

Why is the Web still so U.S.-centric? - ilamont
http://www.thestandard.com/news/2008/09/11/over-decade-later-why-web-still-so-u-s-centric

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mechanical_fish
Well, one obvious reason is sample bias. I've always assumed that the reason
the English-speaking web seems so much larger, to me, than the Chinese or
French or Hungarian web is that _I don't speak Chinese, French, or Hungarian_
so I don't spend much time browsing their websites. If there were 10 times
more Chinese web pages than U.S. ones, I would never even know.

This article doesn't address that, of course. It talks about sites like Hulu
and Pandora, but answers its own question (international law and licensing
make it difficult and expensive to legally deliver media in many different
countries). And the rest of the article is about a single organization -- the
"Online News Association", whatever that is -- and its deplorable tendency to
be US-centric. Whatever. Perhaps the members of the ONA like to _think_ that
it is a vital organ of "the web", but in fact the internal politics of a
handful of organizations doesn't constitute a problem with "the web". (Unless
those organizations are, say, ICANN.)

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fourlittlebees
I was actually discussing Web awards in general, and included two examples:
ONA and the Webbys, but there are certainly a LOT more. There is a great deal
of focus on U.S. audiences; how many sites are there that do what Pandora or
Hulu does for non-North American audiences? How many awards/recognition
programs are there that allegedly cover international audiences and truly do
that? It has nothing to do with me speaking only English (which isn't the
case, at any rate).

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erickhill
The TIS Innovation award has an international _category_. That being said, one
challenge in recognizing international sites is simple user awareness. Our
award is user-driven. 85% of our users are from the U.S. Thus, most of their
submissions reflect that reality.

For other award programs offered by other companies, unless their judges are
incredibly diverse, I imagine that their awards are an obvious reflection of
themselves and their attendees.

In terms of conferences, I have to say I was blown away at this week's DEMO by
the massive international presence there (Taiwan, Israel, France, Italy,
India, etc.). Not sure if that's perceived as a strong suit, or a weakness,
when compared to TC50.

~~~
fourlittlebees
Eric, I'd agree, but at the same time, why is the U.S. so unaware of sites in
other countries? It can't just be a language barrier, since there are tons of
great English-language sites that aren't American. I get the feeling that the
U.S. is so wrapped up in itself that the rest of the world is just passing it
by.

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simianstyle
Because as consumers we have more time/money to spend on the web than the vast
majority of the population of countries like China and India.

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josefresco
Not a very well supported article (Hulu and Pandora that's it), and as the
first commenter wisely points out; there are HUGE non English web networks
that his author is simply not recognizing (probably because she only speaks
English)

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sd
One major problem with this article is that it confounds content-based sites
with the web. Just a quick sampling of Alexa's Top 100 Sites for about 10
random countries indicates that Google, MSN, and Yahoo (or their localized
versions) are frequently among the top ten most visited. So there are in fact
some truly global sites on these here interwebs.

What types of site vary the most between countries? Sites that produce
content, like newspapers, all-in-one portals, and video sites.

Maybe the problem with Hulu and Pandora isn't just their complex licensing
agreements, but also the content that they license. Anyone been to karaoke
bars in Asia that are popular among youth? Guess what? Only about one-tenth to
one-third of the content is in English. Look hard enough, like mechanical_fish
suggests and you'll find plenty of similar sites (some even identical) in
other countries.

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timae
Because the laws and economic polices of the U.S. promote small business and
innovation.

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pavelludiq
Maybe because the US has military bases in half the countries in the world?
They definitely didn't put them there to ensure peace, how about military,
political, economic and cultural dominance?

