Four years ago people primarily used the internet for communication. Today, the main reason people go online is to look for content. That's according to a new study released by the Online Publishers Association and Nielsen/NetRatings.

Of course, the change didn't happen overnight. There's been a steady increase over the last few years in the amount of time internet users spend online looking for content. Part of the reason for the shift is that a lot of information that was once only available offline is now online. News, sports, weather, and entertainment information is ubiquitous on the web. This also includes home searching, blogging, and many other things that are new to the internet world.

And then there's the whole Web 2.0 thing. There is no bigger waste of time then networks, news sites, and media sharing sites like YouTube. You could make the case that these sites are blurring the lines between communication and content by letting anyone contribute.

They are now saying that IMing (read: Instant Messaging) is reducing the amount of communicated time people do online. The simple facts behind that are that it takes a lot less time and energy to send an IM then it does to send an E-Mail. In some cases this wont prove true as we have all been in theose 3 hours conversations online with someone and then kicked ourselves for not just writing an E-Mail!