What will be the biggest flop in '08?

[jacal1]

By the way, this IS an "official" thread - in case you were wondering :hehe: .

My guesses for biggest flops:

dictionary words with no commercial connection

.us

.tv

"brandable" nonsense words

LLLLs in anything but .com

all but the 4-5 biggest silent auctions (or was that '07?)

.biz (or was that '06?)

 

[Andrei P.]

Minimal snaps price for an llll.com used to be 9$. then around amonth ago it became 19$ and we are talking about kjyq.com. So something doesn t sound right to me...

To tell the truth those very bad names and priced at 19$ are not all sold.

 

[-REECE-]

I crunched the numbers yesterday, and the rock-bottom LLLL.com prices on very bad LLLL.coms are sitting around $12-$13. Less than 3% of all reported LLLL.com sales (according to TDVR.com's 700+ December sales database) sold for less than $12.00 and most that did were, predictably, Ebay sales.

To tell the truth those very bad names and priced at 19$ are not all sold.

 

[Keith]

This thread is damaging to domainers here :imho: After all, most of us own domain names in multiple exts. We should be looking for the positive take on our investments, not the down side.

Mentioned in this thread as going downhill in 08' are all the top exts, including .com

The trends that brought us to this point should continue with no major disruptions. After all, what is so special about 08' that would trigger a downfall in any extension?

 

[-REECE-]

Part of the reason I created my 2008: The Year of Opportunity thread was the byproduct of this thread. I'd much rather invest in winners anyday than focus on avoiding the losers... And if I have to weed through a few losers to get there... so be it.

This thread is damaging to domainers here :imho: After all, most of us own domain names in multiple exts. We should be looking for the positive take on our investments, not the down side.

Mentioned in this thread as going downhill in 08' are all the top exts, including .com

The trends that brought us to this point should continue with no major disruptions. After all, what is so special about 08' that would trigger a downfall in any extension?

 

[Keith]

Part of the reason I created my 2008: The Year of Opportunity thread was the byproduct of this thread. I'd much rather invest in winners anyday than focus on avoiding the losers... And if I have to weed through a few losers to get there... so be it.

Yes but who really knows what the losers will be? So far this thread has listed just about every ext. on the market as going down hill. What's left after .com, .mobi, .tv....They are all good to me as long as you obtain the right names :imho:

 

[-REECE-]

Exactly.

There are opportunities in pretty much any extension at one point (be it landrush) or another. Domainers predicting what will flop have had a poor track record (being nice here) at best, in most cases...

Yes but who really knows what the losers will be? So far this thread has listed just about every ext. on the market as going down hill. What's left after .com, .mobi, .tv....They are all good to me as long as you obtain the right names :imho:

 

[thetruman]

To tell the truth those very bad names and priced at 19$ are not all sold.

All right, difficult to tell on Snapnames, but on TDNAM havent seen going to Closeouts...

All right, difficult to tell on Snapnames, but on TDNAM havent seen going to Closeouts...

This thread is damaging to domainers here After all, most of us own domain names in multiple exts. We should be looking for the positive take on our investments, not the down side.

Mentioned in this thread as going downhill in 08' are all the top exts, including .com

The trends that brought us to this point should continue with no major disruptions. After all, what is so special about 08' that would trigger a downfall in any extension?

I have pointed out it already in previous post ;this got basically a " I defend my names or I will kill yours" threads. Very masochistic indeed, but here we go....

 

[-REECE-]

Once renewals are accounted for, almost nothing is selling for < $25 at TDNAM anymore...

All right, difficult to tell on Snapnames, but on TDNAM havent seen going to Closeouts...

All right, difficult to tell on Snapnames, but on TDNAM havent seen going to Closeouts...


I have pointed out it already in previous post ;this got basically a " I defend my names or I will kill yours" threads. Very masochistic indeed, but here we go....

 

[mwzd]

India yes! With 61% literacy level in India... And how many people in India can afford buying 1000$ end user site? Perhaps I'm not well informed about life in India....

Any amount of people.
Most luxury brands have stores here now.
If people can pay $5000 for a pair of shoes...

