Internet traffic 1990-2010 from Wired
The above image displays the changing proportion of Internet traffic during my entire 20 year history on the 'Net. Among other things, newsgroups fade to nothing on that chart in 2000. Even so, I can tell you first-hand that newsgroups still exist and still carry traffic.
As for the article that image came from...
Wired: The Web Is Dead. Long Live the Internet
Two decades after its birth, the World Wide Web is in decline, as simpler, sleeker services - think apps - are less about the searching and more about the getting. Chris Anderson explains how this new paradigm reflects the inevitable course of capitalism. And Michael Wolff explains why the new breed of media titan is forsaking the Web for more promising (and profitable) pastures.
You wake up and check your email on your bedside iPad - that’s one app. During breakfast you browse Facebook, Twitter, and The New York Times - three more apps. On the way to the office, you listen to a podcast on your smartphone. Another app. At work, you scroll through RSS feeds in a reader and have Skype and IM conversations. More apps. At the end of the day, you come home, make dinner while listening to Pandora, play some games on Xbox Live, and watch a movie on Netflix’s streaming service.
You’ve spent the day on the Internet - but not on the Web. And you are not alone.
This is not a trivial distinction. Over the past few years, one of the most important shifts in the digital world has been the move from the wide-open Web to semiclosed platforms that use the Internet for transport but not the browser for display. It’s driven primarily by the rise of the iPhone model of mobile computing, and it’s a world Google can’t crawl, one where HTML doesn’t rule. And it’s the world that consumers are increasingly choosing, not because they’re rejecting the idea of the Web but because these dedicated platforms often just work better or fit better into their lives (the screen comes to them, they don’t have to go to the screen). The fact that it’s easier for companies to make money on these platforms only cements the trend. Producers and consumers agree: The Web is not the culmination of the digital revolution.
Eh, Facebook is still the web, and Google can still crawl through a lot of Facebook. The rest, though, are definitely Internet but not the web.
As for the old adage "The Internet's made for porn," well, social media have finally surpassed adult sites in traffic.
While the world burns, Farmville thrives.