tonecas

Hi everyone,

i'm totally newbie to IDN so forgive me if this as already been asked or is too basic

1) IDN is based on Unicode 3.2. Unicode standard is currently in 5.1. Can new symbols be registered and, most of all, be resolved to a site? And if they can resolve to a site how common is to a domain be blocked after a while by the IDNA managers (i'm not asking for an absolute number of cases but for the experience of who has been in IDN market for some years, if this is something that happens a lot)?

2) When reading Verisign Policy for IDN Code Points i see that it is not supposed that Currency Symbols, Geometric Shapes, and other "strange" stuff to be registered.

However i found out that they are all (or almost) registered. Do they resolve to a site or are simply blocked by the registry? I read in some place that since 2 years ago it is not possible to mix currency symbols with other characters and, worst of all, that they could be renewed but would not be able to resolve to a site. This is disturbing because one thing is to stop letting someone register a kind of domain but keep the existing ones working and other is simply blocking the use of the domain.

3) I've saw this month some good sales for one letter IDN domains on Ebay taking into account that everyone says that they are not available for some years but all of them were register (reg fee!) this month. They all seem very "secondary" letters in the corresponding alphabet/script/block. I believe that every asset that has somekind of unique factor will make that asset grow in value over time. having one letter or symbol .com is unique because it is the shortest domain possible and only possible in IDN. However, the previous questions put me on doubt of how secure is to invest in one letter/symbol domains, if i find some for reg fee or low price
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/idn-discussion/606551-questions-about-idn.html

Thank you in advance for your input on this.

regards,
tonecas

exponent

"Strange-type" is reg/blocked by the registry, similar to how 99% of single letter .com domains are reg/blocked.

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tonecas

but how about currency symbols that should not be allowed according to Verisign?

for instance, xn--lzg.com (€) is registered

wot

Links for ebay sales please.

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tonecas

here are the links for ebay sales:

* xn--nbe.com ("similar" to W.com), sold for US $162.50 (did not confirm if it has changed hands but it seems so looking at the Update Date on Whois):

W.com Single Letter RARE IDN Domain Name - eBay (item 320414228507 end time Aug-26-09 19:44:25 PDT)
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=606551

* xn--8na.com ("similar" to I.com. Latin), didn't sold because of reserve not met (BIN was US $175.00):

Æ–.com Single Letter RARE IDN Domain Name LOW RESERVE - eBay (item 280388373505 end time Aug-23-09 14:14:57 PDT)

* xn--iza.com ("similar" to J.com. Greek), sold for US $202.50 (changed hands):

J.com Single Letter RARE IDN Domain Name 1-2-3-4-5 NR - eBay (item 280386905051 end time Aug-25-09 13:28:53 PDT)

* xn--lxa.com ("similar" to U.com. Greek), sold for US $227.50 (changed hands. same guy as above auction):

U.com Single Letter RARE IDN Domain Name 1-2-3-4-5 NR - eBay (item 280387024621 end time Aug-21-09 20:31:16 PDT)

* xn--rog.com ("similar" to i.com. Greek), sold for US $150.00 but the buyer in the end did not pay

i.com RARE single Letter IDN Domain Name - eBay (item 200374763748 end time Aug-19-09 07:31:51 PDT)


i've been making some scans and there are more one letter/symbols available for reg fee. most of them are very rare in use, some are not even supposed to be writen and some are available but can't be registered because there are other similar symbols in another language/script/block that are similar and are already registered, as far i understood.

but what puzzles me most is the Verisign rules which prohibits many symbols but they are registered like currency symbols and graphical/drawing symbols, most from the Latin-1 script.

so, what is the explanation for this?

regards,
tonecas

wot

Check out the real IDN forums and you will get loads of feedback.

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Phio

Hi Tonecas,

Most of the good and great single character letters were taken a long time ago. This includes single character IDNs in current use for Europe, Russia, Arabic countries, Thailand, Japan, etc etc. The exception to this is that some single character Chinese words (characters) may still be available due to the unusually large amount of words available in Chinese.
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=606551

As far as symbols go, most were registered before the policy for blocking was issued. Whether or not they block the resolution of these symbol domains is still a question, but right now they do resolve. I have one or two symbol domains as novelty items: If they stop resolving it won't bother me too much. An example of this is xn--xbi dot com. I would like to develop it into a sewing site, but am hesitant due to the reasons you mentioned in your post. It is a risk that someday it won't resolve.

