I wanted to create a visualization that showed world internet usage, but in a way that was insightful and meaningful. I gathered data from several online sources and using ArcGIS, Inkscape, and Excel I came up with the following:
Looking over the results it's apparent how strong internet usage is in North America and Europe. Peering a bit closer it was interesting to see high usage in New Zealand and Australia. I wonder if this factored in Google's project loon site selection? Breaking down usage by world region shows that even though a smaller percentage of China's population is using the internet, that segment alone is enough to position China and the other Asian nations(I'm looking at you South Korea) as the world's leaders in accessing the internet.
One thing that jumped out at me was the high adoption in the United Arab Emirates. A quick QA of the data showed that there weren't any transposition or transformation errors. After digging in a bit more to some stats about the United Arab Emirates it become more apparent why their adoption was so high; their population is younger with a median age of 30, which is educated, and has a good standard of living. Mobile penetration is also very high as well.
I can only assume that this combination would easily facilitate access to the wired world.
Lastly, Chrome is the world's leading web browser, which I'm sure makes google very happy.
Now that's interesting...