Sweden is best in the world when it comes to Internet usage

Sweden is best in the world when it comes to Internet usage

The World Wide Web Foundation has released the results of its first-ever Web Index.
Courtesy of the World Wide Web Foundation
September 5, 2012
By Deborah Netburn

Leave it to the country that brought us Ikea to make the most of the Internet.

According to a new report from the World Wide Web Foundation, the people and government of Sweden are the best in the world at optimizing the Web

The United States ranked second in the index, followed by the United Kingdom, Canada and Finland.

Tunisia and Russia were smack in the middle of the list that ranks 61 countries, taking the the 30 and 31st spots respectively. At the bottom of the list were Zimbabwe and Yemen.

The Web Index is the first to compare Internet usage, access and impact across 61 countries throughout the world.

The results of the extensive report were released online Wednesday, and if you have some time, I definitely suggest checking it out. There's a lot of data to sift through in there, but it is ultimately fascinating to see how different countries make use of the Internet.

For example, the United States score suffered because we have a lower number of households per capita that have a personal computer than many countries including Canada, Japan, Ireland and Norway. On the flip side, the report found that the U.S. government does a comparatively good job of disseminating information through the Web and there is lots of Web content for Americans to use.

The World Wide Web Foundation was founded by Sir Tim Berners-Lee who invented the World Wide Web in 1989. He founded it in 2009 to make the Web more available and usable to more people in the world.

As of now, the foundation reports, 60% of the world's population does not have access to the Web.

"The Web Index was created to measure the state of the Web in the world," Berners-Lee said in a statement. "Each country will see not only where they rank compared to others, but also what the World Wide Web Foundation thinks they need to do to improve.”

The research was supported by a $1-million grant from Google and the researchers relied on data collected by organizations including Reporters Without Borders, the Wikimedia Foundation, the World Bank and the World Economic Forum, among others. The World Wide Web Foundation also conducted its own research as well.

Going forward, the foundation hopes to include 100 countries in its next report.