You may have heard that Sir Tim Berners-Lee and the World Wide Web Foundation recently quantified the web by developing an index used to rank 61 countries in categories like web readiness, web use and social, political and economic impact. And, because, well, this is the web after all, there is an infographic to explain it all.
The data-heavy project is the first of its kind to attempt to measure the web by integrating information on everything from a country’s communication infrastructure and the policies regulating internet access to the skill levels which allow full use of the technology. Sweden beat the US for first place overall in the global rank, but it didn’t dominate all the categories. Iceland places first in web readiness (determined by evaluating communications infrastructure and regulation in the country), the US ranks the highest in web use and the web has had the greatest social, economic and political impact in Sweden.
The index has also further highlighted the differences between regions and even individual countries when it comes to the web. According to the report, one in three countries face moderate to severe restrictions on web access, and only one in three people have access to the web globally. On continents like Africa, that number decreases to one in six. It’s figures like these that Berners-Lee hopes to see change over time, as future versions of the report will be released annually to provide benchmarks for countries to aspire to.