What are 262 billion, 21.4 million, 202 million, 1.97 billion, 2 billion, and 4?

According to Royal Pingdom’s breakdown they would be the:

• 262 billion: The number of spam emails per day
• 21.4 million: New websites in 2010
• 202 million: The number of domain names across all top-level domains (October 2010)
• 1.97 billion: Internet users worldwide
• 2 billion: The number of videos watched per day on YouTube
• 4: The number of Facebook users (600 million) divided by the number of blogs (152 million)

These numbers don’t mean much without some context, and lucky for us, Royal Pingdom does this sort of summary every year. In 2009, the corresponding numbers were:

• 200 billion: The number of spam emails per day
• 47 million: New websites in 2010
• 187 million: The number of domain names across all top-level domains (October 2009)
• 1.73 billion: Internet users worldwide
• 1 billion: The number of videos watched per day on YouTube
• 2.8: The number of Facebook users (600 million) divided by the number of blogs (152 million)

Year-to-year then, the two most dramatic trends are the halving of the number of new web sites and the doubling of YouTube videos viewed. When people talk about the “Death of the Web” this is what they’re talking about: The web isn’t going away any time soon, but it’s certainly declining in importance compared to Internet video streaming. The implications for the Internet’s technical and business models can’t be ignored.