Death to http://

Recently Jeremy Visser blogged about his frustrations that the http:// URI being dropped off addresses.

To be honest, I don't see it as a big problem.

Like it or not the Joe Six-Pack uses the following apps in this order:

1. Web Browser
2. Email Client
3. IM Client

Other items like an IRC client, FTP client or even Gopher or SSH Client are few and far between (Joe Six-Pack that is)

It's not merely web site addresses that have suffered that fate. Take a look at this random string:

user1@host1.com

Is that an SMTP address or the credentials to an SSH server? Could it even be an IM user?
Most people would read it as an Email address.... and most would probably be right.

Context has much to do with addressing.. .we all don't run around writing out mailto:user@host1.com everytime we wish to write down an email address.

Whilst it's fine for completeness, it's unnecessary.

I also note that many sites advertise as www.myhost.com. Notice the www aspect? That's an indication that it's a website address. Much like ftp.somesite.com indicates an FTP site, and mail.host.com or smtp.host.com indicates SMTP.

It is becoming popular to drop the www hostname aspect and just refer to a website via it's domain name (ie: host.com).

This also works and seems to be a defacto now instead of www. (Hey it's 4 less chars to type!).
I find if you give the average person any random Internet string.. it's normally typed into a browser first these days. So dropping the http:// makes sense. (particularly from a marketing/advertising viewpoint -- you can have a larger font for your actual address not the protocol!).