[UA-discuss] Maybe email addresses and URLs might not matter anymore?

[Jim DeLaHunt]

UA Colleagues:

We spend a lot of time thinking about universal acceptance of email 
addresses and URLs. We tend to assume that email addresses and URLs are 
important. But for a lot of information technology users, they aren't. 
Those users learned to use IT via mobile, rather than via desktop 
computers. They use all-embracing messaging apps like WeChat, or walled 
garden social media sites where you find what you want by search. In 
these environments, email addresses and URLs just don't matter as much 
as they do in longer-established, and Anglo-centric, IT cultures.

Here are an interesting blog post and an interesting news article on the 
topic:

/In China, email addresses are irrelevant/ • July 28, 2020 by John 
Yunker, blog post
<https://globalbydesign.com/2020/07/28/in-china-email-addresses-are-irrelevant/>

/Why email loses out to popular apps in Chin//a/ • 9th July 2020 by 
Lu-Hai Liang, BBC
<https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200707-why-email-loses-out-to-popular-apps-in-china> 


I think a useful response to this might be to keep asking ourselves, how 
do people communicate in preference to emails? How do people find things 
in preference to typing in URLs?  Then investigating those methods for 
Universal Acceptance as well.

'In Anglo-centric countries such as the UK, US, Canada, Australia and 
New Zealand, email retains the etiquette of an analogue age. The “Dear 
X” greetings and formal sign-offs – “Best regards” – and so on, reveal 
vestigial ties to letter writing.'

As I do in this email message. Best regards,
      —Jim DeLaHunt, software engineer, Vancouver, Canada

-- 
.   --Jim DeLaHunt, jdlh at jdlh.com     http://blog.jdlh.com/ (http://jdlh.com/)
       multilingual websites consultant

       355-1027 Davie St, Vancouver BC V6E 4L2, Canada
          Canada mobile +1-604-376-8953

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/ua-discuss/attachments/20200728/aa120849/attachment.html>