Posts filed under 'TLDs'
By Chuck Kisselburg
ICANNWiki.org
The below is what was printed in today’s Sedo newsletter, with content assembled by Crystal Peterson of The Public Interest Registry.
With the increased focus on the importance of corporate social responsibility and green issues, businesses are reaping the rewards of maintaining a separate .org website alongside their commercial .com.
What better way to clearly differentiate charitable and social initiatives from commercial initiatives than by operating a .org to highlight a corporate foundation’s mission?
Just look at these leading companies for examples of the trend to utilize their .org for corporate foundations:
• WholeFoodsMarket.com runs the WholePlanetFoundation.org to provide “innovative assistance for entrepreneurship - including direct microcredit loans and tangible support for other community partnership projects…to create wealth and prosperity in emerging economies;” and
• Google.com operates Google.org, which “aspires to use the power of information and technology to address the global challenges of our age: climate change, poverty and emerging disease.”
“Google and Whole Foods are just two of the innovative corporations that are branding their green initiatives, philanthropic efforts and outreach activities behind the Trustmark of .org to gain more attention and traffic,” says Alexa Raad, CEO of .org, The Public Interest Registry.
Most organizations, who have a .org in conjunction with other TLDs, point their .org to their principle TLD to maximize the number of eyeballs to their core product. However, with ICANNWiki.org’s focus being “community”, many organizations miss a golden opportunity – the opportunity to enhance their brand and loyalty through highlighting their involvement with the community.
How does your business interact with the community? Utilizing a .org is the best way to highlight the community-minded aspect of your business!
August 13th, 2008
By Chuck Kisselburg
ICANNWiki.org
Last month Paris was the site for all things Internet.
June 21-26 ICANN held its 32nd International meeting. I am not saying that fits my claim of “All things Internet” because two other conferences were being held just prior to ICANN’s conference. The other two conferences were the EGENI conference on the 20th and the Domainer Meeting on the 19th and the 20th. All three conferences were held at the same venue.
As we all know, the goal of ICANN meetings is to focus on utilizing input for purposes of the development of policy regarding the Internet. The Domainer Meeting focused on the domaining industry with sessions on the industry followed by an auction. The EGENI conference covered issues regarding the future of the internet, what users want and the impact of new TLDs, especially what they may be able to do from a cultural and heritage perspective.
While ICANN continued to have their “standards” feel, and the Domainer Meeting continued with the Domainer entrepreneurial spirit, the EGENI conference viewed more into Internet Governance from the public perspective. The EGENI conference also provided perspective from the needs of the European Union in the overall global discussion.
From ICANNWiki’s perspective, this is a dream only because everyone that makes up the ICANNWiki “community” was under one roof. What I especially liked was members from the three groups were talking – TOGETHER! While members of the EGENI conference actively take part in the various ICANN conferences, there are members from the Domainer community that are going to take on a greater role by actively participating on various ICANN committees. I have seen and heard others talk about respective groups bickering over other groups. So getting ALL voices to the table is a good thing.
In all this was a very successful venue for all conferences. While the EGENI conference was more regionally and IGF focused, the conference pulled in around 100 people, the Domainer Meeting, more European-centric, attracted over 300 people. As for the ICANN meeting, this was ICANN’s largest meeting with approximately 1,500 in attendance.
The three things I pulled from ICANN’s conference were:
1). Additional TLDs are on the way. The process is being defined and applications, at the time of this conference, should start being accepted by 2nd quarter, 2009. Yes, this may slip, but the overall feel is this will happen. The main concern voiced by conference attendees rested with security.
2). IDNs continue to progress and will become a reality. Progress is being made.
3). Reaching out to businesses. ICANN’s new effort is to reach out to the business community. Reaching out not only ensures the voices of the business community are heard, it allows the business community to hear what is coming, how they will be impacted and why changes are important. The item at the top of my mind is to help businesses understand the need for converting from IPv4 to IPv6.
As for the EGENI conference the main things I took away from this conference were:
1). As the European Union continues to develop, their needs can differ from those of the US as the EU has a common interest and culture difference from the US; so it is important to ensure the EU is heard. The EU has an initiative known as “E2010” where by the year 2010 education and healthcare will be able to use the Internet to enhance reaching out to the public. With this come challenges such as the need for the protection of:
* Children
* Personal data
* Data protection
2). The various ISOCs (Internet Societies) provide a way for the public to provide their input; with the ISOCs providing input to the political level. In other words, the political level is wanting to get more involved in raising the EU’s concerns regarding Internet development.
3). What do you do with a society that utilizes their mobile phones to a greater extent than people in the US? What about the need to reach out to various devices on the net that are not PC-based; hence a pressing need for migration for IPv4 to IPv6.