Incidentally, dot IN is launching IDN very soon. There will be good opportunities there.

I don't see the value in .in IDNs or most others for that matter... except maybe china and korea.
If there is any value for idn.in it will take a few years to realize it. English is fairly well understood almost all over the sub continent and rebranding to xn--z-qjult.in (made up) is not going to happen anytime soon.

 

[Rubber Duck]

I crunched the numbers yesterday, and the rock-bottom LLLL.com prices on very bad LLLL.coms are sitting around $12-$13. Less than 3% of all reported LLLL.com sales (according to TDVR.com's 700+ December sales database) sold for less than $12.00 and most that did were, predictably, Ebay sales.

Look if I can't get 50 bucks for a name, I either renew and forget or just drop it. Running around trying to $12 to $13 bucks for a name is just misery!

India yes! With 61% literacy level in India... And how many people in India can afford buying 1000$ end user site? Perhaps I'm not well informed about life in India....

3 out of 5 of the World most wealthy are Indian!

Gates and Buffet will be kicked off their perch either next year or possibly the year after.

I don't see the value in .in IDNs or most others for that matter... except maybe china and korea.
If there is any value for idn.in it will take a few years to realize it. English is fairly well understood almost all over the sub continent and rebranding to xn--z-qjult.in (made up) is not going to happen anytime soon.

What you need is First Language speakers. That is who will end up browsing in English given the choice. Figures from Wikipedia suggest that you will have a total dedicated audience of 178,598 and most of those will probably opt for dot com anyway!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-speaking_population

Even total speakers which is probably what most ASCII.in optimist will plump for is 100,000,000. Less than 10% of the total.

This is the list you should really be working from.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers

Shocked? Most Americans are. They seem to think India runs on a mixture of MacDonalds and Coca Cola!

 

[mwzd]

What you need is First Language speakers. That is who will end up browsing in English given the choice. Figures from Wikipedia suggest that you will have a total dedicated audience of 178,598 and most of those will probably opt for dot com anyway!

I almost peed in my pants laughing.

There are more english speakers than that in my area. Forget the whole city.

Or even the state / country.

Shocked? Most Americans are. They seem to think India runs on a mixture of MacDonalds and Coca Cola!

Errr, you seem to think I'm American. Shocked...?

MacDonalds serves mcAloo tikki burger here. Coca cola had to buy out parle to even compete.

How many of the so called 'only native language' speakers do you think are online in India?

 

[Rubber Duck]

I almost peed in my pants laughing.

There are more english speakers than that in my area. Forget the whole city.

Or even the state / country.



Errr, you seem to think I'm American. Shocked...?

MacDonalds serves mcAloo tikki burger here. Coca cola had to buy out parle to even compete.

How many of the so called 'only native language' speakers do you think are online in India?

I am talking first language speakers. The at the mothers knee or the language one talks to love ones. That can be very different from language exhibited in a business situation.

The initial wave of Internet users in India was obviously those that could make sense of the content that excluded those that couldn't and yes their are real issues in terms of a wealth divide between those that are fluent in English and those that are not but the numbers are growing and growing rapidly.

Most large American corporates are producing offerings that are highly geared to the Local Language users which are rapidly outstripping thing that speak English. This is being done at all levels, from provide Mobile texting service to fully fledged Hindi Internet Portals.

The idea that there a billion more English.com customers about to come online is complete myth. And sorry if I insulted you by assuming you were American.

 

[sashas]

Rubber Duck, I'm an Indian. I've lived all buy one year of my life in India.

I'll concur with what mwzd said.

There's one crucial thing that most people forget when they compare India with China/Korea/Japan: India was ruled by the British for close to 300 years.

This has had a huge impact on our culture and language. English is understood very very widely. And even when we're writing our native language online, we tend to use the English script.
Check out Shaadi.com and Yatra.com for example. Both are Hindi words, but both are written in the English script. Most native languages in India are dying in the written form because people are using the English script to write words in their native tongue.

