Companies´ web site use: a comparative analysis between Italy and US

Over recent years, Internet use is becoming incredibly popular: in 1969 host computers were only 4; in 1990 they were 313,000 and in 1996 their number grew to 9,472,000 (Kalakota and Whinston, 1997). As a consequence of this, evident growth of “potential users/consumers”, firms all around the world are realizing the potential advantages connected to a presence on the World Wide Web. Indeed, the “Internet phenomenon” is becoming more and more important from a business perspective since it is significantly changing the external context a firm works in. Clearly, Internet awareness and evolution of utilization differ a great deal from country to country with the United States leading the way since the Internet was developed there. Starting from these premises, the paper focuses on Italy. How sophisticated and advanced is the web presence of Italian firms? What drivers influence the use of the web by Italian companies? Are there social, cultural strategic factors involved?