Globalization of Internet business predicted by webservices-international.com.
Added: (Tue Aug 26 2008)
Pressbox (Press Release) -
August 26, 2008, Scottsdale, Arizona-Since the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has approved domain name registrars to sell Internationalized Domain Names (IDN) to the general public across the World Wide Web, the propensity for conducting business and developing language-specific websites has become a global reality.
With over a hundred different languages offered at webservices-international.com to register a .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz, or .tw, any Internet-oriented business can create and publish language-specific websites in order to connect with a language-specific audience wherever Internet access is available. A France-based web business can reach a world wide French-based audience by registering their domain name in the following manner: yourcompany.com in French would become votrecompagnie.com, thus enabling said business to publish a complete French language website.
The ability to register IDNs in such a manner allows for complete globalization of the Internet. No one language dominates. Businesses can become as imaginative as the Internet itself. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, it states that: “In a commercial setting, the benefit from localization is access to more markets. It costs more to produce products for international markets, but in an increasingly global economy, supporting only one language/market is scarcely an option”.
The United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT), a part of the Department of Homeland Security supplies an answer to the question; What are internationalized domain names?: “To decrease the amount of confusion surrounding different languages, there is a standard for domain names within web browsers. Domain names are included in the URL (or web address) of web site. This standard is based on the Roman alphabet (which is used by the English language), and computers convert the various letters into numerical equivalents. This code is known as ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange). However, other languages include characters that do not translate into this code, which is why internationalized domain names were introduced.
To compensate for languages that incorporate special characters (such as Spanish, French or German) or rely completely on character representation (such as Asian or Arabic languages), a new system had to be developed. In this new system, the base URL (which is usually the address for the home page) is dissected and converted into a format that is compatible with ASCII. The resulting URL (which contains the string "xn--" as well as a combination of letters and numbers) will appear in your browser's status bar. In newer versions of many browsers, it will also appear in the address bar”.
Though the mentioned language translation process is technically defined, end users need only to go to webservices-international.com, enter their chosen domain name, choose a language and press a button to register an Internationalized Domain Name, create their International website, and host their International website at a cost less than an average meal.