The headline user stats for Freeserve make for interesting reading. From a standing start on 22 September 1998, Freeserve had had 1,246,157 active registered accounts, as of 29 May. The company states that for the four weeks ended 29 May 1999, Freeserve had approximately 64 million page views, of which only 28 million related to content provided on its own site. On this basis, Freeserve is bigger than Yahoo UK but smaller than AOL-Compuserve UK and the BBC. However, Freeserve reader stats are possibly over-stated. For there can be a big difference -- 30-40 per cent -- between page impressions counted for advertising and marketing purposes and pages actually served. Freeserve will need an ABC electronic certificate before we can glean the true figures. Caveats aside, we guess there will be a huge upward curve in Freeserve usage -- as existing punters become more net literate. And as more subscribers come onboard. ®