The Internet is largely an American invention. With its humble beginnings as part of the National Defense System paid for by the US government, and the rise of personal computing almost exclusively spearheaded by American corporations (IBM, Microsoft, Apple, Dell, you name it!), the conception of the Web has traditionally been dominated by an English-speaking worldview.

47 years later, the rest of the world has joined the party. Accessibility has become a hot issue. For a rapidly increasing majority, the online experience can be alienating and frustrating. The problem is generally not content — advances in built-in OS support for international character-set encoding and translation services make short work of ensuring there’s plenty of content accessible online in any language.

The fly in the ointment is surprisingly non-virtual and quite physical: keyboard layouts that don’t natively support the Latin character-set necessary to type the English-centric part of website addresses known as Top Level Domains (TDL).

Well, no more.

On November 16, 2009, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the organization that oversees the Internet’s naming and numbering systems, announced a big win for TLD accessibility.

Internationalized Domain Names (IDN) expand the acceptable range of domain characters from the currently available set of the English alphanumeric set (26 letters “a-z”, numbers 0-9, and hyphens) to “close to 100,000 characters”.

ICANN President Rod Beckstrom estimates that roughly half of all Internet users use non-Latin based scripts by default. This means the move toward IDN ccTLD will open the virtual doors for potentially billions of non-English speakers across the world.

President Rob Beckstrom passionately describes the exciting culmination of this project as “making the promise of one world, one Internet, with everyone connected, come true”.

For the better part of a decade, ICANN has been working with software engineers, IT architects and international representatives to resolve the incredibly complex technical and political challenges of redesigning the core of the Internet’s addressing system for a truly global reach.

“This is the biggest technical change to the Internet’s addressing system – the Domain Name System – in many years,” explains Tina Dam, Senior Director of Internationalized Domain Names at ICANN. “Right now, it’s not possible to get a domain name entirely in for example Chinese characters or Arabic characters. This is about to change.”

The IDN ccTLD Fast Track program is available immediately online for owners of current (Latin-based) domains that wish to translate their property address into another language. Requests are currently being evaluated and approved by ICANN. IDN ccTLDs are expected to be accessible online in early 2010.

Information on how to apply, a list of Frequently Asked questions, and the online request form are available at: http://www.icann.org/en/topics/idn/fast-track/

For more information on the good ICANN is doing, please visit: http://www.icann.org

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As a special feature for our blog, we are showcasing sites that are inspiring, deliciously unique and equally addictive. Best of all, they are all clients at myhosting.com! With Valentines only a few weeks away, we bring you one of the largest online matchmaking services in the world: be2

Feature of the Month: be2

Valentine’s Day Survival Guide: Finding Love Online

With Valentine’s Day fast approaching, a lot of people are on the hunt for a special someone to share the day with. My advice for happy hunting? Quit scouring the bars and get your single, fabulous self online!

I’m a huge advocate of looking for love online – because at the very least, you meet some seriously cool people with common interests. It’s no secret I met my current boyfriend on Twitter; I’ve also had such a positive experience using dating sites that I find myself constantly recommending them to friends and family.

Have you ever met someone online? If so, let me know about the experience. Have you ever considered it? If so, I want to know what’s held you back.

To help direct you through your first journey in finding love online, I sought out advice, guidance and wisdom from our online love expert, Blog Editor for the German and English be2 blogs, Fiona Brutscher. be2 is one of the world’s leading matchmaking services with over 14 million members in 36 countries and a methodology developed by a team of psychologists, sociologists and statisticians.

I feel as though there is still a sense of novelty to the idea of online dating. It blows my mind that in such a technologically advanced age, people are hesitant in using online outlets to find love. Fiona explains the concept to me, saying, “It has taken a while for people to fully trust in the concept of finding love online. Particularly where a personal and private issue such as love is concerned, people are often reluctant to trust someone that they can’t speak to face to face. That is why it has become increasingly important to offer our customers multiple channels that allow them to contact be2 – be it through our FAQs, customer service, the blog, or other social media.”