Real IDNs are words: 'Internationalized Domain Names' Names meaning words that have a meaning. So I wouldn't bother with the sellers on ebay, usually those holding good IDNs aren't listing them on ebay. You can find them where Wot suggested being sold, and can still pick up a bargain every once and a while. Remember, many of the prime IDNs were registered in 2001. In 2006, more people got in on the game and began make their IDN portfolios.

Hope this helps a little.

Phio

tonecas

Hi Phio, thank you for your input.

I try to see the market from different angles, and one of them is the rarity of something. having a domain with one letter (or symbol) is very appealing, and prone to happen (even in lower scale) to what we have been seing in 2 and 3 letters domains. However, i see the management of the IDN even more unpredictable than for the "normal" domains and the risk of one day they simply stop resolving one letter domains is bigger.

However, from my IDN deep dive in the last days, i see the Unicode has room for more than 1 million symbols, having less than 20% of that space used. Most of the used space seems to be on chinese charcateres where i read that they are more than 70K . And i do not know if al languages are covered, so the possibilities are much bigger than the 2 letters combo in normal (US-ACII) domains.
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=606551

Also, from the analysis that i have been making for the various script blocks, most characteres that are available are either unavailable to register (i think because they are similar to others already registered, because only the lower case version is accepted to register, or are simply prohibit because of rendering issues ?) or the ones that are available (got a hand of them just in case ) seems very little used in the corresponding languages and look more like constructs made by linguistics to accomodate future modifications to the current characters. Many are not even currently rendered in the browsers (like the IPA extension - phonetic symbols) and show like squares.

a very interesting article here establishes the 3000 most used chinese characteres and says that they are sufficient to understand 99,2% od the chinese language... very interesting indeed.

i agree with your view that major IDN domain holders do not put for sale on ebay, but the domain market is filled with ineficciencies and the ignorance can pay. some letters/symbols that are being put on ebay were registered for less than a month and fliped by a very good profit. i do not know if those who are buying them know that most of those symbols have little use and that there are much more one letter/symbols available than one can think at the first time.
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=606551

also, i've been astonished by the search statistics (and estimate average PPC) specially on the chinese language where having millions of searches on a single month is peanuts.

however i have some difficulties understanding the point of view of other cultures.

1) i can see the appeal of having a domain written in the mother language (and all the arguments in favor of IDN) but it puzzles me how they use the internet today. incredibly, that is something that i didn't think until recently. if they can write in their mother language do they have to switch (virtual) keyboards to write in english characters and enter US-ASCII domains? (dumb question?)

2) the use of native chacarters also in domains makes all sense from a local perspective but seems to lack the global reach of the english language. i can see the interest in the next economic growth of having IDN domains for local reach or for the communities spread all over the world but for global reach i can't see how native languages can be the major sites. So, it seems that we will not see prices go to levels as we have seen on english generics words but i can see very good profits potencial.

I'm working on Wot suggestions but until then if you and others can add more insights to this IDN world i would appreciate.

regards,
tonecas

---------- Post added at 11:47 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:29 AM ----------

just to add more sales to the thread

* 为.net sold for $40 USD after lowering the reserve two times. reg fee on August.

Single Character RARE IDN Domain - 1.5 BILLION results - eBay (item 280390280285 end time Sep-01-09 13:18:51 PDT)

again, just in case i registered a few one letter domains in the top 50 of most used chinese characteres. There are more, and only .net or "bellow".

Phio

Hi Tonecas, all good points.

The 'key' to this is 'keyboards'...if it's on a keyboard, it's worth picking up in .com and .net. or cctlds for the appropriate country. If it's not on the keyboard, it will be questionable, a novelty, or could someday become a hit depending on development. There are keyboards to match most popular languages in the world. There are also virtual keyboards and microsoft has downloadable keyboards. No one who wants to type in his or her own language is at a loss.


