As usual .. People take anything said in here by a Non-IDN'er the wrong way.
Here's what I'm saying ...
There are over 5,000+ Languages easily in the World. Out of all of those languages somewhere between 20 and 25% of the World know some version of English.
Diplomats use English and so do MANY MANY Large International Companies and Corporations when doing global Business. There are more International students being taught English than any other language (where it isn't their native language).
It's nothing against IDN's ... But I just don't see them as being "The Future" of all domains. Obviously for anyone who is directing Sites and Products toward Asia and other areas ... They make perfect sense. Personally - I have enough problems with my own language So It's not for me.
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This is exactly how I feel on the subject... I remember reading a big article in Time a few years ago about how rapidly many languages were vanishing from our world. In fact, India is now the largest English speaking country in the world, with more English speakers than the USA. Why? Well, because their economy is so dependent on the United States, they simply adapted to their situation.
From an article in the NY Times of Sept. 2007, "Of the estimated 7,000 languages spoken in the world today, linguists say, more than half are in danger of extinction and are likely to disappear within this century. In fact, they are now falling out of use at a rate of about one every two weeks."
I assume one day, as Globalization becomes more prominent, and it is simply more efficient to speak the language "everyone else is", that we will eventually all end up speaking whatever language remains most dominant. Sure, this probably wont happen until many centuries from now, but I feel it WILL happen. The main problem I see with IDN's now though, is how the hell am I supposed to negotiate a sale with someone when I can't understand what they are saying!
Go to this link, it gives stats on languages and their internet usage.
Chinese is number 2, however the significance is that Mandarin is the major language in only 5 countries. English is the major language in over 130. So, their is vastly more international communication done in English, and from a business standpoint, this is what is most important.
In the spirit of "piling on", I think it is also worth noting that almost all international scientific conferences are in English... regardless of which country is hosting the conference. I have to admit it is a bit humbling when the best I can do when giving a talk outside the US is to say a few token phrases like "good morning", and "where is the bathroom" in the host country language, compared to those from all over the earth at the same conference that can speak English - fluently.
I am a big IDN fan and think that there is real potential in that market, but it is important to keep things in perspective.
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(Just another mathematician obsessed with proving P != NP -- that is a math joke for job security)
Smile! In a few short years you will realize that these are the good old days!
Im From india and i feel.. here in india.. Idns would take over..
There are few reasons which i feel people havent talked about..
One important thing is Search Engines.. Whenever we type google.com or yahoo.com ... We are redirected to google.co.in and yahoo.co.in
And if anyone searches .. We get more indian related sites.. and more .in and co.in sites comming up..
And 2ndly.. hardly any .com's are available.. Now people are just buying here .in and .co.in for there companies, firms..
I feel in 3 to 5 years.. Here We will have more demand of .in and .co.in ( .in prefered )
Here in india.. people who dont have knowledge about internet or just 1 to 2% about internet.. They just know 3 words.. Google, Yahoo, and .com ;-)
But as daily all sites are getting Transformed to .in and .co.in And daily we are seeing good sites comming up.. I feel in future.. here .in and .co.in will rule.. And not to add.. Search engine getting localised....
This are my Views for indian market... And i feel it depends on country to country...
Everyone is talking about how "English is the language of business"... I do agree that English is the most commonly used language when it comes to situations like business and what not... but c'mon... how many teenagers do you see online that can't speak English fall into this category? The whole point of IDNs, IMO, is to target those that CANNOT speak English. This enables them to finally type in domains that they wouldn't know how to spell in English (ASCIIs) and forward them to content that they will actually understand. I agree with a lot of the negative and positive points here, but looking at the big picture... IDNs will probably have a piece of the pie in the future targeting those that cannot really speak English and want to get to domains they can actually remember (when there's a lot of content out there, it's harder for people to remember all the words in English if they can't speak the language).
I just finished writing an article on my blog about this... but not sure when I'm going to post it up.
I have the ascii AND idn equivalents of a few Chinese names,in one particular instance the traffic to the Chinese idn.com is 25 times greater than that of the exact english translation in all instances the idn.com receives higher traffic.
Make of that what you will.
And as for what languages individuals prefer - their own of course- it's only very recently that people have had the option to choose.
__________________ "Let China sleep for when she awakes, she will shake the world" NB - Too late!
Keep in mind that this is less important for online (tangible) product sales, online banking activity, loans, mortgages etc. etc. etc.. People will choose local products, local brands most of the time for the more important (and/or more expensive) activity and imo for most product sales of significant size (think shipping cost..).
