And for the IDN doubting Thomases.

[Rubber Duck]

"Opportunities for Growth" from Versign

Read Section on "Opportunities for Growth" from the Versign's August 2006 Domain Industry Brief:

http://www.verisign.com/static/039111.pdf

 

[rhys]

Very cool. Such IDN bullishness is a nice affirmation of what many of us have believed in for months (in some cases years) laying down greenbacks to prove the point. Finally, the future of the internet begins to emerge before us and it is IDN!

Is there anyone out there that would still like to argue that everyone on the net likes to speak English? Or that Japanese and Chinese people prefer typing English to their own language?

 

[RJ]

Is there anyone out there that would still like to argue that everyone on the net likes to speak English? Or that Japanese and Chinese people prefer typing English to their own language?

Did anyone ever argue that?

 

[DNWizardX9]

Did anyone ever argue that?

yes tons

 

[RJ]

Did anyone ever argue that?

yes tons

Tons? I've never heard it. Thread links would be helpful.

 

[DNWizardX9]

Talk about censorship from the Namepros staff. Why did Mark change the thread title? While a battle can range on in the .tv section it seems that the mods want to keep the mood on IDN neutral.

Thread links will come soon.

 

[RJ]

Rubber Duck entitled this thread "And for the IDN doubting Thomases.", not Mark.

 

[Ben]

Rubber Duck entitled this thread "And for the IDN doubting Thomases.", not Mark.

The title is now, "'Opportunities for Growth' from Versign".

 

[rhys]

Did anyone ever argue that?

Most commonly, people without knowledge make quick but faulty assessments like "Interesting but this is dangerous for the internet as everything will stop being in English". These simple arguments are easy to dismiss.

The funnier ones are the so-called "foreigner experts". Yes, even within the last month at IDNF we have had people argue this for Hindi IDNs and Chinese/Japanese IDNs. In the latter case, it turned out to be a Chinese American with imperfect written knowledge of Chinese whose last experience using a word-processing program was on Windows 95. His views on the imperfections of the interface were understandable but as he later admitted somewhat dated and clouded by his lack of mastery of the written language.

Two months ago, we had a foreigner living in Japan argue that it is too hard for him to type in Japanese despite his "fluency", and therefore, must be too hard for native Japanese to type too. Uh yeah. That's why all those books and magazines get typed in English instead of Japanese over there, right?

We've also had someone make the point that since very few people in Japan had downloaded Firefox with its support for IDNs that Japanese people must not want IDNs. Uh right. Sure. Nice try, but go back to 9th grade debate class and try again.

 

[Mark]

Yes - I changed the title - Why start a thread in the Negative sense to begin with ?

The title I changed it too actually had something to do with the "Content" - which would better serve any person who browses the forum ..... To each his own I guess.

The title has been replaced - though I doubt many will read it this way and take it as serious.

 

[Rubber Duck]

Yes - I changed the title - Why start a thread in the Negative sense to begin with ?

The title I changed it too actually had something to do with the "Content" - which would better serve any person who browses the forum ..... To each his own I guess.

The title has been replaced - though I doubt many will read it this way and take it as serious.

No worries good job!

 

[Charley]

very nice link ..... I have learnt a lot reading this ......

Read Section on "Opportunities for Growth" from the Versign's August 2006 Domain Industry Brief:

http://www.verisign.com/static/039111.pdf

 

[SEO Montreal]

you'd ex[pect them to say it though. they want people buying and speculating more.

 

[Rubber Duck]

you'd ex[pect them to say it though. they want people buying and speculating more.

Why bother when most people are prepared to buy domains that make no sense.

This week Chinachat.com $2,800. To whom is that ever going to be relevant?

 

[sanatana]

Rhys:

I'm sure that all other things being equal, the Chinese would prefer to type in their own characters.

However, the reality is that isn't an option for them.

Firstly, the QWERTY is commonplace throughout China. As such, using it is virtually a must.

Second, the software that would allow them to enter their own characters requires that they type in the sounds of the characters using roman (what you referred to as English) letters. (The languange is called Pinyin.)

So, if a Chinese wants to search for Chinese cooking, they have to type in "zhongguofancai" to get their characters to appear. That being the case, the domain zhongguofancai.com is easily as good as (if not better than) its character-related counterpart.


S

 

[Rubber Duck]

Rhys:

I'm sure that all other things being equal, the Chinese would prefer to type in their own characters.

However, the reality is that isn't an option for them.

Firstly, the QWERTY is commonplace throughout China. As such, using it is virtually a must.

Second, the software that would allow them to enter their own characters requires that they type in the sounds of the characters using roman (what you referred to as English) letters. (The languange is called Pinyin.)

So, if a Chinese wants to search for Chinese cooking, they have to type in "zhongguofancai" to get their characters to appear. That being the case, the domain zhongguofancai.com is easily as good as (if not better than) its character-related counterpart.


