Rate the Indian Languages

[Sleepys]

I find Indian IDNs to be more difficult than some other IDNs because of all the different languages. Chinese has simplified and traditional, but that isn't too hard. Most other countries only have one main language.

So, my question is, which of the Indian languages are worth registering in IDN? If some of you with more knowledge of the Indian IDN market want to rate the top languages and put them in order of best to worst, I am sure that it would help a lot of us.

Thanks

 

[wot]

May help, I think Hindi is well up there:

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

 

[Sleepys]

Yeah, I saw that on Wikipedia. It helps with finding all of the languages, but doesn't really tell which ones are further along (at least for the IDN market). I assumed that Hindi was the best. What about the others? Which ones are worth registering? Bengali, Punjabi, Tamil, Urdu? Are those all worth it? What about some of the others?

Thanks

 

[bill786]

Hindi is the top most recall, then its marathi, tamil, gujrati, malyalam etc.

 

[Sleepys]

Hindi is the top most recall, then its marathi, tamil, gujrati, malyalam etc.

Good Info. Thanks. Are those you listed after Hindi in order of what you think is the best?

+Rep, I would give you one Wot, but it seems I am still too fond of you

Any other opinions?

 

[bill786]

yes, hindi is most used.

marathi is language of maharastra where the financial hub mumbai is based.

gujrati is most affluent audience in terms of business.

tamil and malyalam are highly educated people in services segment.

Rebels with cult status = kashmiri

so according to me.. it goes in this order Hindi > Marathi > Gujrati > Tamil > Malyalam > Bengali .. so on and so forth

 

[Keral_Patel]

Hindi is national language. So it is acceptable all over India.

The other languages are state wise.

EX:
Punjabi for Punjab
Guajarati for Gujarat
Marathi for Maharastra
Bengali for Begal
Tamil for Tamilnadu

 

[Sleepys]

Hindi is national language. So it is acceptable all over India.

The other languages are state wise.

EX:
Punjabi for Punjab
Guajarati for Gujarat
Marathi for Maharastra
Bengali for Begal
Tamil for Tamilnadu

I understand that much :hehe: In your opinion are they all worth registering if you find a good enough keyword? Do you want to attempt to put them in order of the current most valuable to least or do you agree with the post above?

+Rep to you too :tu:

 

[Keral_Patel]

Sorry for it but I think they are not worth registering at all.

Maybe Hindi might be little bit.

I myself and many of my friends who are doing online business would never even think of a Gujarati IDN or anything related to it. 99.99% it is English language that Indians prefer for surfing the web. If there is a slightest chance then it is Hindi.

 

[.tv]

I agree 100% with -Nick-.

We Indians, at the most do not use local languages, especially when using computers. English occupies the predominant part of our Internet usage.

I'm from Tamil Nadu, where you can't see Tamil Keyboards in 100% of cyber cafes and even in residential areas. We rarely use Tamil for official documentations which are in paper format.

The same scenario is applicable at almost every part of the country. I have never seen a Kannada keyboard (Kannada is the official language of the Indian State of Karnataka) or a Malayalam (Malayalam is the official language of the Indian State of Kerala) keyboard.

Investing in Indian IDNs (Especially South Indian Languages) are nothing but throwing money down the drain, IMO.

 

[Fka200]

Investing in Indian IDNs (Especially South Indian Languages) are nothing but throwing money down the drain, IMO.

I agree and disagree. From what I've been noticing online, a lot of Indians use English online...

But when you check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-speaking_population ]stats[/URL]:

India 7.95% 1,132,446,000 90,000,000

There is still that other 92.05% that can experience online growth in their own local language. That's where the investment semi-risk comes in and those who do purchase these IDNs can bank on it.

If you look at future potential growth, you can't really knock them down. The possibilities are endless if someone is actually willing to produce the material for the extra 92% of the population, given all those other language scripts used in India. India has an extremely large population, and only 8% speak English. I'd bet a minority of those 8% speak fluent enough English to truly experience the power of "English" web.

If awareness is made that you can purchase domains like Cars.com, Poker.com, Sex.com, News.com, Love.com, etc. in these languages, people might jump up at the opportunity and grab it by the horns and make the content available... with a premium-recognizable domain name where those that speak the language can go to and feel comfortable .