Being able to communicate moderately in English doesn't mean you are comfortable with actually purchasing from an english site and/or that it's practical to do so.
There are exceptions that confirm the rule, sites like paypal, ebay, etc. but remember these sites have LOCALIZED versions, with a domain in different extensions and for the future perhaps in different languages.
If anyone here thinks someone from Germany will (normally) go to www.homeloans.com for a mortgage then that person should get a realitycheck by visiting a German forum on the subject, on any other forum on any other (relevant) subject.
Wow. A whole lot of misinformation being tossed about here. And, worse, it's almost all completely beside the point.
You can argue all night about how much traffic IDNs will take from English domains (and it will be significant, since the vast majority of people in the world who are not scientists and international businessmen don't speak English to any significant degree.)
The real issue is: Either way, what are you going to do about it?
I speak Japanese fairly well, but I completely avoid Japanese TLDs. Why? )(Besides the fact that a domain resellers market in Japan doesn't exist.) Because, unless you are intimately familiar with the language, you are likely to make huge mistakes, like using similar but wrong characters, uncommon usages, etc. It's not worth it. Leave it to the native speakers.
Similarly, China is huge, and almost nobody speaks English, and they are not going to any time soon. Take away the few who do, who are the people foreigners have the most contact with. If you want to reach the masses in China, you have to speak Chinese. If you don't, then partner with a Chinese person. I see people hanging onto domains like mortgage.cn as though they are gold. Apologies if that name belongs to anyone here, but that will never have all that much value. It's the wrong language.
So, whatever the outcome, stick to what you know and to languages you know. If you want to market overseas, get a native to help you. And don't even think about machine translation!
I'll stick to English myself. Plenty of opportunity there.
What disinformation and what is beside the point in particular needs to be addressed
I think you will find a lot of people here already have done quite a lot about it although this is not the place that those who know what they are doing tend to hang out in- and yes idn.cn/.com are already seeing quite a few significant sales and ability to go to sites via ones own language is only in it's infancy.
I also have a significant english based portfolio but do not find it difficult to see the huge potential of idns- I just continue to be amazed at those that don't. IM-HO.com
Stick to what you know or learn something new, I think that is how progress is made. -hmm
__________________ "Let China sleep for when she awakes, she will shake the world" NB - Too late!
I have no need to sell you on IDNs. One invests as one believes, its fine. I don't think I took your comment in a hostile manner. Quite the opposite in fact. As someone who works in a large international conglomerate and deals with people in dozens of countries around the world in English and occasionally other languages every week, I'm just saying that the phrase you use "know some version of English" is misleading. The vast majority of those people who "know" english do not want to function in English unless they have to, don't like to search for information using it, don't like to receive their primary information using it. If capitalism has taught us anything it is that when someone figures out how to deliver to people the things they want in THE WAY THEY WANT IT, they make out very well. IDNs are a solution for people held hostage by the tyranny of ASCII only domains. English domains are great for english speakers and that's about it. But English is just not the primary language of most people in the world. It's indisputable.
As for you Domainace, if your Japanese is that good, I would encourage you to try your hand in Japanese domain names. It isn't really that hard for anyone who speaks and reads Japanese. No risk no reward. It's much easier than you might think.
BTW, you can get Japanese IDN in .com and .net if you'd rather speculate on .jp.
Held Hostage by the Tyranny of ASCII only domains?
Lol. Quote of the week. Who exactly enforced this tyranny upon the rest of the world? I'm pretty sure ASCII means American Standard Code for Information Interchange. Meaning it was developed by AMERICANS, for AMERICANS. We never forced anyone else to have to use it....... or is it Tim Berners-Lee's fault that he spoke English when he began developing Hypertext Transfer Protocol? Who exactly is responsible for this "Tyranny"?
I'm not immune to the lure. I'll sitting on nhkbs.com for who knows how long. The thing is, there will be a long wait. With the renewal fees for .jp, which I think will become the preferred domain, you are talking a lot of money that could be put to work faster elsewhere. I don't see Japanese IDNs paired with .com taking off - too contradictory. So, the gamble is to invest not a small sum in IDN.jp, and wait. Wait for Japanese IDNs to become popular. And wait for Japanese to even become aware of domain investments as a concept.
Go to Yahoo auctions, and scan the domain listings. Notice the complete lack of bidders. Not one in all the auctions.
On the positive side, when these things do catch on in Japan, they tend to go ballistic. Look at housewives trading Forex.
I may take a stab at one or two, but I prefer to go after things I can trade in the near future, unless they are cheap, like .coms. And like I said, Japanese IDNs.coms just look weird to me, so that's out.
