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If you have a spare US$50-100,000 you may be able to buy your own top-level internet domain from ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers).
ICANN moderates top level domains around the world. These domains, such as .com, .net, .com.au and .gov.au, are the basic naming structure of the internet and control what organisations and nations can do online.
Previously there were very tight controls over the naming structure and an extensive review process before new top level domains were created - of which very few were.
However the new regulations effectively allow any organisation - private or public - to register top level domains, subject to a much simpler review process and a payment.
I do not expect to see much impact on government in Australia - the .gov.au domain is well established and strongly mandated. However it now becomes much easier for states or councils to consider different naming - such as .nswgovernment or .sutherlandshire
In the private sector it's hard to say - previous releases of top level names have not seen significant attrition from the .com (or .com.au in Australia) names, but the alternatives haven't been that much better.
However with any top level domain name now possible, there is the possibility for greater fragmentation.
Time will tell.
More information on this decision is available at ItNews, ICANN proposes greater top-level domain name flexibility.
There's also a good opinion piece over at VentureBeat, ICANN threatens to change the rules of the domain name game
Friday, June 27, 2008
Top level internet domains for dollars | Tweet |
Slides from Web Directions Government now available online | Tweet |
I heard some good reports from people who attended Web Directions Government back in May.
For those of you, like me, who missed it, Web Directions South has made a number of the presentations and podcasts available online via their blog, Web Directions Government resources now online.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Participate in the Global Intranet Survey | Tweet |
Last year my agency participated in the Global Intranet Survey for the first time.
The report from the survey has proven very useful in our intranet planning and given me a number of ideas that we've been able to apply in the ongoing management of our intranet.
The survey is on again this year, we're participating again and I'd recommend the same to other intranet managers.
Sign up for the Global Intranet Survey 2008
International view: government mostly failing online | Tweet |
Earlier this year The Economist released a special report on egovernment, entitled The Electronic Bureaucrat.
The report's conclusion was that whilst there were a few good examples of egovernment initiatives, most could not be considered successful.
It's a fascinating read regarding international views and experiences in the area and flags changes that government needs to make to be effective online, including;
- personalising services for citizens, storing preferences to make returning easier,
- delivering 24/7 availability,
- making online services at least as easy to use as the equivalent offline processes,
- being as well designed and easy to use as online services provided by the private sector - as this is what customers expect, and
- engaging with other online services - making content findable in search engines and cross-publishing with online news and social media tools to leverage reach.
Key points in the report include that technology is only half, or less, of the picture. As much time is required to review and redevelop government strategy, structures and processes as to put in place enabling systems.
One big lesson is that e-government is not just about computers; it involves redesigning the way government works.The report also suggests that competition is important, and huge scale centralised projects are much less successfully than smaller ones.
Still, the experience of the past ten years suggests a common pattern of which all countries, rich and poor alike, should take note. Centralised schemes tend to work much less well than decentralised ones, and competition is vital.My key takeaway from the report was that while government around the world sees the importance and value in moving service delivery and citizen interactions online, few have made the structural, cultural and process changes required to fully embrace the channel.
This reflects my own experiences as to why government is slow at embracing social media.
What's your takeaway?
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Do you practice what you preach? Personal use of online services | Tweet |
As the business manager of my agency's website and intranet I see it as part of my responsibility to understand what is happening in the medium and use the same tools being used by our website audience.
It's similar to the concept of walking 1,000 miles in another person's shoes.
For instance, this blog. One of my goals in writing it is to better understand bloggers - their motivations and
I'm also an avid user of LinkedIn (for professional networking) and Facebook (for social networking), not to mention Del.icio.us (collaborative bookmarking), Twitter (micro-blogging), Gmail and Hotmail (web-based mail), Google Apps (collaborative documents), Friendfeed (social streaming), Flickr and Photobucket (online photo storage), Slideshare (online presentation storage), Basecamp (project management), Digg (user-rated news) and a number of other services.
These systems are generally complimentary and often work together extremely well.
In fact on any given day I'd probably interact with roughly half of these services.
Each week I look at a new tool - such as The Awesome Highlighter or Timetoast - to help keep me current with what is possible in the online space - some of it is mindblowing.
How about you?
