The Internet: Global Schmobal

Many good points and/or observations Ron, but as always, one can sometimes lose sight of things due to ones own perspective of what something “should” be. To me the Internet is a tool that I use every day. Yes IT IS GLOBAL if one wishes to avail themselves of the numerous services offered, OR one can simply use it selfishly! I personally pay most of my bills on line, enjoy checking into your blog, and doing all sorts of things that interest ME. I suspect Isabella views the way I utilize the Internet as selfish, self-serving or any number of other reasons. I respect her position but have read this sort of thing many times before. She can’t possibly monitor the viewing habits of everyone on the Internet, so her perception of what is going on is flawed, as the world wide activity is impossible to monitor! I was following the successful landing of the Phoenix probe on Mars yesterday, and if that wasn’t a global event (and then some!), what is? LOL

thanks for having me as a guest, ron, and for indulging my latest pet peeve, the global web. i’d be interested to see what other people think of the topic!

Hi Don,
Thanks for stopping by and sharing your opinion.

Hi isabella,

You are most welcome. It is a pleasure to have you sharing your thoughts with us as well.

The best to you both, Ron

hi don – thanks for the comment.

of course i couldn’t write a 5,000-word post, so there are only a few points of view included here.

yes, watching the mars landing is global, no question about it.

not quite sure how paying one’s bills online is global – or is that not what you meant to say?

i was actually not thinking of the term “selfish”. “anglocentric” is a term i had used before, or concentrating one’s online activities on english-speaking sites originating from english-speaking countries, discussing mostly topics of interest to the english-speaking world.

i’d be interested in a few links to where you have read this before, that would be a great addition to this article!

I’m a blogger from Brazil, who collaborates closely with a friend in Australia, writing a comment to a post written in Canada for a blog which is probably mostly read in the US.
That’s pretty global to me…

thanks for your comment, luciano!

may i ask you a question?

what’s your ratio of brasilian readers to readers from english-speaking countries?

[...] you can find us over at Ron Schenone’s blog, investigating the question of how truly global the internet is. Ron Schenone blogs on one of Chris Pirillo’s Lockergnome [...]

First, this is *NOT* a plug or an endorsement for the mentioned product/service because Linden Lab has its own very significant issues, but the most global place now on the internet may well be Second Life.

It is one of the very few “American/English-speaking” places online where I often hear, “Anybody here speak English?” Another comment heard fairly frequently is, “This is like the United Nations!” And recently, I’ve begun to see several sim owners looking for people who can translate English into languages ranging from Portuguese to Korean.

To emphasis one point made by the author, the people who seem most uncomfortable with this truly global environment in Second Life are indeed Americans. And, those who speak the fewest other languages other than their first are Americans.

But again, because of policies and behaviors by the owners of Second Life, this public comment is far from being ringing endorsements of Second Life or Linden Lab.

True, there are things you can do on the internet – a lot many of them – that are global. That doesn’t take away the fact the writer mentions – the Net is pretty US-centric.

I have been an active internet user for ten years. And how often have I landed across non-English language websites? Much, much less than 1 %.

This is despite the fact that there are millions of non-Engish websites.

Looks to me like the internet is developing as isolated patches in a way. You have the big large patch of the US and English centric internet, and then you have a lot of smaller patches which are pretty much out of sight for many outside them.

zenwarrior – what you say about second life is interesting – the question of “does anyone here speak english” is very telling.

i wonder whether the international character of second life has something to do with the fact that it is not purely text-driven?

matt – the word “isolation” is quite useful in this context, i think. and i wonder to what degree this isolation is one-way, i.e. “anglocentric” internet users are not very knowledgeable of non-english web sites whereas others, say brazilian or indian users are also aware of english web sites. that’s the way it has worked in culture for decades. is the internet going to replicate that?

Isabella, this truly is a very thoughtful post. To me personally Internet is pretty global since I live in Russia myself but I do most of my work dealing with people in the US and some of the work talking to people in various European countries, Australia, Canada, China, India. And internet is global in the fact that it actually enables such international communications without efforts.

But as soon as one arrives to the Silicon Valley it becomes pretty obvious why the internet for the English-speaking world (I don’t think the Chinese people visit lots of non-Chinese sites, same goes for the majority of people here in Russia) is really focused on the US: it is simply because so many great websites and web products are developed and launched in the Valley. And so much money invested in the internet in the Valley also guarantee that we will mostly bump into US-made websites. And even worthy products originating in other countries are mostly taken to the US once they get funding – that’s just the way internet business operates, in my opinion.

While I do agree with the statement that country-specific domains does not a global Internet make, I don’t think the Net is so US-centric anymore.

People want information in their own language, and are most likely to respond if the perspective is relevant to their culture. Most people begin with the search engines, which try hard to make sure you only find information in your language.

Bloggers usually blog in only one language, and so will tend to link out to sites in that language because they want their readers to find the links useful.

As a blogger in English using Google.com, most results will come up from US-based sites – Google.ca and Google.co.uk will not have the same results – but there will be results from those other English-speaking countries.

So just like in the real world, its the language and culture that keep us from a true global village, but at least online we don’t have to worry as much about physical obstacles.

Hey Isabella,

Thank’s for the note and apologies for taking so long to reply …

Yes, apart from government censorship restrictions in different countries, affordability and educational sophistication, I think that in the physical sense, (perhaps ‘ethereal’ would be more accurate?), the internet IS global, … it’s everywhere, like the air we breath. (Interesting side questions would be: What chaos would ensue if the internet suddenly crashed, how many lives would be severely disrupted or even destroyed? What psychological distress would people suffer if they were deprived of the internet, can we distinguish between the reality of physical and cyber existence?)

I guess that “global” means different things to individuals, just before I received your note I’d read a BBC article in which some internet guru said that people are becoming more “selfish” in their surfing habits, meaning that they have a specific objective in mind when accessing a website and tend not to be distracted by other links on the page like ads.

To me, “global” means access to information and communication. I have never traveled anywhere out of southern Africa and besides my immediate family and a few friends, I’m a pretty solitary individual. Global to me means being able to communicate, through programs such as Stumble Upon and chatrooms, with my peers who, though we were separated by space and primitive technology, shared a collective experience in time. Having grown-up in apartheid South Africa, which had some of the most severe censorship laws in the world, I appreciate and am grateful for unrestricted access to information.

regards

graham

I totally agree with you Isabella. I’ve been blogging since 2005 and haven’t landed on many non U.S blogs – despite the fact that I myself am Swedish.

I do feel that US is dominating the blogosphere, without doubt and that there also are special groupings too. Maybe I feel that even stronger since I come from a smaller country like Sweden.

Since I’m a passionate traveler myself and love to visit other countries and experience the difference, I do wish that it was easier in the blogosphere to do just the same thing. It’s a bit more difficult since many of us not originating from the US are writing in English which is not our first language, so we loose some of our “reach-out-ability” I think.

The translator tools just don’t live up to it. Yet. I hope it improves.

Sometimes I also feel like many from the US not are interested in the rest of the world. I might be wrong, but that’s how it feels

again, thanks for all the comments. one thing i have learned from this: the term “global” means different things to different people!