Riddle: they're a global phenomenon. But most of them are in English and in Roman characters. What are they?

Answer: You guessed it; domain names like www.debbieweil.com

The U.S. has long been accused - rightly so - of digital colonialism. Interestingly, the technology for creating multilingual domains was created ten years ago. But it's never been put to the test.

Icann_newdomains This week ICANN decided to start experimenting with domain names written entirely in native script or characters. So instead of reaching the Google China blog by typing in www.googlechinablog.com you would type in: [Chinese text].[Chinese text].

I'll try and post a URL typed entirely in Chinese characters when I get to China. Can't do it from here.

[via A Script for Every Surfer - The Washington Post, Oct. 11, 2007]

Useful Link

The ICANN blog on new top-level domains

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About This Blog

I’ve been writing about corporate and CEO blogging and business use of social media since 2003. I also use this blog as a whiteboard to work out my thinking on other subjects, such as Government 2.0 and Publishing 2.0.  I welcome your Comments if they are on topic. I delete them if inappropriate or spammy.




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@danielrmccarthy eegads Daniel - well, I think you're expressing what some of us are thinking. Thots??
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