The younger generation (the one I belong to) is much worse than the last one. Most of us can't even write basic words in our native language. I still struggle to write a full sentence in Hindi, as do so many of my friends. This makes IDN's not that appealing to Indians. We might use them as a novelty, but I can't see them becoming massively popular. I'm yet to see a computer keyboard with the Hindi script.

Microsoft tried to introduce Windows and Office in several native languages. That hasn't seen much success. The net savvy generation is increasingly english savvy as well.

You have to understand that mechanics in India are way too different than they are in China, especially when it comes to language.

Its sad, but speaking your native language is seen as "uncool" in this coming generation. Trust me on this, you can't pick up chicks if you can't speak good English :hehe"

We might not have English as our first language "officially", but we're very comfortable using it as our first language. The Wikipedia numbers are just taking into account native English language speakers, which obviously can't be too many. I personally consider English to be almost my first language...I'm more comfortable in it than anything else.

 

[Rubber Duck]

Sasha. I often encounter this contrarian view amongst expatriate and even native Indians. India is a such a diverse view that we should not entirely find that surprising. However, this does not seem to concur with the expressed view of the Indian Federal Government or most the US technology companies working in India. Somehow I doubt that the likes of AOL would invest so heavily in native languages if they felt they could get way with English.

http://www.ndtvprofit.com/homepage\monitor.asp?id=5320

 

[evilopinions]

U cant imagine how many people in India are now up with internet and stuff...

If we could get our hands on the BLOGGERs accounts then I am sure u will know there would millions of blogs at blogspot run by Indians alone...I am assuming but trust me they are very very close...

PLUS an average Indian can speak atleast 2 languages...An normal can speak 3..An an educated Indian till 12 grade can atleast understand and comprehend upto 4 languages...I for one know 4 languages...Although most of us now stick to English except at home...

 

[jido]

Hey India is varied enough, why don't you tell us where you are from? Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi?

 

[Rubber Duck]

Google is also working hard to make news accessible in Hindi and other languages.:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/..._make_news_accessible/articleshow/2632407.cms

Indian Newspapers are certainly not uniquely English:

http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=33760

 

[bricio]

IDNs are very good but you have to know very well how the market in that country/region works
i am brazilian and there are many words with accents - IDNs - but as we use internet for a long time, just a few people - and i am sure they are not 5% of internet users - know they can use IDNs... if you ask a brazilian to type www dot coração dot com (with or without dot br) this person automatically would type it without accents; he/she would never ask you if they were or not necesssary and we have hundreds of thousands of words with accents

BTW, coração in portuguese means heart

 

[thetruman]

personally I don t think that any IDN will substitute english as a main language. This has been reinforced from the witness of sashas and mwzd that are native of India and that know their own market better then anybody else. The fact that the newest generation cannot even write properly in Hindi is another important point; the youngest are the biggest users and the future of the internet. Are we talking about a possible flop in 2008? You have found one. IDN in Indian...

 

[Alex]

IDN in Indian is not a flop anyway, since it does not currently exist in .in.

Anyway, regarding IDN's they are a good alternative, but one must know very well the market.

For example I know that in many Central European languages IDN's will never be used. I am 100% sure of Romanian for example.

I am sure that Chinese, Japanese will use IDN's. IDN's are/were a great investment. Though when one deals with a local market he has to pay very much attention. I saw a very respected member trying to sell .com domains in Romanian and Hungarian (he is not a native speaker). Those domains were awful, words that are rarely used, weird syntax etc. Plus, a Romanian word would be naturally searched in .ro here.

Anyway, let's try to focus on the more positive aspect of the industry, let's not try to look at what will flop, rather at what will rise.

 

[Rubber Duck]

IDNs are very good but you have to know very well how the market in that country/region works
i am brazilian and there are many words with accents - IDNs - but as we use internet for a long time, just a few people - and i am sure they are not 5% of internet users - know they can use IDNs... if you ask a brazilian to type www dot coração dot com (with or without dot br) this person automatically would type it without accents; he/she would never ask you if they were or not necesssary and we have hundreds of thousands of words with accents

BTW, coração in portuguese means heart

I accept that some Latin languages can get by adequately without IDN, although the Germans now seem to more or less treat them on a par. This is not really so for languages like Czech. Official documentation there is invalid without the accents, as many these so called accents are nothing of the sort. What you are looking at is often entirely separate words. Yes, the czechs can text without them but they are never really comfortable.

