Web Surfers Worldwide Adopting Higher Screen Resolutions

Nearly One-Third of Internet Surfers Have Their Screen Resolution Set at 1024 x 768 Pixels

As of July 23, 2001, nearly one-third of Web surfers worldwide had their computer monitors set at 1024 x 768 pixels, up from 20.48 percent in January 1999, according to WebSideStory's StatMarket www.statmarket.com, a Web site design and software optimization service

Surfers with resolutions of 640 x 480, meanwhile, have fallen from 17.83 percent to 5.71 percent during the same period, StatMarket reported.

'This has important implications for Web site designers who build sites for the lowest common denominator,' said Geoff Johnston, vice president of product marketing for StatMarket. 'In most cases they can design sites with additional content and graphics and be confident that a majority of Web users out there will be able to view it.'

If you're at 640x480, then, you'll be wanting to push your desktop to higher boundaries, otherwise web surfing is set to become a somewhat strange experience. PPC is, of course, designed to be read at a resolution of 640x480, but will scale to suit desktop resolutions right up to 1600x1200.

The 1024 x 768 screen resolution setting is usually associated with monitors that are 17 inches or larger. The most common screen resolution is still 800 x 600 pixels, which has hovered around 50 percent since early 1999. Screen resolutions of 1152 x 864 and 1280 x 1024 have shown small gains during the same period, and now account for a little more than 5 percent combined, according to StatMarket. Taken together, the percentage of surfers with resolutions of 1024 x 768 pixels or above account for nearly 40 percent of all Internet traffic.

Johnston noted screen resolutions vary widely from country to country. For example, in Germany, surfers with a 1024 x 768 resolution accounted for more than 50 percent of the surfing population as of July 23, while in China, they accounted for a little more than 18 percent.

As of July 23, 2001

Are you still running at 640x480? There are many good reasons to change to a higher resolution. So, do you? Do you want to change your screen resolution? Click here for the full how-to article.

David Dorn