Our Internet coverage focuses on companies that are well-positioned to exploit the shift from traditional print media and business and consumer services to the World Wide Web. Internet-based advertising in the United States surged from $4.6 billion in annual spending in 1999 to more than $9.6 billion in 2004, according to a 2005 study conducted by DoubleClick. Over the same period, the number of Internet users in the U.S., age 18 and over, climbed from 60 million to more than 160 million. Internet advertising is currently about 80 percent as large as the magazine industry, and about 50 percent of the size of the radio industry, according to the same study.

At the same time, old-line media and telecommunications companies have seized the opportunity to increase business by exploiting the Web as a communications medium. Television networks, for example, have created first-rate Web sites in an attempt to expand their market presence through 24/7 news coverage. Akamai Technologies handles about 20 percent of all network traffic, and provides products and services that bring Web site content rapidly to the eyes of end-users.

The emergence of online travel services, marketplaces, brokerage services, educational course content, and classroom instruction all speak to the profound ways in which the Internet has transformed customer service. Accordingly, our coverage includes companies like eBay, Priceline.com, WebMD, and others that are providing a blend of content, community and service—at an affordable price. Collectively, these companies present threats to longstanding, old-line companies too closely tied to archaic methods of conducting commerce.