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 COLUMN
Increasingly global, the Web challenges U.S.-only companies America is accustomed to being at the center of the world's attention, online as well as offline.
Already users at non-U.S. domains account for close to half of all Web traffic, according to data published by WebSideStory, an Internet traffic measurement company. These numbers are derived from traffic measurements at nearly 100,000 Web sites using the WebSideStory's traffic analysis tool. The data show that traffic from "foreign" domains (i.e. non-U.S. users) has been steadily rising since the beginning of the year, from around 36% to approximately 42% at the beginning of July. The top traffic-producing countries after the U.S. are Japan, Germany, and the U.K., according to the reports. (WebSideStory also publishes a wide variety of other useful Internet data, from browser market share to Web site usage patterns. Their Web statistics site, at www.statmarket.com, is well worth a stop.) The globalizing trend is corroborated by Computer Economics (http://www.computereconomics.com/), a computer industry research firm, which predicts that non-English speakers will outnumber English speakers on the Web as early as 2002. Already, 46% of Web users are non-English speakers, according to Computer Economics. As the demographics of the Web shift away from the U.S., so too will Internet commerce. Many Web sites will need to offer versions in multiple languages in order to retain access to a global market. That has implications for the design and information architecture of your Web site -- can you easily create and host foreign-language mirror images of it? This will be easier to manage if your site is built on a dynamic publishing system than if it's a collection of static HTML files. In addition to language translation, you'll also need to devote resources to cultural translations -- making sure that the images, logos, expressions, and metaphors used on your Web site are appropriate to the cultures it's catering to. International Internet commerce sites will need built-in business rules for dealing with foreign taxes, duties, and import/export restrictions. The globalization of e-commerce may also force Web companies to re-examine their encryption infrastructures. Thanks to the U.S. government's restrictive policies on the export of encryption technologies, international transactions using encryption developed in the U.S. are limited -- to 40 bits instead of more secure 128-bit encryption. If international transactions are part of your company's Web future, you may want to think about basing them on encryption technology developed outside the U.S. More fundamentally, the globalization of the Web means that U.S. companies will increasingly be faced with international competition. While foreign competition may not have been a significant factor up to now for many companies, the Web brings overseas competitors much closer -- and may demand a re-thinking of market and IT strategies in a global context. As the Web's center of gravity moves off American soil, it is becoming truly world-wide. But is America ready to deal with an international Internet? Write to me at dylan@infoworld.com. ------- Dylan Tweney is the content development manager for InfoWorld Electric. He has been writing about the Internet since 1993. SPONSORED WHITE PAPERS 
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