4). New TLDs will be coming out with the new TLDs being able to provide a strong focus on culture, heritage, and economic development for the respective TLD regions, whether a specific TLD covers a city, the region of a country, or a region that encompasses multiple countries due to a common economic region.
You can learn more about the EGENI conference by viewing the session notes.
So to wrap up this post, again I get back to how great it was to see the confluence of people from the various groups (ICANN policy/standards, Internet governance, Domainer) in one place. I hope this confluence continues as “continued” dialogue is healthy and committee participation from the various groups is the best way in moving forward. Perhaps someday “confluence” will be replaced with “convergence”. In the mean time, as mentioned earlier, “Getting ALL voices to the table is a good thing.”
July 10th, 2008
By Chuck Kisselburg
ICANNWiki.org
Last August I blogged about “.asia, A Social Networking Goldmine”. While the gist of the post centered around the new .asia TLD (its value with the advent of IDNs and how it can foster community) the underlying theme has been, and continues to be for me the value of what such regionally focused TLDs can bring to the “community”.
In previous posts also I discussed the value IDNs bring not only from the perspective of DotAsia, but from the perspective of India. To be specific, “What IDNs Mean to DotAsia: A Conversation with Edmon Chung of DotAsia” and “IDNs and India: A Conversation with Rajesh Aggarwal of NIXI”.
Again, the underlying theme being that of “Community”.
Recently we were able to witness the power of what such a regionally-based TLD, such as the DotAsia organization can accomplish when trying to support the community.
May 3, 2008 a cyclone hit Myanmar. At the time of this writing 78,000 are dead with 56,000 still missing.
May 12, 2008, an earthquake hit China’s Sichuan province. At the time of this writing 40,000 are dead with 32,000 still missing.
Shortly after the cyclone hit Myanmar and before the quake hit in China, Edmon Chung and his organization, DotAsia lead the charge of forming “Relief.Asia”. The Relief.Asia website, “… was deployed as a tool and platform to drive awareness and community contribution towards the rebuilding of nature-savaged regions such as Myanmar (also known as Burma) and Sichuan, through the application of Information Technology. Other organizations that jumped in to form a working, cohesive partnership include Internet Society Hong Kong (ISOC HK), The Professional Commons, Asia Pacific Networking Group (APNG), intERLab of Asian Institute of Technology, Myanmar Egress, APNIC, and Museum of World Religions, amongst others.”
Through the relationships developed among the various partners, Relief.Asia was able to secure one of the first planes into Myanmar with relief supplies.
As we have seen with Myanmar, politically speaking Myanmar and the US do not have the best of relationships, thus making it difficult for the US to provide relief supplies to Myanmar. Where governments fail in this regard it helps when organizations have relationships within governments, but are not part of a government agency themselves. With that said, DotAsia is not a governmental, or political organization. However, with the establishment of the .asia TLD they have relationships with members of a country’s respective government. I can’t say such relationships helped with Myanmar or Sichuan, but I do know progress towards relief efforts were made due to the relationships established with the various partners of Relief.Asia.
With the development and deployment of regionally-based TLDs on the horizon, I can only wonder if the world has a new avenue for marshalling resources through partnerships to aid in geographically-based relief efforts.
May 21st, 2008
By Chuck Kisselburg
I recently attended the Domain Roundtable conference. As with my attendance last year I walked away impressed with the entrepreneurial spirit of people coming together to constructively define and grow an entire industry. With last year’s attendance of the conference I approached the conference expecting to see the wild west of the Internet. What I found was basically no difference in working with general entrepreneurs.
The key word I heard over and over was, “Development”. “Development, Development, Development!”
Parking of domain names, while a way for domainers to monetize their domains, is not necessarily the best use of domains because:
1). Visitors are not receiving that much value from a “traditionally” parked page.
2). Visitors are recognizing a “traditional” parked page and thus getting more irritated and seeing less value.
3). Development means more than simply parking a page.
As stated by Dan Warner, “Something that is rare AND valuable equals sustainable”
The basic principles of domain development include:
1). Obtaining unique and “clean” assets of domains.
2). Provide content that is original.
3). Develop community around your respective domain.
Development means finding a way to provide better, more relevant content that brings value to the visitor. Value means creating something where visitors to a particular domain will want to return. Return means value and value means return. So whether that is development through continually working to find a continual means for providing “relevant” content or developing partnerships with other organizations that may benefit the visitor, suddenly the definition of “development” looks like the more traditional forms of an entrepreneur developing and growing their business.