S

If this perverse logic of yours were anywhere near accurate the hundreds of millions of Chinese Web pages in existence would also be in Pinyin. If the Chinese are capable of generating hundreds of million of web pages in Hanzi they can produce web address in Hanzi. They don't search in Pinyin. It well documented in that they search in Hanzi. The reason they don't navigate in Hanzi is simply explained by the fact that they have no browser support. In short you are talking utter bollocks. You will see that what I am saying is true when IE 7 is released sometime in the next month!

 

[DNWizardX9]

Santana, if that is true why are some Chinese IDNs getting hundreds of visitors/day right now? Ask RD to show you his stats to back myself up.

 

[Ben]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_input_methods_for_computers
http://google.com/trends?q=中文,pinyin

 

[thefabfive]

Very educational links, Ben. :bingo:

I would hope people would familiarize themselves with such topics before posting erroneous information.

 

[NP41215]

.
RubberDuck knows what he speaks about Chinese IDNs.

Actually, PinYin can be a lot faster when the output is in Chinese.

That is because most PinYin input has AI built in. For example to type the Chinese IDN equivalent of UnitedStatesOfAmerica.Com, the PinYin method takes just two key strokes (i.e. m and g) to create 美国, which means UnitedStates or UnitedStatesOfAmerica.

In fact proficient Chinese typists can type Chinese character content/material at speeds equivalent to hundreds of Englsh words per minute. Several pages of English text, when translated into Chinese, may occupy but one page or so in Chinese, and with far fewer "words" due to the simplicity of Chinese grammar which obviates the need for many grammar-supportive words that are required in English.

That inputting or outputting in Chinese characters is necessarily slower than in English words is a myth. With the right AI-supported text editor and some use or practice, it is usually faster than inputting and outputting in English, and several times faster for proficent typists.

In other words, the upper typing speed limit is much higher for Chinese characters than for English words in terms of equivalent information throughput.

Even so, there remains a lot of room for AI improvement and speed efficiency in Chinese character input and output. The situation can only get better in the future.

In fact, it is also much easier (AI-wise) to do voice input/output in Chinese since there is always only one sound/syllable for each Chinese character and therefore the parsing of each character or its sound and the translation between a character's sound and the character itself is far simpler and easier than the case of multi-syllable words (as most English words are).

In decades past, the progress was somewhat slow, but has picked up in recent years. Money for R&D plus research talent used to be meager in this area until recent years.

Eventually vocal input will take over, imho. Monosyllabic languages should be the easiest for high-accuracy vocal input. The Chinese language grammar is also extremely simple, very close to a computer language. There are no such things as tense (past, present or future) etc., or complicated prepositions. For example, instead of saying: "I　will be going to school today", Chinese equivalent would be "<subject> [<time-tag>] <action> <object>" or literally "I today go school." So man<-->robot/machine interaction will be far simpler in Chinese than, say, English.

There are other advantages, but I don't intend to make this an essay.

 

[sanatana]

NP41215 is correct when he speaks of high typing speeds in Pinyin. The method itself is called Wubi which stands for “five stroke input method”. Wubi maps major components of Chinese characters into Roman letters. The Chinese character components are inputted in the order in which they would be written by hand.

Wubi is used primarily by speed typists and those who use a keyboard a great deal, because it is fast. However, it requires special training and ongoing practice and its learning curve is quite steep. Most Chinese do not believe that it is worth the investment in time that learning the Wubi method requires.

Rubber Duck: I really have no problem with our having a difference of viewpoint. I would appreciate it if you could be a bit more respectful toward a fellow member when you disagree. I beleive that you are very well versed, but I doubt that you have an absolute monopoly on the truth.

That having been said, the following is my understanding and you are most welcome to correct it:

Using standardized software in conjunction with the English language QWERTY keyboard, a Chinese can type in the word yuming (Pinyin) and 域名 gets put into the document.

To accomplish this, they need to switch typing methods at least twice. For instance, to type 域名.com into the address blank, they need to:

Switch to Chinese typing mode by using "Ctrl+Shift" at least once, sometimes more.

Type Pinyin yuming , select 域名 from a list of choices that appears for yuming, then

Switch back to English typing mode by using "Ctrl+Shift" or "Ctrl+Blank" , type .com, and then they’re done. Is that correct?

Too, the China Internet Network Information Center reports that as of 6/06, there were 788,400 Chinese websites. Can you point me to where you learned there were hundreds of millions of pages?

Also, I'd like to see where it is well documented that Hanzi is preferred over Pinyin. It isn't that way by the Chinese I know.

Thanks for helping me learn.

S

 

[DNWizardX9]

All the chinese sites I've seen have had characters in chinese... I don't know what you're trying to prove santana.

According to you the Chinese have thrown out their ancient writing system from thousands of years ago. (now typing in pinyin)

700,000 sites does not equal pages. There are hundreds of millions of pages. Some chinese sites have thousands of pages and it all adds up. Put some popular chinese words into google and you'll get 68 million to 100 million results in chinese for that one word.