Overdoing it a bit at this point, I'm sure my point was made.

Current Indian IDN status: Not much opportunity for revenue through PPC and not that great of type-in (although there is some, but not as much compared to other languages). Looks like a "stay away" investment.

Future Potential: Enormous.

 

[wot]

Sorry for it but I think they are not worth registering at all.

Maybe Hindi might be little bit.

I myself and many of my friends who are doing online business would never even think of a Gujarati IDN or anything related to it. 99.99% it is English language that Indians prefer for surfing the web. If there is a slightest chance then it is Hindi.

How about this one :?

हिन्दी.tv - my only Hindi name.

 

[Keral_Patel]

I agree and disagree. From what I've been noticing online, a lot of Indians use English online...

But when you check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-speaking_population ]stats[/URL]:

India 7.95% 1,132,446,000 90,000,000

There is still that other 92.05% that can experience online growth in their own local language. That's where the investment semi-risk comes in and those who do purchase these IDNs can bank on it.

If you look at future potential growth, you can't really knock them down. The possibilities are endless if someone is actually willing to produce the material for the extra 92% of the population, given all those other language scripts used in India. India has an extremely large population, and only 8% speak English. I'd bet a minority of those 8% speak fluent enough English to truly experience the power of "English" web.

If awareness is made that you can purchase domains like Cars.com, Poker.com, Sex.com, News.com, Love.com, etc. in these languages, people might jump up at the opportunity and grab it by the horns and make the content available... with a premium-recognizable domain name where those that speak the language can go to and feel comfortable .

Overdoing it a bit at this point, I'm sure my point was made.

Current Indian IDN status: Not much opportunity for revenue through PPC and not that great of type-in (although there is some, but not as much compared to other languages). Looks like a "stay away" investment.

Future Potential: Enormous.

Do you think those who don't speak English in India will be even willing to purchase a PC of their own or get an internet connection?

Do you think a person from India who doesn't knows English will go to a cyber cafe and surf the Web and type in those IDNs?

Do you think a person from India who doesn't knows English will know how to open a web browser?

No he won't

Situation over here is like He needs to know English to hold a mouse.

I know lots of English speaking people who don't even touch computers so expecting non English ones to go and type in those IDN's is unrealistic.

 

[Aceredbaron]

Hindi is the largest spoken language followed by Telugu, Tamil, Marathi, Gujarati, Urdu, Punjabi etc.,

There is scope for business oriented niche domains and localized names not enough for speculation and quick flipping.

Just google for hindi blogs, tamil blogs etc.,

Even dot in are yet to make a significant inroad into general Indian public as most of them are aware of dot coms only.

Indian idns are at present used only by bloggers and maybe some local realestate firms and other highly niche areas.

Cheers

 

[Fka200]

Do you think those who don't speak English in India will be even willing to purchase a PC of their own or get an internet connection?

Do you think a person from India who doesn't knows English will go to a cyber cafe and surf the Web and type in those IDNs?

Do you think a person from India who doesn't knows English will know how to open a web browser?

No he won't

Situation over here is like He needs to know English to hold a mouse.

I know lots of English speaking people who don't even touch computers so expecting non English ones to go and type in those IDN's is unrealistic.

I absolutely understand what you're saying... but have a little open mind. Just because they cannot speak English does not mean they don't want to sit there and use the advantages of the internet. Hell, you DON'T NEED TO SPEAK ENGLISH TO USE THE INTERNET! In a majority of the major languages (Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, French, etc.) there is TONS AND TONS of content in those languages available. Of course people who DO NOT speak English search in their own language for content they are looking for.

As for Indian languages, why would it be any different? Baby steps... things don't happen overnight. You are trying to explain to me because a person doesn't speak English they need to suppress their desires in order to use technology (the internet)? Just doesn't make sense. You're saying almost a billion people (according to the stats I posted above) don't want to use the internet just because they are unfamiliar with English. Think about potential not current status. If people who don't speak English understand what exactly is available online they will want to be able to do the same... except in their own languages. Look outside the Indian language box... there are a lot of things going on in other languages online...

