Web Worker Survey 2010: The Results Are In!
Here at WebWorkerDaily, our definition of the term web worker has always been “anyone who works using the web” — which is admittedly rather broad. So in order to get a clearer picture of today’s web worker, we — together with our colleagues over at GigaOM Pro — ran a survey, the full results and analysis of which has just been published on GigaOM Pro (subscription required). Among the takeaways from the answers given by 352 of our readers that I found particularly interesting or surprising were:
- Most web workers are not freelancers. Contrary to common perception that most web workers are home-based freelancers, our survey found that most web workers (61 percent) are full-time employees, while 45 percent freelance in some capacity (as some web workers are both an employee and a freelancer, respondents could choose more than one answer).
- Coworking is more popular in Europe than the U.S. Nearly three in 10 respondents use some form of coworking at least some of the time. Interestingly, though, coworking is more popular in Europe than it is in the U.S — perhaps a surprising result, given that most of the pioneering coworking centers are based in the States.
Nine out of 10 web workers use Skype. Web workers have been eager adopters of VoIP technology, with 60 percent of respondents using VoIP (a higher percentage than those using landlines for work). Skype’s always been a popular VoIP tool, but I was surprised by its dominance — a staggering 90 percent of our readers use Skype.
- Cloud-based office suites have significant penetration of the web worker market. It’s probably not surprising that 38 percent of our respondents use some form of cloud-based office suite (Google Docs, Zoho, etc.), but the result is significant, given Microsoft Office’s historical dominance in this space. Google Docs is by far the most popular web-based office software among our readers, with over 90 percent of respondents using it. (If you’re interested in learning more about cloud computing and how it enables web apps like this, check out our Structure conference in San Francisco later this month).
To get the full results and analysis of the survey, check out the comprehensive 34-page report on GigaOM Pro (subscription required).
I seem to recall being promised results of this survey as part of taking it. Maybe not, but still, to see it behind a paywall makes me sad.
Hi SC — as I recall, we did promise the results to people taking part. I’ll ask the guys at GigaOM Pro and see if I can get them to hustle on sending them out.
Agree with SC, was expecting to see the results after taking part. Fail to see why I should pay to see results from a survey I freely took part in. Unless I missed it, why was this not highlighted when we took part. Won’t make that mistake again!
Thanks for the comments, Nick. I’ll see if I can get them to send them out.
Hi folks, I’m the Editor at GigaOM Pro. We will be making the survey results available to participants, as stated in the survey; sorry for the delay in disseminating those! It was an oversight on our part. We thank you all for sharing your information with us — it was great to hear from you and get a bigger sense of who you are and what you’re doing! That said, we will continue to perform further analysis and do more in-depth research into the survey findings on GigaOM Pro over the next few months, which might be of interest to some of you. I encourage you to come join us in that community and share your feedback. We have a free trial available, and I’m willing to bet that, beyond the survey results, you’ll find something of use to you in your work. Feel free to contact me with your feedback (specialprojects at gigaom dot com), or suggest more research topic ideas here: http://pro.gigaom.com/suggest-research/
Best,
Celeste