![]() From Site Selection magazine, July 2001
DECISION DATA
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California
Sweeps 'Most Wired' Rankings San Jose, Calif., took first place in Yahoo! Internet Life magazine's annual ranking of the most wired cities, knocking San Francisco to the No. 2 spot.
espite all of the hullabaloo about the energy scare and lack of labor, U.S. DataPort chose to locate a US$1.2 billion, 1,100-job Internet campus in Silicon Valley -- one of the nation's largest multidata centers. But for such an energy- and labor-intensive operation, one must question why San Jose?
The answer is simple. It's not what San Jose lacks as much as what it has to offer. "The San Jose site is strategically located with access to high-capacity fiber networks, an exceptional labor force and major transportation corridors," says Grant Sedgwick, president and CEO of U.S. DataPort. As for the energy issue, that's being handled by an onsite energy-generation facility. U.S. Dataport's announcement is proof that California is still tops in many areas, especially technology-related issues. In fact, Yahoo! Internet Life (www.yil.com) magazine's fourth annual ranking of "Most Wired Cities" ranked four California cities in the top 10 (see accompanying chart for YIL's 10 Most Wired Cities). San Jose knocked San Francisco out of the No. 1 spot this time around, but the City by the Bay managed to hold on to second place. Orange County moved up six to No. 6, and Oxnard-Ventura debuted this year at No. 7. "California dominates because Pacific Bell has been so effective in offering fast DSL access to its customers," says Don Willmott, technology editor with YIL. "California was out front in fast access to the home, and that's reflected in many of the stats that go into our calculations." California cities made up the top three markets in terms of broadband use or strong interest in using broadband. Oxnard-Ventura, Bakersfield, and Stockton-Lodi, Calif., had 63, 61 and 57 percent of households using broadband or expressing interest. San Jose took the No. 5 spot in this category, while Sacramento tied Oklahoma City, Okla., and Fort Worth-Arlington, Texas, for No. 8, with 52 percent of households using or interested in broadband. 'Most Wired' Research Methods ![]() YIL ranked the most wired cities based on four measurements: how many of the city's residents use the Internet, how sophisticated are the residents, how many of the city's businesses are on the Internet, and how much content about the city and its government is available online. Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester Research, a respected technology research firm, provided YIL with the percentage of households online, the proportion of households connected to the Internet through broadband (or at least have expressed strong interest in it), and the average household expenditure online over a three-month period. In addition to California's stronghold on the broadband usage category, it also topped the online spending category. San Jose, Calif., was No. 1, with an average expenditure of $297 per Internet user over three months; second-place San Francisco rang up $211 in online spending per Internet user. The most households online award, however, goes to Austin-San Marcos, Texas, with 70 percent of households being online. San Jose came in a close second with 68 percent of households online. YIL turned to the Dept. of City and Regional Planning at the University of California at Berkeley as the source for business use on the Net. The department's Matthew Zook conducts extensive analysis of the geographic distribution of Internet use and its relationship to local economies. The measurement used by YIL was the number of domains registered per thousand businesses in a city. California again dominated, ranking seven of the top 10 cities. San Jose and San Francisco led the group with 3,487 and 3,240 domains per thousand businesses respectively. The rest of the top 10 cities for domains per thousand businesses include San Francisco; Los Angeles-Long Beach; Oakland, Calif.; Washington, D.C.; Orange County, Calif.; New York; Oxnard-Ventura, Calif.; San Diego; and Austin-San Marcos, Texas. In an interesting turn of events, however, when YIL editors rated government sites, California fell prey to some of its East Coast counterparts. New York took the No. 1 spot, followed consecutively by Orange County, Calif.; San Francisco; and Washington, D.C. Measurements and rankings such as YIL's wired cities are important to site seekers like U.S. DataPort. "Because the survey covers lifestyle, business and government, it suggests that the most wired cities have both general populations and elected offices who are somewhat Net-savvy and who appreciate what the Net can do," explains Wilmott. "That means that companies looking to hire such people should look in these cities."
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![]() ©2001 Conway Data, Inc. All rights reserved. SiteNet data is from many sources and not warranted to be accurate or current. |