One of the speakers at the conference was Matt Cutts of Google. Matt’s basic recommendations to the Domainer community were:
1). If a user lands on a page, will that user be happy? Does the page match the topic the user was expecting? Is the content for the visitor relevant?
2). How much unique content might there be when compared with other sites? In other words, is your content stale or is it constantly being updated?
3). Bottom line, for the visitor, does your site add value and is the content unique?
Another speaker at the conference was Gary Kremen. Gary may be most notable to some through his ownership, and subsequent legal battles over sex.com. However, Gary also took one of his domain names, “Match.com” and developed this into a complete business. The basic nuggets of information I took from Gary’s talk were:
1). Is there a business that can be created using a domain that is more than the domain name it was built upon? From my perspective, Match.com is a classic example of this.
2). Are you creating other intellectual property along the way as you develop your domain name(s)?
3). Think about how this business will solve a problem and use this to develop your business plan.
Gary added another element to his discussion that I had never heard before at other domain conferences I had attended and that was “VCs” – Venture Capitalists. This gets into the whole discussion of should you continue to bootstrap what you are doing or does the next step of development require having an outside investment strategy and how outside investment can affect the company you are developing.
While I have the extreme benefit of talking with people across the entire ICANN “community”, I hear peoples’ perspective on what they think of ALL “domainers”. However, when attending a Domain Roundtable conference where speakers come from outside of the “traditional” sense of the Domainer community, I continue to respect the fact that:
1). An industry has formed with little guidance or direction.
2). This industry is trying to provide its own guidance for the betterment of the industry.
3). This industry is more than simply acquiring domain names, sitting on them and later selling them for a profit.
If a Domainer is to be successful, it is simple:
1). Have a “clean” domain portfolio that does not infringe on any trademarks.
2). Trademark your domain.
3). Develop your domain so that what is developed brings value to the visitor, both through adding value and uniqueness of content.
4). Develop your domain such that it solves a problem for visitors to your site.
5). Develop your domain so that you are creating intellectual property along the way.
As such it is my personal opinion to see more of the traditional organizations starting to diversify their portfolios through acquiring their own domain portfolios.
As for the conference itself, it was held to coincide with the AdTech conference. Smart move as several who attended did so because they were able to bundle this in with their trip to AdTech. Another new thing for this conference was the addition of daily passes. While attendance at the conference “appeared” light I ran into numerous attendees who took advantage of purchasing a daily pass so as to attend what was of interest to them. So while the conference as a whole did not seem to have the normal crowd, the “crowd” was there, only more strategic.
May 12th, 2008
DotAsia’s First Day of Landrush
By Chuck Kisselburg
I recently had a brief chat with Edmon Chung, CEO of DotAsia regarding DotAsia’s first day of Landrush. There was no doubt why Edmon was upbeat as DotAsia reported 266,663 applications received on the first day of DotAsia’s Landrush program. 266,663!!!! That is double what Edmon was expecting! This brings the total of applications received for domain names since Pre-Sunrise, Sunrise, the Pioneer Programs and the first day of Landrush up to 298,861 applications received.
Since fall of last year I have been hearing a small but persistent undercurrent from the domainer community that the domains will mainly be from North America and Europe, thus “basically†nullifying the true reason of DotAsia; being a gTLD that will happen to foster business and development within the rather expansive and diverse Asian region. While 40% came from North America and 24% came from Europe, over 35% of the applications came from Asia. Rough calculations show that over 93,000 applications were received from Asia alone – ON THE FIRST DAY! With respect to that small amount of skepticism, my thought is imagine the number of Asia-region-based applications that would have arrived had IDNs been in use. As mentioned in a previous blog post of mine, “.asia†IS a social networking goldmine; especially with the eventual rollout of IDNs.
So my congratulations to continued success of the DotAsia team. You can read more about DotAsia’s first day of Landrush through their recent press release.
February 25th, 2008
by Chuck Kisselburg
Edmon Chung, CEO of DotAsia, and his staff have been working at developing community around the new .Asia TLD. With the .Asia community encompassing a varied collection of countries and cultures, I felt Edmon’s insight towards IDNs would prove to be a valuable discussion. It should also be noted that today is the first day of DotAsia’’s Land Rush program. What follows is my discussion with Edmon.
What does having IDNs mean to you?
Being a pioneer of IDN technologies and having been promoting its adoption since before the turn of the millennium, having IDN means a lot. It means the end of a long struggle and the beginning of a truly global Internet. Direct navigation is still the most consistent method for surfing the web. IDN makes the Internet accessible and associable for the rest of the world. Domain names today are no longer simply a command line on the technical infrastructure of the Internet, but also part of the social and identity fabric of the online world. Having IDN become a natural part of the Internet is a vision me and many of my colleagues who have worked very hard on the issue over the years have.
