The Liberalisation of the Internet
A new report called ‘The Liberalisation of the Internet’ explores how the Internet will change as a result of it being liberalised and the effect this will have on businesses and consumers.
Next year in 2010, the geography of the Internet is set to expand significantly, as the body that oversees the structure of the Internet: Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), will liberalise the market for domain name extensions (e.g. the .com or .co.uk part of a web address), so that anyone can apply to operate an extension (e.g. .hotel or .london etc)
The thinking behind this move is to increase choice (for consumers and businesses), promote some innovation and spur on competition.
The report was carried out by The Future Laboratory on behalf of domain name registrar Gandi.net.
Our Survey Said…
The research included a quantitative survey of 1,000 average Britons and a quantitative survey of 50 e-commerce managers from large high street businesses and 50 e-commerce managers from SMEs online.
Key Findings (Business)
Businesses use their websites to sell products and services (70%), to show their products and services (53%), to describe the company (44%) and manage their brand and identity (36%).
Key Findings (Consumer)
People use the internet for communication (92%), finding out about things (77%), shopping (75%), banking (67%), and social networking (46%). 10% of people self-publish their own content on the internet.
Download the Report
This report makes interesting reading for anyone who uses the web for business or is involved in marketing of any description so it’s worth the read.
You can download a short summary of the report from the Gandi.net website here (opens in a new window as a PDF document)
The full report may downloaded from here (again, opens in a new window as a PDF document).
NB: Text within this blog post has been reproduced from the Gandi.net summary report which is available from their blog.