 

[NP41215]

.
Since ".Com" is purely alphabet, you do need to be in alphabet mode. But instead of using "Control+Blank" or whatever combinaton of two keys, you can simply pre-program, depending on the software you use, a single key to do that in toggle mode. Which of two states is the current mode is typically shown in the video display. So one can program, say F2 (or F12 or whatever key you fancy), to do that. Press once it is in Chinese input mode, press it again it switches to English input mode. Press it again, it switches back to Chinese input mode. Of course it is a bit inconvenient. But then one can use clipboard function to past ".Com" or whatever alphabetic string, if that occurs often in a particular document.

The combination of both Chinese and English in a document is far less common than all-Chinese documents.

The quality of the input software is very important as good ones will keep track of your past typing history to guess the most likely meaning of any abbreviated letters.

For example, the full PinYin for UnitedStates or UnitedStatesOfAmerica is MeiGuo, but because this is such a common term, typing "mg" will immediately show the corresponding Chinese character for MeiGuo, i.e. 美国， as your very first choice, which is what you want in most cases. So you can save keystrokes and speed up that way.

As another example, full PinYin for China is ZhongGuo, but if you merely type "zg" or "zhg", the first displayed term is 中国， which is exactly the Chinese characters for China. Note that both 美国 and 中国 have the second character identical because that character 国 means "nation" or "country". The concept of taxonomy is very important. Just like Chinese bird names will end with the word 鸟 which is the Chinese character for "bird". There is really not much grammar in Chinese compared to English because the placement of a Chinese character as well as its meaning largely determine whether it is adjective or noun. You don't have to learn additional words or characters to distinguish the various forms, as you do in English.

Another interesting aspect of such AI-assisted input is that longer terms are in fact faster to input because the unique abbreviation is also longer and therefore less likely to cause ambiguity or confusion. For example, if I type "zh" to mean 中, the software is not too sure as "zh" can mean other equally likely words. But if I type "zhg" or "zg"， the AI is now able to narrow it down a lot more so that it will in fact typically show "中国" as its top guess of what I mean, which is in fact correct. Likewise, if I type ''zgrm" the software is even more certain that I mean "Zhong/Zong Guo Ren Min/Ming" or "中国人民" (meaning "Chinese People"). So it often happens that a long phrase in Chinese characters can be typed quicker using initial letters because the combination of extra letters allows the software to narrow it down to the right combination of Chinese characters with greater accuracy and confidence. In other words, a string of gibberish Chinese characters will take many more key strokes to input since they do not form meaningful Chinese phrase groups. Whereas meaningful Chinese terms and phrases will allow abbreviations and therefore save a lot of key strokes and be more accurate to boot.

Nor is there singular or plural versions for a word. If you want to show it is plural, you add 们 to signify that.

For example 我 is the same character you use whether you use it to mean "I" or "Me". To mean "We" or "Us", you simply use 我们.

It is special considerations such as the above that enable experienced PinYin typists to input Chinese characters much faster than their English equivalents.

For example, full PinYin for "My Country" is "WoGuo", but as the two character term happens regularly, typing "wg" will be interpreted as 我国 and 我国 will be offered as the best guess, and typically correct. Contrast typing "My Country" and typing "wg" to mean the same in both languages, and it should be obvious which is quicker. Also note that 我 (which normally means "I" or "Me" or "Self") when placed before the character 国 becomes a qualifier or adjective equivalent to "My". Likewise 我家 means "My home/family" since 家 is a character meaning home or family. I digress a little to show the simplicity of Chinese grammar which obviates a lot of variations in verb tense, gender, plurality, prepositions, etc. by simply relying on straightforward and existing characters as qualifiers and their placement/positioning relative to the characters to be qualified.

In fact you can write Chinese in any direction, be it left to right or right to left, horizontally or vertically, up or down, in any curvilinear, spiral, circular or zigzag pattern. The native reader will have no difficulty in immediately figuring out the right (i.e. correct) and meaningful direction. One can choose a conventional format, but it is not necessary for full comprehension. The language is very compact, lean or laconic, and information-dense. As a result, knowing just a modest number of Chinese characters will easily go several times further in communication and comprehension than knowing the same number of English words.

Hope this makes it quite clear why the usage of Chinese characters is far more preferred over PinYin or English words in China, for reasons quite aside from cultural roots. This is also why Chinese IDNs present significant advantages for native users of the language.

 

[sanatana]

DNWizardX9

Maybe I haven't explained myself well; I'm not saying that the sites are written in pinyin. I'm saying that, from a purely mechanical point of view, it is easier for a Chinese to surf typing in pinyin.

My understanding is that most Chinese do not have computers in their homes and rely on cafes for surfing. Therefore, they don't have the luxury of preprogramming the computer they use.

I could be mistaken .

S

 

[DNWizardX9]

You'd be surprised at the growing economy in China. Many people in fact do have their own pc's.

Santana, maybe its good to stay in the newbie forum for a while. I don't mean to be rude but your posts seem to me that you're totally clueless. According to this post http://www.namepros.com/parking-and-traffic-monetization/239934-the-next-evolution-of-ppc.html you have just discovered "CPA" advertising which has been around for years.