Will IDNs have an impact in your area?
Yes. Asia is probably the region that will benefit the most from the full deployment of IDN. Many languages in Asia are not expressed in the Latin script (i.e. ASCII), IDN will allow for a native experience on the Internet. Imagine perhaps that the Russians invented the Internet and we all have to learn Cyrillic to navigate to different websites, how inconvenient it would be. That is the reality for the majority of the online population today.
What impact will it have in your area?
I believe that it will open a new era of Internet usage in Asia. IDN will be a platform that will bring corporations, shops and local stores online. For the first time, these operations will find its own voice and identity online. The Internet is as much about global communications as facilitation of local communities. IDN will allow Asia’’s local communities to further flourish in cyberspace and to find linkage around the world through Asians overseas.
How might IDNs help your geographic region?
As mentioned, Asia will probably be the region that will benefit the most from IDN. From the Arabic west Asia, the Sino east Asia to the Indic South Asia and other South East Asia languages, IDN would help different language communities find their voice on the Internet. IDN is not content, but neither is it simply a command line. IDN provides a platform for development of the Internet in Asia.
How might IDNs hinder your geographic region?
Development on the Internet will be hindered without the full deployment of IDN.
How might IDNs help businesses in your geographic region?
IDN will give businesses, especially local and small and medium sized enterprises the opportunity to represent themselves the way they are known to their customers. The value of a name and brand is clear to understand. Being able to reflect that online means facilitation of business.
How might IDNs affect the people in your geographic region?
IDN will allow for a native experience for navigating the Internet.
Which group will benefit most from IDNs in your area and why?
Ultimately, end users will benefit the most from IDN.
Do you foresee any challenges with which applications will be able to support IDNs?
As we have seen through the nearing ten years of work on IDN, there will be many challenges as applications deploy IDNs. Phishing issues, policy issues, languages issues and forward and backward compatibility issues are just a collection of a few of them. Nevertheless, I do not believe any of these should be prohibitive for the full deployment of IDN. Another important area that requires our continued hardwork is email addresses.
What do you foresee as the negative aspect to IDNs?
There has been talk about IDN causing problem for anglo-centric or Latin-based language users to be unable to connect to parts of the Internet. I do not think the characterization of such situation is correct. As the non-English speaking community today navigates through the Internet utilizing search or clicking on links for which mean little to them, in the future, those not speaking a particular language will still be able to search and click to IDN sites and content. Similarly, today there is already a significant amount of content on the Internet that is non-English, does that mean that content causes the fracturing of the Internet for its legacy users?
How do you hope IDNs are NOT used?
I hope IDN will not be un-used.
What is your biggest hope for IDNs to accomplish?
My biggest hope, then when I first started working on IDN technologies as now, is for IDN to eventually become a natural part of the Internet and a taken-for-granted part of Internet navigation. When people do not consider IDNs “IDN” is when IDN is truly successful. Perhaps then people would not believe that in the beginning domain names were only acceptable in English alphanumeric characters.
February 20th, 2008
By Chuck Kisselburg
ICANNWiki.org
Last week I attended T.R.A.F.F.I.C. East, held just north of Miami. The brainchild of Rick Schwartz and Howard Neu the conference was very well attended by domainers, parking firms, registrars and other companies from around the globe. While this is T.R.A.F.F.I.C.’s ninth conference, the success of this conference continues to underline the need for organized conferences for this segment of the Internet industry. New to the family is John Epp, T.R.A.F.F.I.C.’s new Executive Director.
As with my blog after the Domain Roundtable, this conference was made up of a solid group of entrepreneurs.
The format of T.R.A.F.F.I.C. continues to be seminars with industry experts along with healthy amounts of time set aside for networking and developing relationships/partnerships. The conference ended with an auction of domains.
In attending the sessions and talking with people during each of the networking events, I heard a couple of themes:
1). Transparency
2). Development
3). Code of ethics
4). Representation
1). Transparency: There appears to be a growing need within the domainer community for there to be greater transparency with the parking companies. The reason behind this is as Google and Yahoo have driven down the costs associated with advertising clicks, owners of parked domains are, on an average, seeing decreasing revenues on their investments. The only thing this points to are the parking companies and how much money might be staying with these companies. As such parking companies are seeing the need for becoming more transparent regarding costs associated with managing parked domains.
