Internationalized Domain Names (IDN)

[armstrong]

I know Netsol recently deleted their IDN domains, but I also heard that IDN is set to be offered for .info and .de soon. I believe that they are in fact inevitable as soon as the rest of the world's population catches up with the US in terms of internet usage.

Imagine how you would feel if domain names were offered only in Russian cyrillic characters, and you were forced to adapt to them. That's how the rest of the non-english world feels.

Personally, I'm hoping that IDN won't be implemented, as it will mean more work for me. However, it just seems logical and inevitable.

What do you think?

 

[Wilfredo]

I think many countries here in Europe are using the internet more than the US. So we are allready there, here in Sweden we have IDN for our ccTLD but people cant use it :D

But still there was many idn was registered.

 

[.edu]

The object of the internet in mine and many others opinion is to reach as many people as possible. We are not in ancient times anymore and when you develop a site you would want to reach as much people as you could however there are particular situations when you want to reach a select few. That is not me and I am sure that is not alot of seasoned domainers. We are more focused in reaching an audience in an international level when developing a project.

 

[armstrong]

but people cant use it

Why not?

 

[jane118]

lets start adding smilies also :P

:p :p

 

[Anthony]

I think those internationalized character names are good for people with keyboards set up to access international characters. That's what limits their usefulness for global appeal.

 

[.edu]

Originally posted by jane118
lets start adding smilies also :P

:p :p

Exactly. Might as well make domains with smileyfaces

 

[yl88]

Originally posted by .edu
Exactly. Might as well make domains with smileyfaces

LOL

:hehe:

 

[armstrong]

Originally posted by jane118
lets start adding smilies also :P

:p :p

Not the same class at all. What if one's company name, for example, is KÖLN? If there are people using localized keyboards (with the Ö character), then they definitely will try typing KÖLN instead of KOLN or KOELN. And if that also happens to be your market, then the IDC version makes perfect sense.

 

[Domainerz]

As far as I see the main bottle-neck there is not the IDNs.. instead it's the operating system and 'Contents' of the websites in local languages. For example unless there were Arabic version of Windows and explorer, nobody could think of using 'Arabic TLDs' . Similarly, if there are no browsers, operating systems and other sufficient contents in other languages, only IDNs would not change anything. I don't see even in far future any language can beat English in softwares and contents.
Further, to remain a part of Global-Village, everybody would remain in touch with main-stream contents language i.e. English. That's why most of local languages websites also provide English version of their websites.

 

[armstrong]

Operating system:

aren't there OS (windows and linux) in some languages already, such as german, spanish, and chinese?

Contents:

lots of these in pure non-english. Take a look at this poor guy:

http://pena.com.mx

His entire site is in spanish, and everywhere except in the address bar he spells it Peña with the correct "ñ" instead of "n". Since his customer bas appears to be mexico, then it doesn't make sense to create a separate english translation.

 

[Anthony]

Well I think the point is that these domain names will be useful in a handful of countries, but not in most of the world.

 

[xbase234]

Re: Internationalized Domain Names (IDN)

Originally posted by armstrong
I know Netsol recently deleted their IDN domains

What does this mean - recently deleted their IDN's? Is Netsol not supporting or selling IDN's anymore?

 

[armstrong]

At some point in the past, Netsol required existing IDN domain holders to transfer out. IDNs can still be purchased, just not via Netsol.