Rubber Duck

http://www.xn--c1ajbwt.su

http://translate.google.co.uk/transl...hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Results of domain auctions in the zone. SU
According to the results of closed bidding, Tourism, Job, Gifts, Auto & Leisure were among the most expensive domain names in the zone.

туризм.su 50.000$

работа.su 42.999$

подарки.su 30.015$

авто.su 30.005$

отдых.su 22.290$

знакомства.su 20.000$

секс.su 15.575$

квартиры.su 15.010$
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/domain-name-discussion/471263-results-of-dot-su-auction.html

такси.su 10.010$

домены.su 10.000$

тур.su 9.999$

хостинг.su 7.999$

перевозки.su 7.005$

ремонт.su 5.551$

ипотека.su 5.200$

фото.su 5.105$

я.su 5.098$

пиво.su 5.009$

аренда.su 5.005$

стройка.su 5.000$

sdsinc

Where did it take place ?

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Rubber Duck

Moscow?
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=471263

News seems fairly well syndicated.

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22%D...C&start=0&sa=N

michaeldotcom

According to the whois, the domain used for this webpage is actually owned by someone using a gmail address.

I've personally never heard of any serious auction house using a free gmail address as contact.

By the way, no postal address was mentioned anywhere.

Sorry, RubberDuck, but if you want us to believe that, you'll have to bring us some serious proof that these sales are genuine.

I can see that you're trying to create a hype and that you want people to get interested in those IDNs you've invested so heavily in, but you'll have to do better than providing us with a shady Russian webpage.

Rob J

is .su idn only or something? wikipedia doesn't say much about it... you'd think there'd be some english words in there.

michaeldotcom

Well, I can see mostly forum posts, blogs and free ISP webpages... Not good enough... Anybody can say whatever they want on the Internet...

Rubber Duck

Well maybe, but if you are suggesting they are mine you are mistaken. I have to use an autotranslator to figure out what is going on myself.

It is the old Soviet Union extension which has just gone IDN, much to ICANN's annoyance.

Well notification of the Auction was posted at the RU-Center.

http://translate.google.co.uk/transl...hl=en&ie=UTF-8

michaeldotcom

I never meant that those pages are yours. I know that you're not the only domainer in the world who's into the IDN niche.

But the fact is that I can't be sure that these sales are genuine if they can't be verified. I mean those were only mentioned on a few forum posts, a few blogs and one webpage whose contact address is a free gmail.
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=471263

That's just not enough to prove they're genuine.

Rob J

Maybe i'm missing something, but why would someone just make this up? They seem genuine to me because I can't think of any reason why they wouldn't be, and even if they were fake for some reason I really don't care, just browsing the forums i'm not interested in dumping a fortune into russian idn names...

Rubber Duck

I'll come back to this when I can get more connectivity here.

At the moment Namepros is performing like it being run off an old mobile phone in the Car Park.

Notification of the Auction is here:

http://nic.ru/news/2008/idn-su-open.html

So we can be fairly certain it took place. All we need now is some official confirmation of the results.

michaeldotcom

Well it's obvious that some people might want to create a hype around an extension or a particular niche by publishing fake sales.
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=471263

I'm not saying that these are fake, there just isn't any proof that they are genuine.

I know that some people on NP were dubious when seeing some very high .mobi bids on Sedo and thought that they might just be fake bids by .mobi domainers who wanted to create some hype around their extension.

I just find it hard to believe personally that some people would invest so much money in some Soviet domains while the USSR disappeared almost 20 years ago.

But well, maybe these sales are genuine and it's just some old members of the Communist Party who got rich during Soviet times and who are nostalgic...

Rubber Duck

Well it ain't me that is for sure. I don't and won't ever have any dot SU.

The hype is mainly about being able to register domains in their own language and script. Is that really such a bizarre concept?

michaeldotcom

I'm personally not sure that these particular domain sales are genuine.
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=471263

However I have nothing against IDNs as a whole.

I've written before that I find IDNs in Latin characters to be very confusing (because they're just too similar to the non-IDN version, which would result in lots of lost traffic).

But IDNs in non-Latin characters (Japanese, Hebrew, Hindi, Russian, etc.) could do well. We'll just have to see how well they do in the future.

Sam

IDN sales in .SU for that much? You couldn't sell any keyword in .su let alone an IDN for that much.

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sdsinc

Not bad for a deprecated TLD.

