It has been all over the news, in the last couple of days, that WWW will finally live up to its name. The Internet, born in the USA, for the first time in history, will incorporate non-Latin characters. This marks a great technological change in the way web works and is expected to open up access to millions of new users.
Being born in the Latin alphabet-world, this may not be such a radical change for most of us. However, in many countries like Korea, China, Thailand, it has been a great struggle and inconvenience for users to switch back and forth between their native alphabet and the Latin alphabet modes. It is also believed that this improvement will also help remove the inbuilt cultural bias.
At this point, I believe it would also be appropriate to look at the e-marketing implications of this change. Using the native language may help users locate what they are looking for more easily, let it be local flower-shops or consulting companies. As a result, the e-marketing efforts are bound to be more fruitful in the end, being able to target a more specific group of users, following up on their different ways to access information. Furthermore, in terms of local businesses and community projects, people will have the opportunity to describe themselves in their own language, and thus distinguishing themselves for better marketing techniques.
Of course, the change is not without its critics. However, it is also a small change on the bumpy road to a more "fair" WWW.
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