Things are entirely different, however, when you jump scripts. You try getting buy in Russia with transliterated Russian. They will think you have arrived from the planet Zogg. Same is true of Arabic.

personally I don t think that any IDN will substitute english as a main language. This has been reinforced from the witness of sashas and mwzd that are native of India and that know their own market better then anybody else. The fact that the newest generation cannot even write properly in Hindi is another important point; the youngest are the biggest users and the future of the internet. Are we talking about a possible flop in 2008? You have found one. IDN in Indian...

Don't just assume it or assert it. Prove it. The truth is out there. Lets have some facts.

IDN in Indian is not a flop anyway, since it does not currently exist in .in.

I believe it is imminent.

 

[thetruman]

Fully respect your ideas, just putting together conclusions from natives that should know more then you do their own language and culture, or not?

 

[mwzd]

Don't just assume it or assert it. Prove it. The truth is out there. Lets have some facts.

What facts do you need?

The fact that there are English speakers everywhere in India? Come on down for a visit... the boatman who takes you around on the Kerala backwaters speaks English and his local language, not Hindi. So does a taxi driver in Mumbai or even the 'boy' who delivers tea at most offices all over India.

The fact that there are 26 official languages in India and most language scripts are remarkably different from each other. IDNs would get lost, specially with like sashas saying that most youngsters can't spell in their local language. More's the shame but that's how it is.

The fact that English medium schools are at a premium here. In fact, a lot more students pass out each year from English medium schools across India than through language mediums.

The fact that all major business, government and so much so even road signs across the country are in English.

The fact is that of 1 Billion people - at least 200,000,000 speak English. Online users who use other languages would be a single digit percentage as of now. And I don't see it changing dramatically for the next few years.

While it's true that in terms of sheer numbers the local language speakers are more, but that is not to say that local language speakers cannot or will not communicate in English, even with a choice to use their local language.

Yes language offerings like newspapers, magazines and even tv channels far outsell English ones but I don't see any of them using IDNs because while most people speak the local language they write in English...

The fact, language sites account for less than 3 in the top 100 sites visited out of India - check alexa.

Fact, the largest local language portals use English as the primary access language -
http://www.webdunia.com/
http://www.oneindia.in/
http://www.rediff.com/

 

[sashas]

There's one VERY important point that mwzd brings up: that there are 26 "Official" languages in India.

If you want to make a site for Indians, which language will you use?

If you use Hindi, you'll completely lose much of the South Indian audience. They can't read, speak or write Hindi

If you use Tamil, you'll lose 90% of the non Tamil speaking audience.

If you use Telugu, you lose 90% of the non Telugu speaking audience again.

This goes on and on. There are 10,000 languages in India.

But there's one common language that everyone understands and speaks: English.

Look at this forum right here.

Mwzd is from Mumbai. I'm from the Delhi/Jaipur region.
I can speak Hindi and English well. Nothing else.
Mwzd can speak English and Marathi well. He can speak Hindi a bit, but not too much.
If there was someone from Chennai here, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't be able to even speak Hindi. But I'm sure he would speak and understand English.

Point is: English is the only "universal" language in India. It can be understood by a guy in Mumbai, a guy in Chennai, a guy in Delhi. The native languages can be understood only by the people from that region.

If you were to make a website in native languages, you'll end up making a site in 30 different languages. This might work for software like Windows (it didn't work actually), but it can't work for a website. Especially for a website thats run by a non major company.

 

[mwzd]

Mwzd can speak English and Marathi well. He can speak Hindi a bit, but not too much.

Your point is well put but a clarification here.

I speak Hindi fairly well, if a bit bambaiyya. I also speak Punjabi, Derawali, Marathi, Gujarati and a smattering of Urdu, Tulu, Konkani, Bengali and even Sindhi.

However, correct spellings I'm confident of only English. Not to mention the fact that thought process and "speaking to loved ones" is also English.