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wot

It would appear that this is simply hype with fake bids trying to drum up interest in .su prior to launch of .рф

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michaeldotcom

I think you're spot on !

I have nothing against IDNs, I have nothing against people being able to use domains in their languages and their other character sets.

But the problem is that it's not really the case here.

Let me take some examples :

The domain "tourismus.de" is a 100% German domain name that is very relevant to German people. "Tourismus" is the German word for "tourism" and "de" is the extension for "Deutschland" (the German word for Germany). That's fine.

In a similar way, the domain "tourisme.fr" is a 100% French domain name ("Tourisme" is the French word for "tourism", "fr" is the extension for France in French, same word as in English). Fine again.

But the domain "туризм.su" is actually half-Russian and half-English, half Cyrillic alphabet and half Latin alphabet. "туризм" is the Russian word for "tourism", but "su" is in itself an English extension that stands for Soviet Union (not CCCP as it would be in Russian).

So it's really awkward, especially as the Soviet Union disappeared almost 20 years ago.

Come on ! What could be the development potential for туризм.su ? Promoting Soviet tourism ? Visiting old gulags and statues of Stalin ? Humm...
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=471263

Of course, it could be kind of a collector item for fans of awkward half-Russian, half-English names from the Soviet era...

But either it's a fake bid to create a hype and drum up interest in .su prior to launch of .рф, or it's a real bid made by an oligarch who didn't know what to do with all his money.

In any case, it does look highly suspicious and I couldn't ever imagine any serious Russian business using this name.

Rubber Duck

Well, that is clearly logic turned on its head. Cyrillic keywords in a Russian ccTLD will undoubtedly be worth far more than ASCII. It is just a question of long it takes people to recognise that fact.
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=471263

It is quite a presumption to assume that one of the ccTLDs Registries would actually do this. Where is your proof/evidence for what is actually a slanderous remark? Frankly, I would have expected this bidding process to be far more transparent than much of what goes on in the US under certain private entities.

michaeldotcom

I could agree with you on that point, because they could have some development potential for a business targeting Russia's local population (which is quite large). I mean that would obviously make sense.
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=471263

Far more than a keyword in Cyrillic alphabet and a TLD in English and Latin alphabet from a country which doesn't exist anymore. Which means no serious development potential from a business point of view. Which is precisely why I think that these aren't genuine sales.

And if they are genuine, I wouldn't expect those domains to ever be developed into serious online businesses.

Rubber Duck

These numbers are chicken feed. I think you should prepare yourself for much bigger number when .рф is launched. Don't forget it was a Russian enterprise that bough Vodka.com, and I wouldn't be surprised if money wasn't left on the table there.

michaeldotcom

Vodka.com is a much more meaningful domain than туризм.su.

- because .com is THE major international extension, which won't disappear before a very long time, while .su is very much deprecated.
- because "vodka" and ".com" are both in the same character set, which does make sense, while "туризм" and ".su" aren't.

But I would think that туризм.рф would really make sense and would really be very valuable, as it could actually be used properly by a real business.

Rubber Duck

If the Russians are serious about reviving dot SU they will no doubt end up with a cyrillic alias which might be more appropriate to the modern world, which would encompass all those countries with large Russian speaking populations. This could make far more sense than dot Asia.

These bids are not really any less bizarre than $200K for Flowers.mobi.

michaeldotcom

I don't think that either .su (or a Cyrillic alias of .su) or .asia makes any sense at all.

The .su extension is about the Soviet Union (communist era) and NOT about Russian-speaking populations. You won't find many people in ex-Soviet countries which are nostalgic of that Soviet era. Maybe some in Belarus but that's all.

The Soviet times are seen as a nightmare by the huge majority of people in Baltic states or the Ukraine. People in Estonia would much rather see themselves as part of Europe and/or Scandinavia (for example) than the Soviet Union.


How dare you say anything against our "king" ? lol He's "the Net's largest developer". You'll see when flowers.mobi will be developed...

Rubber Duck

I think we are looking a two factors here. One is the Russian Nic using this in negotiations with ICANN. Maybe they want a cyrillic form of CIS, maybe they are worried that they will not get .рф.

The other thing is Yandex. It may be that investors are gambling on getting Yandex ranking with these. If so they could clean up in the period before рф is launched and make an awful lot of money.

It may also be they want to bid seriousl money for рф and want to road test the potential of cyrillic domains.

michaeldotcom

Well, we'll see about this, but it'll surely be interesting to follow.