You may be right, and living in luxury 5 years down the road. I'm just not going to put more money than I can afford to throw away in Japanese IDNs, unless I see something spectacular.
And rhyse, that link in your signature is a nice surprise. See? I'm getting tempted...
Who enforced the tyranny? Why I think they go by the acronym of ICANN - who have been kicked dragging and screaming into opening domains up beyond ASCII. So yes, Americans.
Just wondering why japanese IDN .coms look weird if .jp's don't ?
Well, this is simply my opinion. Japanese script seems very traditional and conservative, while English appears trendier. Likewise, dot.com seems trendier than a familiar dot.jp. Personally, I would more tempted by an IDN.jp than by the other. Dotcom implies foreignness, and is better suited to English, or at least romaji.
Off subject, but .tv seems to have gained some currency here. That might work with either.
Still, since any profits still seem off in the future, all of these perceptions might change in the meantime. And also, I might not know what the heck I'm talking about!
I for one started with no knowledge of Japanese and I would love to make a few more of those 'huge mistakes' I've been making for the past 2.5 or so years .. throwing good money after bad ... Damn, I just renewed hundreds and hundreds of those 'huge mistakes' recently .. for the second time!
If the definition of a 'lot of money' is the same price or less than .com / .net then yes, it is a lot of money. Being able to speak Japanese 'fairly well' I'm surprised you are not aware of this.
Happy to get the prize for "quote of the week". Sparkler!
I know that sounds like hyperbole to some but it literally is tyranny. I would chalk it up to 2 causes. One is ICAAN which has been foot-dragging on IDN legitimization for years until very recently when they were forced to accelerate their pace by Chinese and Arabs looking for an internet that actually made sense to them (who were threatening to divide the internet at the root). One can speculate on why they took so long to move forward formally on IDNs and IDN extensions but basically I would chalk it up to a largely american agenda and needs prioritization. There are lots of well meaning people at ICAAN I am sure, but lets face it, it is hardly even as effective or speedy as a government bureacracy.
The second cause for this "tyranny" is microsoft. They sat back with Internet Explorer for a decade without supporting unicode urls that enable IDN. Why? Well at the time they had more than 95% share globally and didn't feel any need to update their browser. Then Firefox comes out with a spiffy set of features including IDN support and steals 10% share. Now MS is finally concerned and last year launched IE7 their first browser supporting IDN. Penetration is starting to increase for IE7 and we are finally about to get there - but it has been a long road.
So tyranny by whom? By a non-governmental bureacracy and an internet monopolist - neither of them malicious at all, just unmotivated. Hope that helps explain.
Both. They are not mutually exclusive. I speak English even better than "fairly well."
If you are making money on your domains, then please say so. I am sure everybody is interested. Odd that you would sound offended that my opinion, and that's all it is, contradicts your positive experiences.
And finally, no speaking Japanese does not automatically confer knowledge about domaining and domain fees, oddly enough. Unless your real point in joining the two was to call me a liar.
In fact, as far as I know, jp renewals still cost several times that of .coms.
Why the pissing match and this childish scare-quotes? If you want to say you are right and I am wrong, say so, and say why - and lay off the unwarranted personal attacks.
Personal attacks? Hmm .. where would that be then?
Wrong. Like I said, I'm surprised you are not aware of this if you are so familiar with Japanese.
The trouble with forum posts is that you can't gauge the tone of a post and so you mistakenly jumped to the wrong conclusion that I am offended by your posts or your opinion.
Scare quotes are quotes put around a word to suggest that the writer doubts the word's veracity. Yes, quotes have other uses, such as quoting, but the way they are used determines their implications.
As far as IDN.jp domains, your post caused me to look and find a registrar that is offering a special on those at about the same as .coms, with restrictions (new customer for one.) Nothing about the renewal though. If you know of a cheaper place, just name it.
If they are cheap enough, I may even take a gamble or two.
The thing is, when I type in a Japanese word on yahoo.co。jp, the preferred search engine, using hiragana, katakana or kanji, whichever is most common, I never see an IDN domain on the first page of results. They are all romaji ASCII domains - even though I typed in Japanese script. What's your opinion on why that is?
my opinion on that, sorry to jump in is Browser support
why change from your existing ascii domain with most likely years of seo work to something that right now has limited browser support. Once the browser support is there IMO you will see nothing but Japanese idn.jp/.com on the first page.
also the 2 guys above have VERY good Japanese idn portfolios(very large ones at that), you don't see them trying to sell alot of names do you, maybe they know something.
So It's not for me.
I just do it for the money