The Indians are smart. There will definitely be a person who will not stand up to accepting they need to learn English in order to browse the web and will start something. There always is AT LEAST one person willing to think outside the box and start a whole new trend... then, the rest is history. You need to remember.. ENGLISH domains were laughed at in the early 90s. In '94, why would any ENGLISH SPEAKING PERSON want to go online? Or GRAB A MOUSE, or MAKE A WEBSITE? The content at that time was nowhere near what it is today... but with content came a desire to get online and try to take advantage of what was being offered. It happened with English it will happen with the rest. I'd guess you just need to witness the growth first hand to fully understand what exactly is at stake here with IDNs.

 

[Keral_Patel]

You're saying almost a billion people (according to the stats I posted above) don't want to use the internet just because they are unfamiliar with English.

No because they have to earn a living and they have to work. Have you seen the stats of poverty line? By the time all those billion of users come online the guy registering the domain will become poor paying up the renewal fees.

Forget even poverty line lower middle class doesn't have facilities you are thinking they would have with them.

Moreover who are already in upper middle class and upper class gets better education and all stuff and they study in English Medium schools.

More explanation is that even in Gujarati Medium schools [Because I am from Gujarat and our language here is Gujarati] they teach students how to operate computers in English.

What I am trying to say is that a person investing in this kind of domain should rather invest into other places. This one is totally unrealistic. Yes it is not impossible and I am not saying someday someone smart will come up with some smart idea. But you cannot invest money and keep renewing domains thinking someday some smart person will come up with some smart idea.

Indian kids the new generation are taught English in whatever state they live. There is no scope for this type of things. People here even laugh at .coms right now. You cannot convince them for IDN's

 

[Fka200]

Makes perfect sense. It's super clear.

Still... some people have been holding the top IDNs since 2000/2001 only to have finally begin experiencing exponential growth monthly. Mind you these people bought IDNs when there was no browser support for them... yet they still had had and kept renewing. Wasn't until Firefox came around where people could access unicode IDNs. The patience definitely paid off and I'm sure those who waited and held quality domains are in great shape right now, only to get better in the future.

Might break the bank to hold FreeLightBulbs.com in Hindi along with similar quality domains, but buying the top (Sports.com, Sex.com, News.com, India.com) is probably worth it and renewing for 5-10 years ... if they were available of course...

10 years x $7/year = $70. Take the top 10 Indian words in your preferred script = $700.

Potential for the future? $$$ with very minimal investment.

Still, there are those with lots of money laying around and putting $10,000 into IDNs based on previous domain price growth might be nothing to them (and there are those types of people available). I know I'm having some problems with renewals, but I've witnessed the growth in the last two years. Hell, had some domains that didn't even get 1 unique/month that are now getting 20/day.

Rep added. Fun conversation!

 

[Keral_Patel]

Rep added. Fun conversation!

Thanks friend I also understand that risks are involved in order to get big benefits. I was just sharing what I see around here locally.

 

[.tv]

Makes perfect sense. It's super clear.

Still... some people have been holding the top IDNs since 2000/2001 only to have finally begin experiencing exponential growth monthly. Mind you these people bought IDNs when there was no browser support for them... yet they still had had and kept renewing. Wasn't until Firefox came around where people could access unicode IDNs. The patience definitely paid off and I'm sure those who waited and held quality domains are in great shape right now, only to get better in the future.

Might break the bank to hold FreeLightBulbs.com in Hindi along with similar quality domains, but buying the top (Sports.com, Sex.com, News.com, India.com) is probably worth it and renewing for 5-10 years ... if they were available of course...

10 years x $7/year = $70. Take the top 10 Indian words in your preferred script = $700.

Potential for the future? $$$ with very minimal investment.

Still, there are those with lots of money laying around and putting $10,000 into IDNs based on previous domain price growth might be nothing to them (and there are those types of people available). I know I'm having some problems with renewals, but I've witnessed the growth in the last two years. Hell, had some domains that didn't even get 1 unique/month that are now getting 20/day.

Rep added. Fun conversation!

Interesting.

Unlike other country IDNs, Indian IDNs are not worthwhile to hold on to them.

Reasons:

1. Unlike Arabic, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean IDNs, 99.9% of internet users at India DON'T use local languages while surfing the Internet.

2. They do not have localized keyboards, or even do not know how to type in their local language! This is the main disadvantage for Indian IDN investors.

