Monday, November 30, 2009

Today is MoMo day for the 2nd time in Malta

I will be attending the second round of MobileMondays. The first round saw the launch of the MoMo chapter in Malta, two interesting presentations and some quality networking time.

The second edition of MoMo in Malta will see yet another good speaker and a showcase of a Business Project. I hope to have some time to review the 2nd MoMo in some more details.

More information about MoMo at this link: http://www.momomalta.org/

Sunday, November 29, 2009

The URL revolution: A wider World Wide Web.

This longish post was featured in the November issue of Technology Sunday, a monthly supplement of The Sunday Times in Malta

The World Wide Web was conceived some 20 years ago. It is the true embodiment of boundless information which may be retrieved across the globe. Today, the web consists of at least 62.4 million websites which is roughly 8.5 thousand new sites for each day the web has been up and running.

The web resides on the Internet. The Internet was born in the US in 1969. It was born amid fear of conflict and war between the east and the west. Today, it connects 1.6 billion people from the east, west and elsewhere.

Locally, the Internet has also brought about big change. Approximately 108 thousand households and business are connected to the Internet and this does not take into account those of us who access the Internet through their mobile or Internet keys. Hundreds of businesses own a website and hundreds of thousands of us own a Facebook profile.

All the above gives the world reason to celebrate the Internet’s 40th birthday, but surely it does not stop here. There are billions of people who are not yet online.

Primarily some of the biggest third world countries lack the necessary infrastructure to access this amazing tool or enough funds to purchase an Internet connected device. Mobile operators in these countries have teamed up to make up for the lack of fixed infrastructure and users are accessing the Internet for the first time through their mobile phone. The ‘One Laptop per Child’ campaign attempts to provide a simple yet connected laptop to children who have till today never gone online.

So as social as we make the Internet to be, as unbounded and limitless as it is described by the definition of the WWW, the Internet still has some limitations and room for improvement.

In the Internet’s 40th year, ICANN, the Internet’s corporation for the assignment of domain names and numbers, announced the introduction of non-Latin characters in web addresses. So far, more than half of current Internet users had to switch their non-Latin based keyboards to key in a simple URL or email. Even though these users where able to include non-Latin characters in the first part of their email or website, the last few characters, also referred to as the top level domain (TLD), had to include Latin script.

As from next year, the Internet will see domain names and emails in full non-Latin script. Countries like China, the Arab-speaking countries and Russia will be the first to benefit from the new non-Latin scripts in their country codes. Web masters in China may do away with the ‘.cn’ at the end of their addresses and replace it with its equivalent in the new Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs).

The move is surely positive for those users who are not as conversant in English or at least, familiar with Latin script. On the other hand, some of the current users, many of them probably residing on this side of the planet, fear this move may hinder the openness of the WWW and create linguistic boundaries.

The truth however is that the popularization of the Internet has made it a social reality and a reflection of what takes place offline. In the real world, some people simply do not understand each other, whilst others make it a point to be conversant in a number of languages. Offline, multi-national companies and global brands have multi-lingual identities which are translated online as country (or at least market) specific websites.

Big countries such as China and Korea did not wait for ICANN to come up with this idea. They have found turn around solutions which allow their many users to key in domains in their own language and be redirected to the original domain.

Apart from the societal aspect of ICANN’s move, the introduction of non-Latin script URLs will mean different things for different players. First of all, as early as today, the move will give rise to a wider range of domain names and therefore create more business for Domain Name registrars. Governments may use IDNs to re-brand their online identities and make the Internet more accessible to the native speaking users.

Marketers and brands should be on the alert to secure any new domain which comes close to their current online addresses. Whilst the new IDNs may offer an opportunity to localize and personalize online brand presence, any user may be faster in purchasing the brand’s IDN version of its online address and trick users through a fake website. The latter is often referred to as a ‘Spoof’ website and may become a security concern, at least initially.

On the technical side, the new IDNs are not as straight forward as the Latin-script domains we have been using for the past four decades. Some online players will need to tweak their popular applications to accept non-Latin scripts.

40 years down the line it is once again conflict (of languages this time) that is possibly about to trigger another big Internet revolution. ICANN’s move has caused mixed reactions in the blogosphere, however, as complicated and difficult as this new online development may be, it’s bridging the gap between the online and offline, making the Internet a better reflection of the real world.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

40 years of internet: the basics in steps.


Nothing new, but worth a listen to remind ourselves where online is coming from...

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Why some people don't get social media...and why they will get it soon.

I have recently attended Alex Grech's workshop on Social Media. The presentation was music to my ears because it very nicely captured the many thoughts relating to interactive 'marketing' and some new real life insights, some of which triggered us to set up BLAB in the first place.

All throughout the presentation I toyed with one question in my mind: "Why don't we all get it (social media that is)?" Why do you get web masters who aren't yet on the web, on facebook or twitter amongst other social media. Why aren't brand executives urgently concerned about the opportunity that they are missing out on? And finally, why do we consider online (and social) strategy as a cheap marketing alternative which can co-exist by the side of the actual publicity budget?

Adage's article on big brands complaining with Twitter about individuals using their brand name as their personal tweeter identity says it all - the 'old school' brand executive thinks he/she is in control of the brand value, but they're not...the average consumer is. Social media simply amplifies the consumers' dominion on your brand. It has been there for a long time, since consumers discussed their purchases. Nothing has changed except for the technology enabling the discussion.

And the sad news is that it is so obvious...we ignore it.