KEY POINTS:
By now we're all well aware of the impacts of globalisation - help-desk calls are answered in Mumbai, products are freighted directly to us from wherever it was cheap to make them, foreign brands we've never had before fill the stores.
The internet's twist on the trend is
called localisation and ironically, it works in the opposite direction. In the real world, things have generally started small and gone global.
On the web things start global then go local.
There's been plenty of evidence of that as the most popular dotcoms create local versions of their websites for each country. And they're touching down in New Zealand with growing frequency, if not raging success.
Just this week, Microsoft launched its revamped MSN New Zealand portal, striking content deals with, among others, APN News & Media, publisher of the Herald. Despite that, there's very little of interest to see.
August's launch of the YahooXtra portal saw Telecom team up with the internet giant but infuriate Xtra subscribers when a botched technology migration left them without access to email.
It's one of the bigger examples of a website going local this year, but YahooXtra is devoid of anything interesting. I rarely visit it.
We've also seen photo-sharing website Flickr in a local tie-up with YahooXtra though I'd quite frankly rather go directly to the Flickr.com website to log in to my online album.
The two best-known US travel websites, Travelocity and Expedia, have arrived with deals aimed at Kiwis and priced in New Zealand dollars.
I haven't used either yet, though I did use Travelocity's predecessor, Zuji.co.nz, to book a flight to Europe and found it fairly painless.
Add to the list Apple's iTunes store, which took an age to get here. By the time it did, everyone had learned to use Bittorrent to download music for free. Last month the popular video sharing website YouTube launched with surprisingly little in the way of New Zealand content.
The entertainment value has increased only marginally since then - Jono's Quest for YouTube Fame is a suitably bizarre showcase of local talent, but has only racked up 860 views in the last two weeks.
Kiwis are big viewers of YouTube - the country's internet providers are constantly telling me this. But the local version of YouTube seems to have been a fizzer so far. People are still flocking to the main website.
Maybe it's because the genius of YouTube is that it elevates the best videos to the top of the pile, regardless of where they're from. If you're a Timaru high school kid with a camcorder and a clever trick, you're as likely to end up with a million views on YouTube as anyone else in the world.
Lonelygirl15 (Kiwi actor Jessica Lee Rose) managed to pull it off, albeit with the help of some screenwriters and an acquired American accent.
Maybe we don't want to be restricted to the creme of the local crop or maybe it is easier to find the best of YouTube on the main website than its Kiwi offshoot.
Either way, while a localised version of YouTube may help it when it comes to sealing media tie-ups with local broadcasters, it's still far from clear whether the whole exercise of tailoring the site to the tastes of Kiwis will be successful.
The same goes for the other international dotcom arrivals. Myspace New Zealand certainly seems to have a lot of local advertising - if that's a sign of successful localisation.
Then there's the king of them all - Google, which automatically routes you to the New Zealand version of its website based on your IP address when you log on from within the country.
I do New Zealand-only web searches all the time - it's a single great example of localisation working for web users. While few localised websites have lit my fire yet, there's one international dotcom I'd like to see arrive - Amazon.com.
As much as I like music seller Realgroovy.co.nz, which ships CDs nationally for free, and Fishpond.co.nz, our biggest online bookseller, the Amazon system of offering up entertainment based on what you've been searching for is still unbeaten.
I spend hours on the website, but make few purchases - the long shipping times put me off, though the favourable exchange rate makes Amazon purchases quite attractive.
I suspect I'm dreaming if I think a local version of Amazon will touch down.
At best we might be tacked onto a future version of an Australian operation, if it ever eventuated.
Amazon has a supply chain and warehouses where its books are packaged and sent by courier all over the world - it's a prime example of globalisation, if not, sadly, the localisation that's been forced on us this year.
