Mark McDonald

An observation.

I applaud ICANN’s decision to support Internet domain names in people’s local language and character set. The decision achieves the goal of making the Internet more accessible and global.  But, it also tells us more about the nature of the web than just a move to accommodating the majority of the world using a non-latin alphabet.

While moving to local language domain names is great, its impact on the web and web usage may not be as great as predicted.  One can argue that the move to local language/character set domain names is a little late in the game for the simple reason…

Who types in a full domain name anymore?

Few people do.  Most access the web via a default browser portal, or a search engine or following a link rather than retyping domain names into their browser.

Creating domain names in non-Latin characters will increase the accessibility of the web, no doubt, but it will strengthen the importance of these default portals, search engines and links particularly for those with Latin based keyboards.

What does this say about the web?

Well that the web has moved from an almost infinite undiscovered country, to an information superhighway with defined onramps and infinite off ramps.  These are the embedded web links and search engine results that really control access to the web.

Control is a tough word in the web.  However, realistically gateway web sites in every country (not just Google, MSN or Yahoo) form the basis for how we get around the web.  These are the non-governmental organizations NGO’s of the Internet.  We have seen how their interactions with national governments form the basis for managing web access and information flows.

ICANN’s decision is the right one and a step in the right direction.  Technically it reflects the way the web works through URL addresses.  Functionally that means of direct navigation gave way to portals, search engines and links a long time ago.   This is something to consider as we continue to evolve a communications network that just took another step to being global.

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Category: Personal Observation Tools web 2.0     Tags: Personal Observation, Technology Leadership, web 2.0

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