_This article is by Guest Contributor Marc Poirer._
According to “PEW’s recent survey of Internet usage”:http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_SearchData_1105.pdf (links to PDF), search is now the second most popular Internet activity, edging towards email as the primary Internet application.
Search usage jumped dramatically from 30% of American Internet users in June 2004 to 41% in September of 2005.
By comparison, email is used by 52% of American Internet users, up from 45% in June 2004.
Also of interest in this report is the recent rise in local searches, as well as some demographic data on search usage among various important population segments.
Marc Poirier is Senior Strategist and President of “acquisio”:http://www.acquisio.com/, a Montreal-based company that provides software solutions and consulting services to help companies acquire more customers using paid and organic search. He can be reached at .