Infrastructure shapes what people can do with it. When a rule at the base of a system changes, what is built on top can change too.

A change to the naming rules

Wikipedia's current-events log for June 26, 2008, recorded that the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) relaxes rules on the creation of top-level domain names like .com or .edu.

For builders and product strategists, a change to the top level of the naming system raises new questions. How an organization names itself online is one of them, and the answers will depend on how the new rules are put into practice.

Infrastructure adapts to global users

Icann also approves measures that will allow top-level domain names to be written in scripts such as Arabic or Cyrillic. An ICANN announcement listed the final report of the IDNC Working Group on a fast track process for IDN ccTLDs.

In general terms, letting people use their own scripts at the base of a system may make it easier for more of them to use it. How much difference that makes is a question for later evidence.

A rule change at this level is also slow to show its effects. Names have to be applied for, approved and put into use before anyone can see how they are chosen and whether people use them. Until then, what can be said is what the rules allow, not what people will do with them. For builders, the practical step is to watch how the new options are taken up, and to treat early claims about their impact with care.

One reading is that some technological changes matter less for what they add than for the limits they remove.

Sources