Correct, upper and lower case letters, as in English, in most cases will resolve to lower case when being registered, there are exceptions, but to be safe I always register IDNs in lower case. Some single character IDNs are not useful and as you say may only be constructs to accomodate future modifications to current characters. There are also many single characters from older languages that are not being used much any more.

Could you imagine learning the other thousands of characters?

There are many reasons people buy these symbols and letters, but definately if the letter is on a common language keyboard, it is useful to own.

Most valuable chinese words are two character words. A chinese character can be a part of thousands of 2 character words, hence the huge amount of search results. Use google keywords tool, it shows a much more accurate value than SERPs.
Content is written in the mother language for each country, whether Bulgaria or Chile. There was an overestimation several years ago regarding the number of English speakers in the world. Those numbers have kind of stuck, but in reality they are not valid... the Bulgarian taxi driver may know how to converse in English, but more than likely he cannot read or write in English. There is a big difference between the number of English speakers in the world and those who can read and write in English. Perhaps this is a bad example, but you catch my drift... China passed up the United States in Internet usage early 2008 and by 2010 will perhaps double the U.S. usage. Is there English content on Chinese websites? No, not at all. Some commerce websites have English interfaces, but that's about it. To see how much non-English content there is on the web is truly astounding.

All the keyboard interfaces have been working for 10 years, it's no problem for the natives.

We can take our cues from German domain sales. This is just an inkling of whats to come for IDNs.
The only reason English is dominant now is because of the stickyness of IE6 and that the past generations have had to deal with English domain names.
English generics that are 'understood and used' worldwide will never lose value. But a savvy businessman in China will buy the Chinese domain for marketing, not the english one.



If you get the .com or .cn it is best, and make sure you are registering simplified Chinese.
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=606551

Talk soon,

Phio

tonecas

Hi Phio,

i see and it makes sense. i definitely should get access to those virtual keyboards. this is also related to my question of how other cultures write on their mother languages and then need to "switch" keyboards to write the domain names that are ins US-ASCII.

that is one scary thought.
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=606551
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=606551

nonetheless, my initiation through the IDN world is revealing to be quite interesting. there is some much about other cultures, their languages and subtleties to be understand. and it is becoming an opportunity to learn their languages and history.

by chance, i'm reading a book about some guys that tried to invest in China in the 90's and one story that is told there just poped to my mind:

the chinese language, because of being ideographic(?) and so vast with the same symbol assuming different meanings depending the context and tone used to spell it, had seen a try by the government about 100 years ago to substitute the symbols for their sounds. one guy then wrote a little tale without any meaning but using many different chinese characters/symbols. the funy thing is, when that tale is spoken all the characters sound the same: shih. so if the proposed new rules were approved, the tale/poem got to be written like:

shih shih hih shih shih shih ...

yes i know that. i used precisely adwords tool. and was surprise to see searches from 1, 5 and 10 millions per month still get average estimated PPC from $0.20 to $0.60.

don't know if we can get that kind of traffic drive to our IDNs today and if the estimates of PPC are correct but the numbers are absolutly overwhelming. we only have what? 300 millions chineses users on the internet? they are more than 1 billion...

i took a look to idntools sales list and saw a recent German domains sales on Sedo. we are getting very good prices. it seems like .de carries more value than a .com. Don't know if that will be a pattern in all ccTLDs like .cn.

like i questioned, having a domain written in the mother language seems to have more value and sense for using in the respective country. if a company in China wants to have a site to sell goods for the rest of the world she is not expecting that the rest of the world will know how to read chinese.

But she will be certanly interested in having a local site with a domain in IDN. The question then is .cn or .com. Maybe both? The problem is .cn is expensive and there are many "ducks" to shoot and the bullets are limited. In case of Russia, there is the .ru, the .su and the new IDN extension.

So, there are many questions but the IDN market seems year after year to make sense and more close to takiong off.

regards,
tonecas

gogoejoe

Hi..
Same here i am also new for ISDN so also i want to know more about it...

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