Her advice to those interested in online dating is to first ask yourself two questions: Who am I? and What kind of person am I looking for?  Fiona explains, “Often, singles approach their dating profile from the wrong angle, asking ‘how do I present myself in the best way?’ That can lead to a profile that doesn’t accurately reflect the person behind it, which in turn leads to unsuitable matches. However, if you get those two questions answered before you create a dating profile, you have a much better chance of really finding the person who is right for you.”

“If  necessary, you can make a list of your own personality features or even consult a friend to find the answers. It goes without saying that honesty is also key; if you pretend to be 25 and slim in your profile, you will attract matches who are looking for someone who is young and slim. You will certainly not find the person who is willing to love you as you are!”

And don’t forget you are not the only one doing this; there are millions of people who use and swear by online dating. be2 for example  has global presence and gets more than 20,000 new members joining every day.

And as we finished up, I couldn’t help but ask what its like working for cupid. “Matchmaking is a people business, which makes it even more important that the people who work here are a good match for be2. The be2 team is young, motivated and truly believes that our success is intertwined with the success of each and every relationship we help initiate.”

So, get out there with your bad self and don’t forget to report back to me with your stories – good, bad, ugly and glamorous!  I want to hear all about your online dating debauchery.

**Also, if you will be at South By South West Interactive (SXSWI)  this year, don’t forget to check out the panel I will be on with Jeremy Wright – Twitter and Dating 101: Finding Love in 140 Characters or Less. Don’t worry if you miss it, we’ll be providing coverage via our blog!**

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Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg created quite a stir of controversy and debate in the online world following a TechCruch interview in front of a live audience this past weekend. What got everyone so heated? He said the age of online privacy is dead, and we killed it. Facebook only follows suit to the burial.

The once conservative advocate of online privacy has now changed the tune of his song to say this is a move they would have made when starting out many years ago if the online environment reflected it – which it now, apparently, does.

The only issue I have is that a change of heart on one’s principles, values and beliefs is not easy to sway… especially without a genuine sounding explanation. I wonder what he got in return for the promise of his first born?

In the interview, he says, “And then in the last 5 or 6 years, blogging has taken off in a huge way and all these different services that have people sharing all this information. People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people. That social norm is just something that has evolved over time.” He continues by saying it is Facebook’s duty to reflect societal norms, and a lack of privacy on the book is just that.

I can’t help but wonder – have blogging and tweeting removed our reticence and created online exhibitionists of us all?

Video from the TechCrunch Ustream channel

Is this a “ask and thou shalt receive” situation? Marshall Kirkpatrick from ReadWriteWeb doesn’t think so.  In his blog post Facebook’s Zuckerberg Says The Age of Privacy is Over, he writes “I don’t buy Zuckerberg’s argument that Facebook is now only reflecting the changes that society is undergoing. I think Facebook itself is a major agent of social change and by acting otherwise Zuckerberg is being arrogant and condescending.”

Personally, online privacy is a huge issue and the topic generates a lot of interest from me. It intrigues and excites me because is a very multifaceted debate and the lines are so thin between good and evil. Say data mining for example, can be used for the evils of marketing or, on the good side, to contribute to breakthroughs in semantic web technology that will make everyday life easier.

Overall, I feel as though the web is our remaining “free” medium where one can truly get unfiltered thoughts, ideas and inspiration. There is so much purity and promise in that. Yet I also understand that there need to be watch dogs and regulators to prevent terrorist groups and online bullies… but, we also don’t want it to resemble 1984.

Do you think your privacy is ultimately gone, and we have ultimately offered it up as a societal evolution? Are we not quite there yet but well on our way? Are we to blame for the apparent death of online privacy? Is privacy even dead? Have we offered our souls on a silver platter in return for niche online celebrity? What are your thoughts on internet and its future? I’d love to hear from you.

Related posts:

1. Facebook Backlash: Mark Zuckerberg’s Response
2. Take Me To Your Homepage: How to use online advertising to drive traffic to your website
3. Sharing Your Corporate Culture Online