Study:44% of US Net users post content

Posting photos and allowing others to download music or video files were the most popular activities, the nonprofit research group found. Other users said they posted written material on Web sites or newsgroups, created their own Web sites, or set up "Web cams" to allow others to see live pictures."

http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/pdfs/PIP_Content_Creation_Report.pdf

I found some parts of this study very interesting (even if im not form US)... In particular... Website updates occurence... ages and sex of contents poster... some of these numbers quite surprised me ;)

The only thing I regret is than I would have like to see more details in some area...

Emjoy...

Interesting...it's too bad 44% of people building websites don't have anything worth posting.

WOW! 48% of content creators are between ages 30 and 49, 31% have an annual household income of $75k+, and 61% of content creators are on 56k!!!

And from the archives of trhaynes statistics:
99.9% of websites are obselete.

Drives me quite crazy. I was asked to do a favor and update a site for a teacher and when I got the site code I almost went into convulsions because of all the invalid, depreciated, obselete code. Some stuff was like
[php]

[QUOTE=trhaynes]And from the archives of trhaynes statistics:
99.9% of websites are obselete.

Drives me quite crazy. I was asked to do a favor and update a site for a teacher and when I got the site code I almost went into convulsions because of all the invalid, depreciated, obselete code. Some stuff was like
[php]

the design can make the content even better though. Having good content isn't an excuse to have an ugly site.

And about the validation and using proper techniques, the site might work for you but that doesn't mean it works for people that don't use Win/IE.

aw come on - during the dotcom boom there were sites made that would make a code monkey flip his bananas.... they worked for most everybody....made lots of money...

and I don't think it's about excuses either... it's about what's more important - the content or the layout...one possible example that comes to mind (since my site is not very pretty but nevertheless has some extent of "crazy features") is eyewoo. I personally think his site is kinda bland - and chunky looking. But can you say that it matters? You're not going there to see the pretty layout and glowy buttons and stuff -

Also about people not using Win/IE - most people do use win/IE anyway but my guess is the simpler the code - the better the chances of seeing it right on other combinations - linux, mac...mozilla, safari... it's those damn new implements that made it harder for the older computers/operating systems.
All that being said...I must admit I like a good layout... heck - it's how I make my bread

During the dotcom boom support for CSS was terrible at best. Using a dozen nested tables was an acceptable way to build a web site back then. But with the exception of IE, every other browser has very good CSS support now. Even IE6 has decent support for CSS and standards, though it does a few things completely backwards.

Content is definitely more important, but it can always be enhanced by a good design. If you had the option of reading the same content in a site like http://maddox.xmission.com/ that, or a site like http://alistapart.com/ that, which one would you choose? I would choose the latter because it's a whole lot easier to read and more attractive. Now that isn't the best example because Maddox's content wouldn't match the alistapart design at all, but you get the idea. And by attractive layout I don't mean it has lots of graphics and glowy buttons. I just mean it has a clear, simple layout, user-resizable text, a good readable font, and some nice colors. Rather than huge ugly times roman fonts, no real navigation or structure, etc.

Yes most people use Win/IE but that number is slowly shrinking, and will hopefully shrink a whole lot more in the coming years. IE won't be updated until about 2008 when Longhorn comes out. By then every other browser will be so advanced that IE will look like Netscape 3 in comparison. That doesn't mean every person will care and get a decent browser, but many will.

If you think multiple nested tables is a simpler way of building web sites, you need to do a little more reading about xHTML and CSS. The great thing about using them as opposed to tables is that the content is available to everyone, even if they use IE 2.0 or a Cellphone to read the site. It won't look as pretty as it would on a desktop computer with the latest and greatest standards-compliant browser, but the content will be there and readable. The same can not be said if you use tables, image maps, iframes, etc. Some browsers don't support tables, some will completely screw up a layout and make it a terrible pain to use. The content is out of order and skips around, the page size is twice as large in most cases, etc. If you want to redesign your site you have to change every page on the site and update it with new content. Whereas with CSS you just change a single document. Also since the CSS document is stored in the browser's cache, you only have to define how things look in that one document. Rather than having a mess of table code on every page to define how a site looks, you do it in one easily readable CSS file. Instead of < font> tags on every paragraph, you use 3 or 4 lines in a CSS document for your entire site.

Instead of making a separate "print this page" template and forcing the user to download all of that content and code again just to print it, you use a print stylesheet which can completely change the look of your site. Take out all the ads, the non-relevant images, use pts instead of ems or px, switch to a serif face instead of sans-serif, etc. And it uses the exact same content/code. The browser just formats it according to the print stylesheet before it sends it to the printer.

And that's not even touching on all of the accessibility issues that there are with tables. Government sites in the US are required by law to be accessible now, which means that the content is available to anyone, regardless of what browser they use, including screen readers and braille readers for the blind. And the only way to do that is with CSS and xHTML.

Here are a few articles with more reasons to use CSS instead of hacked tables for layout:

http://www.maxdesign.com.au/presentation/benefits/
http://adactio.com/articles/display.php/CSS_based_design
http://www.thenoodleincident.com/tutorials/box_lesson/why.html
http://www.thenoodleincident.com/tutorials/design_rant/
http://www.sessions.edu/newsletter/Schmitt_C/interview.html
http://www.hotdesign.com/seybold/
http://www.adaptivepath.com/publications/essays/archives/000266.php

you're preaching to the flock dek - I'm on your side
I personally use Opera - I like it much more than IE and my screen resolution is far from the "standard" 800/600 and I like CSS. I couldn't agree more with the fact that tables are a mess to code and follow...but that was not what I was trying to say
All I'm trying to say is this whole business of getting the latest thing in is blowing kinda out of proportions.... Of course I would rather look at the content on a site like alistapart if I had a choice - but the maddox thing does the trick just the same....in the end. If you're looking for let's say jokes - I would laugh at a nice one just the same on a maddox type site.... - again - given a ghoice I would laugh at it on alistapart... My point was that the content should be the "master" - not the layout that's all. And I strongly believe that in the case of missing content - a very good CSS site is worse than a very good FLASH site - at least the flash thing does tricks.... the only difference being that if the sites did have content - the CSS one would be more professional.
and...maybe I'm mistaking - but I have yet to see a really really good site made with just CSS - maybe it's too young....I dunno

Check out www.csszengarden.com and www.cssvault.com for good sites made in CSS. I don't see how they could be any better in HTML. The reason you don't see as many "fancy wow sites" in CSS is because the people that make the fancy wow graphics aren't usually the most technical people in the world, and don't give a **** how their site is coded. So they just keep using Dreamweaver or Imageready to do their sites, rather than taking advantage of the benefits of CSS. But I've never seen any of the normal fancy photoshop sites that can't be done in CSS, it's just a matter of the designer taking the time to learn to do it.