Why is the Web still so U.S.-centric?

http://www.thestandard.com/news/2008/09/11/over-decade-later-why-web-still-so-u-s-centric

by ilamont • 18 years ago

7 9 18 years ago

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.

mechanical_fish• 18 years ago

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.)

fourlittlebees2• 18 years ago

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).

erickhill• 18 years ago

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.

josefresco• 18 years ago

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)

timae• 18 years ago

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

pavelludiq• 18 years ago

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?

sd• 18 years ago

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.

Why is the Web still so U.S.-centric?

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