Having information and facts at your fingertips about the Internet and web is absolutely critical. Whether you're formulating strategies or policies, engaged in debate, requiring a deeper understanding of the forces driving disruption and change in the public and private sectors, or just trying to grasp accelerating changes, the free Digital Economy Fact Book (PDF) will prove useful.

And possibly just a tad bit disconcerting after you read this and gain some context about the Internet's impact, see the scope of change that already has occurred and how quickly it's moving. You'll find that you're probably not doing enough to prepare yourself or your organization for what will be faced going forward.

The Internet has been a major economic and social force since the early 1990s, when use began growing dramatically and email became a common substitute for more traditional forms of communication. Given the changes in the past 10 years in how the Internet has evolved — blogging, social networks, online video, and tagging were all completely unheard of in 1998 — more changes are certainly coming.

Many thought leaders describe the current rate of internet-driven technological change as exponential, but most of us view trends and change as a linear progression and plan accordingly. There's no question, however, that the tools and perspectives we require must change as well or we will drown in the river of exponentially increasing data. We will be unable to contemplate, consider or make sense of the world around us as we try to manage it all.

What are you doing about it?

The shifts and changes sparked by the Internet and web are moving at a quickening pace, but it's the volume of content, data and the interlinking between it all that's exciting and overwhelming. Together, these forces are changing how we all gather, analyze and connect data today ... and will present us with an even bigger challenge in the future.

The amount of information available in digital form has reached staggering proportions. A University of California-Berkeley study estimated that in 2002, only 5 exabytes of new information were created across all physical media (print, film, magnetic, and optical). In 2007, the amount of purely digital information created, captured, and replicated was estimated to be 281 exabytes, and is expanding by a factor of 10 every five years. To give these numbers some perspective, a single exabyte is equivalent to about 50,000 years of DVD quality video.

The number of users continues to grow as well, meaning that the skills we must possess to connect, communicate and engage others online will be an imperative as each month passes: By some estimates, 2005 was the year when the number of worldwide Internet users passed 1 billion. As would be expected, growth rates of Internet usage in the developing world are higher than those in the developed world. Traffic at the Amsterdam Internet Exchange, the world's largest Internet hub and carrier of 20 percent of Europe's Internet traffic, grew at a compound monthly average of 3.8 percent in 2007, with daily traffic already exceeding two petabytes (equivalent to 1 trillion pages of standard printed text) per day.

This report is put out by the Progress and Freedom Foundation, an organization that is a "…market-oriented think tank that studies the digital revolution and its implications for public policy. Its mission is to educate policymakers, opinion leaders and the public about issues associated with technological change, based on a philosophy of limited government, free markets and individual sovereignty."

"PFF's research combines academic analysis with a practical understanding of how public policy is made. Its senior fellows and other scholars are leading experts in their fields, with distinguished careers in government, business, academia and public policy. Its research is substantive, scholarly, and unbiased."

Covered in the report are these key areas:

· The Growth of the Internet

· The Hardware Sector

· The Communications Sector

· Digital Media

· Electronic Commerce

· Threats to the Digital Economy

· The Worldwide Digital Economy

One of the best parts are the active links in each chapter's EndNotes that allow you to drill down into many areas covered within this report. Here is the download page and a direct link (PDF).

Read it and let the numbers sink in as you realize the progress and technological change going on moment by moment — and that it's moving faster and faster. Then ask yourself this question: "Am I preparing myself and my organization to live, work and succeed in a world of accelerating change?"