There's an interesting read from NRIC about this problem: "Signposts on the information superhighway" I think it's called. Essentially no one aside from propeller-head folks understand that there is something aside from 'com'
Seems to me they are missing something here. Essentially no-on except from propeller-head folks uses the DNS for anything at all. Websites come from Google or bookmarks. Email addresses come from a directory or an incoming email or a business card. As for .xx domains, there is enough marketing material in each country so that people tend to know their country's two-letter prefix is .de or .ru or .fr. The special case is .uk because we share the same language as the USA, and here people tend to see a .com domain like an international trademark or some kind of terrirtorial marking. Nevertheless, I think that the vast majority of people who actually type in a domain into the location field are copying it from some marketing material, like a business card. P.S., the .xx domains make the world look like a collection of countries all connected to the same Internet. But the reality is that the world is divided into a bunch of language zones, most of which cross several borders, and which don't tend to communicate much with the Internet that Americans see. For instance, what use does a Hungarian speaking native of Ukraine have for cnn.com? Or a SerboCroatian speaking native of Hungary? --Michael Dillon