Community Responsibility
By Chuck Kisselburg
ICANNWiki.org
While at the Domain Roundtable Conference in Seattle last month I was listening to someone from Canada talk about ccTLDs and how the .ca extension has grown in adoption over the years. While ccTLDs have been most heavily adopted in the UK and Germany, this gentleman was pleased to see how .ca was being adopted within his country. The main reason for such adoption is due to the amount of marketing that went into .ca awareness.
What does that really mean? Community? Why is it important and why we (the collective “weâ€) have responsibility for our communities.
Last week I was in Whistler for a week. Being an American, when I use the net I rarely see .us used anywhere. Instead I am personally used to using .com, .net, .org, .gov and .fm. So, while on this trip to the north I thought this would be a good opportunity to “notice†and be “aware†of .ca.
The social networking enthusiast that I am, I am not one who is shy when talking with people. Yes, Whistler caters to a world-wide clientele of all economic strata. In order to get a feel for .ca awareness I talked with only those who were local to the village. I talked with six people, all of which were from various backgrounds and ages. Three were in the 20-30 year age range while the other three where in the 40-60 age range.
What I found were those in the older age range pretty much relied on .com for all of their needs, except for one individual whose visits to the Internet were primarily sports related. If sports related, it was all .ca for this person. Else, everyone within the older age group felt that if they landed on a .ca site it was because the .com for that domain name had been taken by some other organization.
As for the younger age group, the message was consistent. If they were looking for something they knew was a Canadian company they would always start with .ca, even if they were searching for the URL. If an organization they were looking for were more global in nature, they knew to look for .com. All voiced that similar opinion very matter-of-factly, as if, “Why would it be anything else?â€.
When looking around I found the following:
When watching a baseball game between Baltimore and Toronto, hosted in Toronto, I saw advertisements for Expeidia.ca and Toyota.ca. Yet on one of the signs in Toronto’s Rogers Centre ballpark was www.bluejays.com. When going to that site the URL actually resolves to http://toronto.bluejays.mlb.com/index.jsp?c_id=tor. Just as I thought, the “Blue Jays†team is a franchise of the Major League Baseball; an American organization.
Other sites I noticed were:
www.vancouver-2010.com (saw printed on material, but while still under construction, www.vancouver-2010.ca works well.)
www.whistler.com (for visitors)
www.whistler.ca (for locals)
www.vancouver.com (for visitors)
www.vancouver.ca (for locals)
www.Translink.bc.ca (local Vancouver transit network)
www.BCFerries.com (local BC ferry system, however when using my trusty browser I see they also have www.BCFerries.ca.)
www.shaw.ca (Canadian cable provider. I found it interesting they use ONLY the .ca extension.)
I would also see “.ca†this and “.com†that on various delivery trucks. From my perspective, as a casual viewer, there was no rhyme or reason. As this world continues to shrink, think of what people face as they trot the globe!
My favorite coffee house in the village is, what I thought was a Canadian enterprise only. True, they are headquartered in Canada, but they also have franchises in the UAE, China and Japan. Perfect for localization of sites, right? Nope. .com all the way.
Being in Whistler I thought I would head to Panasonic’s site as they are one of the sponsors for the 2010 Olympics that are to be held in Vancouver and Whistler. Here you have this huge, global company, but sure enough I found site localization for MANY countries. My favorites inclue:
Panasonic-Canada (http://panasonic.ca/)
Panasonic-Middle East (http://panasonic.ae/PMM/english/home.aspx)
Panasonic-China (http://panasonic.cn/)
Panasonic-Australia (http://panasonic.com.au/)
In talking with a person from the UK who’s job used to include localizing various sites for his organization’s international audience, commented that some people who were savvy about the site localization would understand that such localized sites would sell products based on their target country’s currency system. What this meant is they were finding some people would go to the localized site that offered the best exchange rate when purchasing their goods, such as computer systems. Talk about savvy bargain hunting! Companies, however, are becoming savvy to this practice and are focusing the purchase price based on the currency to either where the product is being shipped or the billing location of your credit card.
What I thought was nice, however, is when I would open up my browser, my Google home page allowed for searching in Canada only, if I so desired. When going to Google directly, it was no longer “Google†but “Google Canadaâ€. Personally I thought that was a nice touch. I felt that it catered to me, giving me options I did not have previously. Somehow I felt like part of the Canadian “cliqueâ€. Eh?
Thinking back to my conversation with the person from Canada at the Domain Roundtable Conference in Seattle, saying that .ca has grown due to a rather large advertising effort, I couldn’t help but wonder who such advertisement was targeted towards, locals or organizations?
So, what does all of this mean? To me localization is, and will continue to be a mixed bag for locals and visitors alike. However, such localization helps foster community. Within every community you will find people who, on one side think of “What’s in it for me†while those on the other side will make decisions based on what’s right for the community; hence community responsibility.
When talking with the Whistler locals, especially those in the younger age group who were very familiar with .ca, you could tell there was a sense of pride in how they talked. From my perspective I would look at this as an opportunity to gain a better sense of the country I was visiting. I also found I had a greater appreciation for organizations that take that extra step to do what they didn’t have to do and that was to spend the time and money for site localization for the countries they serve.
Community responsibility. How do you foster community responsibility? Developing and growing communities is never easy. However, making a sustained effort is necessary. DotAsia will soon be launching the .asia TLD. Through their Pioneer Domains Program, they are working to have organizations come together with their proposals for how they will develop domain names under the .asia TLD, thus helping to form the .asia community. We should all carefully watch how the .asia community unfolds as we may find ourselves watching the creation of the mold for launching new communities in the future.
Add comment September 21st, 2007