"We are a thousand individuals from all over the world convening in Cartagena to adopt fundamental decisions on the biggest issues facing the Internet industry on a global scale," said ICAAN chairman Peter Thrush.

A California-based non-profit corporation, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers manages the Domain Name System and Internet Protocol addresses that form the technical backbone of the Web.

Every device connecting to the Internet needs an IP address and Thrush said ICANN's board meeting was to help prepare the transition from IPv4 (Internet Protocol version 4) to IPv6, which already exists but is rarely used.

Less than 150 million IPv4 addresses are still available, and "will come to an end by mid-2011, which necessitates an urgent adoption of a new generation of the respective protocols," he said.

During its meeting here, ICANN is also expected to discuss expanding the list of what are known as generic top level domains such as .com, .net and .org.

Thrush said an expansion of domain names would herald "the beginning of a new era of change for completion of the map of the Internet."

earlier related report
Washington Post watching online pay experiments
New York (AFP) Dec 6, 2010 - The Washington Post is monitoring efforts by The New York Times and other newspapers to charge readers online but has no plans to do the same for now, the Post Co. chairman said Monday.

"On pay models, obviously what The New York Times is doing is of interest to us," Donald Graham told financial analysts at the UBS 38th Annual Global Media and Communications Conference here.

"We'll be watching it and we wish them well," Graham said, adding that his newspaper was also monitoring pay wall efforts by Rupert Murdoch's The Times.

Acknowledging that the Post would not be a pioneer in fee-based services, Graham said the company would be watching how others implement those approaches.

"There are experiments galore going on in pay models at newspapers all around the country," he added.

"We're quite willing to be followers on this front."

News Corp.'s The Times and The Sunday Times recently began charging readers for full access to their websites and The New York Times has announced plans to begin charging next year for full online access to NYTimes.com.

Graham also said the Post Co. is "investing a little bit in technologies for news delivery generally and we may have something new and interesting to announce before too many months go by."

Like other US newspapers, the Post has been grappling with declining print advertising revenue, eroding circulation and the migration of readers to free news on the Web.

earlier related report
Facebook rolling out changes to profile pages
Washington (AFP) Dec 5, 2010 - Facebook began rolling out changes to member profiles on Sunday adding a new snapshot of biographical information at the top of the page and a bar of photos in which a user has been "tagged."

The new profile pages should be available to all of Facebook's more than 500 million users by early next year, Josh Wiseman, a Facebook engineer, said in a post on the Facebook blog.

Wiseman said the changes are designed to make it easier for a user to "tell your story and learn about your friends."

At the top of the new profile is a bio section highlighting where a member is from, where they went to school, their relationship status, where they work and other personal information.

Directly underneath is a bar of pictures in which a member has been recently "tagged" by their Facebook friends.

Facebook members can also highlight their most important friends on the page, create new groups of friends or share activities and interests such as favorite musicians and sports teams.

"All your interests and experiences are now represented with images, making your entire profile a more compelling visual experience," Wiseman said.

Facebook unveiled the new profile pages ahead of an interview with founder Mark Zuckerberg on the CBS show "60 Minutes" airing later Sunday.

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