Not really much of a surprise, we know, but analysts seemed to have realised we've grown bored of daft predictions and have started producing some interesting stats.

How many people in the UK are on the Internet?
Over 10 million (a new high) according to MMXI. Forrester reckons there are even more - 19 million with access and 12 million regular users. That's almost a quarter of the population.

What are the UK's biggest Web sites?
No surprise here: Yahoo, Freeserve, MSN, the BBC, Amazon and AOL are still the top bods. AskJeeves has popped up, as has Egg (MMXI).

Blokes/birds/kids split?
Men are still in the majority (52 per cent say MMXI; no, 61 per cent, say Forrester). Women are on the increase (36 per cent) and kids love it (aged 2 to 14 and accounting for 12 per cent) says MMXI. If you're online, you're likely to be young, living in London and come from the upper echelons of society (73 per cent from ABC1) says Forrester.

The growth markets?
Sports, hobbies and b2b technology. Unsurprising really as the Internet becomes more entrenched into people's lives and non-consumer business realise the potential savings in doing business over the Web (MMXI). Betting is worth watching too (Forrester).

The biggest markets?
Entertainment is the biggy. Search engines and travel are right behind it (MMXI).

What about this e-commerce stuff?
More people are buying online of course - probably something to do with more people being online. Apparently, 38 per cent of Net users have bought something online - not a bad figure that (Forrester). Of course, Goldfish - which is hoping to build a lot of its business on e-commerce and has just launched a new shopping portal - has commissioned a survey which found that people have no fear of buying online. Now ain't that lucky?

Anything else?
Yeah, Forrester has pointed out that while half of the people watching dotcom TV ads say it makes them check out the site, two-fifths say they watch less TV because they're on the Internet all the time. How's that for irony? ®