at 14:50 and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.