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It is a popular belief that thanks to the Internet, the world is getting smaller and smaller. But is it really? Even though the web is world wide, language and cultural borders still matter a lot. A good example is the usage of social networking sites that varies greatly from region to region, as is shown in this map (from the French newspaper Le Monde):

Especially in China, a lot of Western Tech companies have tried to establish themselves - and have failed miserably. The main reason for this, says Jonathan Haagen from the Economist Intelligence Unit in a presentation (found at Read/WriteWeb), is failure to adapt the services to local needs. It isn’t so much the huge cultural divide, but rather small details that make difference (for example, Chinese people have difficulties spelling “Google” and thus switch to a search engine whose name is easier to type for them). Moreover, says Haagen, China is still a developing country, but Western tech companies often fail to connect to the vast majority of Internet users who are not white collars living in Shanghai or Beijing. The most important key to success, says Haagen, is therefore to “give ground operations the freedom to react in a timely manner, and respond to the needs of a specific market”. In other words: The only way for a tech business to eliminate the borders is to be very aware of them.