It’s about time to ditch the WWW from web addresses. There is no technical reason to have them there. You want a secret? There never has been a (required) reason* to have them. Since the dark ages of the Internet people have typed that 4 extra characters every time they want a page while most web pages do not require it. It’s actually the http:// that tells the computer it’s a web page (not the WWW) and most web browsers do not require the http:// part either (and haven’t for a long time) since it’s a web browser it’s first assumption is that it is a web page so it views it correctly (most e-mail browsers and word processors like it so they know for sure where to send you).
Why am I babbling about this today of all days? 1) it’s a pet peeve. 2) I just heard them talking about it on a radio show (which is coincidentally a podcast). 3) I want to expose you all to more podcasts whenever I can so I can get you hooked. Over at Future Tense they discuss it. You could go there and read it or you could just listen to the MP3 file (or the Real Audio file). I don’t know how long they keep the audio files up so listen while you can, it’s under four minutes long. (SORRY, AUDIO DOESN”T WORK ANYMORE.)
* You’d want it if you wanted it to be on a different computer than other services, but what service could you offer that you’d want to have a shorter name than you main information server? Yes, e-mail is the obvious answer, but e-mail has always (at least as long as I remember) had an option to run on a different computer. For more info see http://no-www.org/ and scroll down to Aug. 14, 2003.
It is an anachronism, but you’d be surprised at how many sites won’t access without that “www.”, including lots of schools and government sites.
On the other hand, the move to design URLs that won’t access if you do tack on a “www.” seems silly to me. Sure, it impresses your uber-geek friends, but it needlessly confuses a potential mass audience (which is why major sites like Amazon and Yahoo will never implement it).
I’d NEVER have the WWW fail if someone used it. At work they get a message that states that the shorter address is correct (we do it as an image to avoid getting put in search engines) and if they don’t click it redirects them in ten seconds. My personal site automatically redirects you so you don’t get a chance to bookmark it wrong (although some people still get it wrong).
I am tempted to put advertising there, legitimately they couldn’t complain, it’s not our address. We’re a school and they few people that I can’t get to “fix” their addresses are realtors, I should sell ads to their competition. :)
I agree – I hate the WWW. It does baffle me how many sites do still require it though. It’s annoying as hell!!