According to this eMarketer article (which quotes the latest comScore measurment) the Internet surpassed the 1 billion user mark. In fact, eMarketer puts the number at 1.172 billion when a broader sense of the definition is applied (counting access from Internet cafes, mobile phones or PDAs).

“Surpassing 1 billion global users is a significant landmark in the history of the Internet,” said Magid Abraham, comScore CEO, in a statement. “It is a monument to the increasingly unified global community in which we live and reminds us that the world truly is becoming more flat.”

To put this into perspective, the world’s population is currently estimated at around  6.7 billion, which means that over 17% of the world’s population are Internet users.

Here is a break down by region:

From a glass half empty point of view, the majority of people on earth still have no access to the Internet.

From a glass half full point of view, it is a sensational amount people. There is now a real critical mass to experiment on the Internet and it is difficult to imagine what impact this will have for future generations. To think that so many people can now interact with each other in so many ways while being so far away from each other is truly game changing. The fact that so many people use the Internet will also accelerate the speed at which the “non users” jump in.

From an online research point of view, this is further proof of how mainstream the Internet has become and how important it is to continue to develop innovative ways to interview people online. As the Internet population increases, users change their habits. At the moment social networking seems to be what people are doing the most and this trend seems to be here to stay.

Also interesting to see how Latin America seems to be instrumental to the growth…

Latin America, while comprising just 7.4 percent of the global Internet audience, is the region to watch, noted Jamie Gavin, a ComScore senior analyst.

“The U.S. is slowing down in its growth and momentum, but Latin America, with social networking and the mobile Internet, is expected to gain momentum over the next few years,” Gavin said.

Brazil for example, ranks 9th in the top 10 countries in terms of Internet usage:

At Livra, we are can’t wait for the next billion people to start using the Internet

Sources:

A Billion Internet Users, and Counting [eMarketer]
Internet Users Worldwide surpass 1 billion [Cnet]