2). Development: Almost every domainer at the conference wishes to develop, where possible, their domains. Realistically it will be difficult for a domainer to develop all of their domains as it takes time and resources to develop even one domain. Think of development as creating and executing a business plan. Also note that while some may think of a domainer as owning huge amounts of domain names, in truth there are domainers present who own a small number. However, everyone sees the value of developing their domains. True, it does increase the value of their domain, but people really want to utilize their domains where they are actually providing value to the end user.
I had the pleasure of talking with quite a few people at this conference and found those in attendance spanned the gamut of domaining and development. On one extreme I talked with one person who is all about domain tasting. He “tastes†anywhere from 35,000 to 40,000 domains a day. On the other extreme a former CEO, who has a small portfolio of domains, wishes to create a full blown business with each domain. With the exception of the one domain taster in attendance, everyone wanted to develop their domains as much as possible. I also heard LOUD AND CLEAR that people are really against the concept and practice of domain tasting.
3). Code of ethics: As this community continues to evolve, domainers, and the organizations that support them, feel they have been tainted by the activity of a minority, and that deals with “tastingâ€, “kiting†and “cybersquattingâ€. There is a strong current to help further define this community through the establishment of standards as well as a code of ethics. This means that not only should there be a code of ethics for domainers, there should also be a code of ethics for registrars and parking companies, with the goal being to set the standard as well as weed out those who don’t “pass the gradeâ€.
4). Representation: There is a strong undercurrent that those of this community are not listened to by ICANN. When ever I ask a simple question about this I can usually get blasted with a cadre of examples. You can tell the frustration level is quite high. There is work to be done, but I strongly feel that with open communication ICANN and the domainer community can work together. Aside from ICANNWiki being able to provide a platform for communication among those who fall within the overall ICANN community, the Internet Commerce Association, or the ICA, has gained heavy support from the various groups attending T.R.A.F.F.I.C. to be the official association to work with ICANN to ensure the domainer community is represented and heard. Personally speaking, I see the need for ICANN to have representation at each of these domainer conferences as this can only help continue the conversations and mutual education.
For those reading this blog who don’t live within the domainer’s world, here are a couple of blogs to view:
Frager Factor
Conceptualist.com
Seven Mile
Ron Jackson’s Blog
Whizzbangsblog.com
Rick’s blog
Jay Westerdal’s blog
The keynote speaker to the conference was Steve Forbes. Steve’s speech centered around the entrepreneurial spirit and how such spirit created turbulence over the centuries, however, each time such entrepreneurs help define the industry. The domainer community is in such a space where they are working in a world that is still very young, helping to create and shape the industry.
One of the “Ah-Ha†moments for me was hearing where one organization, who has a sizeable domain portfolio, found it best to “park†their domains due to the “traditional†way the financial world views the domainer world. In other words, investors don’t look at the “value†of what developed domains can bring. Instead investors look at the historical data of what domains have sold for as well as what money the domains are bringing in today. Thus, when working with the financial world, it appears best to park domains instead of develop the domain.
As mentioned earlier, T.R.A.F.F.I.C. continues to grow, thus showing the need for such events. It was mentioned today that Fabulous.com will be the first organization to be a licensee of T.R.A.F.F.I.C. and is now slated to hold a T.R.A.F.F.I.C. conference in Australia in November of 2008.
October 17th, 2007
The Domain Name Alliance Registry Inc. (“Alliance Registryâ€) is a newly formed joint venture between two leaders in the Internet domain space: registrar GoDaddy.com, Inc. and registry Afilias USA, Inc., an Afilias Limited company.
Both Go Daddy and Afilias are technology and domain name industry marketing pioneers that are combining their expertise to create a new entity that will provide leading stewardship for critical TLDs that must be managed and marketed professionally.
Most recently, Alliance Registry has put forth a proposal to manage the usTLD in response to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s request for quotations.
Read the text of the press release announcing Go Daddy and Afilias’ partnership here.
News
2007.08.15
Alliance Registry’s solution will close a security holes in kids.us and enhance content delivery. more…
2007.08.08
Alliance Registry has put forth a proposal for usTLD that will improve DNS security and stability, enhance registry system security, and implement anti-phishing mechanisms. more…
2007.08.07
The public needs a clear and accurate description of what “quality” registry stewardship really means for a top-level domain like the usTLD. more…
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.
September 21st, 2007
As seen from an earlier post titled, “DotAsia Partners with ICANNWiki to Harness Online Community Participation for Pioneer Domains Program - Extends Program Deadline to 10 September“, the deadline for submitting a proposal for a .asia domain has ended. However, now the fun begins for others of the ICANN community! Soon you will be able to add your voice to the Pioneer Domains Program process, offered by DotAsia, by voting on what you feel is the best proposal. Check back soon to view the proposals and VOTE!
September 13th, 2007
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