As you look down the average high street, more businesses are advertising their web sites alongside their telephone numbers.

The stodgy old UK is finally getting internet-aware and about time too.

In the past year, a large number of people have carved out their own slice of the world wide web and the number is growing daily.

A National Statistics survey found 45 per cent of respondents, representing about 20.5 million individuals throughout the UK, have access to the internet.

In bars and clubs, the clinching question "what's your phone number?" is being replaced by "what's your email address?" or "what's your URL?"

An in-depth internet survey has identified why so many people have chosen to create their own personal web sites:

62 per cent simply provide
information about themselves and their families, presumably to friends and other family members.

48 per cent use their
personal sites to find others on the internet with similar interests to their own.

28 per cent just want to be
seen as "cool" (at least they're honest)

28 per cent want to conduct
personal business 28 per cent want to share
their ideas, philosophies, and beliefs.

six per cent want to show
their children's accomplishments.

four per cent are searching
for a new relationship.

With the introduction of the .Name domain, the opportunity for people to set-up personal web sites is greater than ever. But, as personal web space fights for attention against the background mass of Buffy and Kylie pages, the "eye candy" (pretty graphics)

or "sticky" content people put on their sites will decide whether visitors come back for more or not.

Forget the old-fashioned, out-of-focus, scanned image of a pet or partner. These are being replaced by home-grown MP3s and videos.

Steve Cowles, of Video Image Productions (www.

videoimageprod.co.uk) in Seaford, has created a number of video clips for personal web sites.

He said: "We have created all kinds of short videos featuring places, pets and people for personal web sites and recognise this is a growing market place.

"Probably the largest growth area is the music arena. A pop band is nothing without a video these days and we get a huge number of calls asking for information and advice about putting content on to the internet."

The biggest change to personal web sites and web use in the last few years has been the growth of online or virtual communities. Many now also act as gateways to the web at large with links to other sites with useful information, such as www.

thetube.com, so not only can people tell you about cool places to visit or events to be seen at, they can tell you how to get there as well.

What happens to personal web sites in the future will be interesting. It is difficult to imagine what content we will be uploading and downloading in three years' time and how all the virtual communities will develop.

One thing is sure. Digital imagery will still be playing a large part in our quest for self- promotion for many years to come.