"Recent history and the Internet have opened up some unprecedented global marketing possibilities. The ability to reach a global market on the Web has highlighted some interesting challenges for user-centered design as well. One largely anticipated outcome of globalization was convergence. Levitt (1983) predicted that shared experience arising from new technology would overshadow local values and lead consumers around the globe to desire similar standardized, high-quality, low-cost products. By extension, he suggested that the global community would converge on a shared taste and lifestyle. Today, marketing behavior analysis indicates that the expectation of homogenization is misguided. Instead, it appears that McLuhan (1964) was right: technological innovations are merely the extension of the self. They allow us to do more of what we already do (and like to do) more efficiently. But their existence does not remold our outlook or values. The influence of local culture will not simply disappear with the adoption of the Internet."