Just how big is the Internet market? Educated guesses range from 10 million to 100 million users, depending on whom you talk to. However, analysts said there's practically no way for anyone to substantiate these claims.

Nielsen Market Research recently completed a study on the use of the Internet and concluded that ``the Internet is demonstrating significant growth. The number of respondents who had access to the Internet increased 50 percent between August 1995 and March of this year.'' Click here for its executive summary.

``Different groups have different ways of counting users. No one knows for sure. We can't monitor every site visit that takes place,'' said Clay Ryder, an analyst with Zona Research Inc.
Earlier, Ryder's firm estimated that the worldwide market for Internet and Intranet technologies and products topped $5.34 billion during 1995. The number of users with Internet potential jumped from approximately 16 million in July of 1995 to nearly 30 million by the end of the year, according to Zona.
Regardless of which statistics one turns to, one thing is for certain. The market is growing like gangbusters.

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