3. Consider Japanese and Chinese. They use their local language (which is their primary language and the only one) for most of their daily activities, which includes surfing the Internet. In India there are about 320 languages. According to the census of 2001, 29 'languages' have more than a million native speakers, 60 have more than 100,000, 122 have more than 10,000 native speakers and rest of them have less than 10,000 native speakers.

Moreover, the Constitution of India recognises 22 official languages, spoken in different parts the country, namely:

1. Assamese
2. Bengali
3. Bodo
4. Dogri
5. Gujarati
6. Hindi
7. Kannada
8. Kashmiri
9. Konkani
10. Maithili
11. Malayalam
12. Manipuri
13. Marathi
14. Nepali
15. Oriya
16. Punjabi
17. Sanskrit
18. Santhali
19. Sindhi
20. Tamil
21. Telugu
22. Urdu

4. Every language has almost no influence in other states where another language has majority. So it is practically NOT possible to popularize a particular language IDN throughout India among different ethnic group.

5. In most part of India, even people who regularly use the computers still unaware of what a domain name is.

6. Typing Indian languages are pain in the ass. To type a less complicated single character in Tamil, a person has to use at least 3 key pressings. A highly complicated single character requires pressing at least 5 keys. If a domain name has a 6 to 7 complicated characters then imagine the number of key pressings required to enter the actual domain name! :bah:

7. Illiteracy has a major impact. About 45% of total Hindi speakers are illiterates!

In terms of the size of illiteracy, eight States, viz. Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Karnataka and Maharastra had more than 15 million illiterates each and accounted for 69.7 per cent of the illiterate population of the country.

The first four of these states - Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan are in Hindi belt and have 42.76% illiterates.

Number of non-literates in these States - Uttar Pradesh (58.85 million), Bihar (35.08 million), Rajasthan (18.15 million) and Madhya Pradesh (17.97 million).

In Bihar the number of illiterates increased from 31.98 million in 1991 to 35.08 million in 2001.

Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh have 10.21 million and 6.10 million illiterates in 2001.

It means that 48.12% of the non-literates reside in these six Hindi-speaking States.

Other States having more than 10 million illiterates are: Orissa (11.61 million), Gujarat (13.31 million) and Tamil Nadu (14.65 million).

If these points are not a problem at all for your Indian IDN adventure, then go ahead!

I wish you all the best. :santa:

 

[Sleepys]

Wow, gone for a day. This is a good conversation. I guess that it is good I haven't bought any Indian names yet. Most don't look good according to Adwords, but I thought maybe I was wrong. I guess ASCII .in or .co.in is the way to go to tap that market.

Can people who speak one of those languages speak or understand many of the other ones? Like someone from Spain understanding Catalan? Or is it more like Asian languages and completely unique from dialect to dialect? Do you guys think that many of these languages are going to start to get more obscure and used less, even from one Indian person to another as these places get more advanced and even more people start to use English?

+Rep to those contributing, Aceredbaron and .TV. I am still to fond of you too fka

 

[bill786]

yes please dont buy Hindi / Gujrati IDN's yet. Let me register the good ones first

 

[alex_d]

I just want to say that this is the most informative thread I have read here on Namepros regarding IDNs - though specifically for India, it is a great example of how the views of an investor and the views of a person living in a particular region of the world are very different from one and other.

Great thread !!!

Alex

 

[Easydoms]

Some very good cmments and views from all, it just goes to show what happens when many great heads get together, but more so the whole idea of namepros has proved invaluable in this thread Nice work everyone

 

[Sleepys]

Yeah, there is always more we can learn. Thanks guys. :tu:

 

[rr5127]

How would you rate these:
श्री.com Sri
अविवाहित.com Unmarried
आसन.com Asana
गुरू.com Guru
गुरू.net Guru
घड़ी.net Watch
ध्यान.net Attention (meditation?)
पुरुष.net men
प्राण.com Prana
प्राण.net Prana
भक्ति.net Bhakti
भगवद्गीता.com Bhagavad Gita
महात्मा.com Mahatma
माया.com Maya
मुफ्त.com Free
मैथुन.net Sexual intercourse
वेद.net Veda
संयुक्तराज.com ?
संसार.net ?
स्वामी.com Swami
अश्लीलचित्.com ?
कैरियर.net Career
क्रय.com Purchase, buy
खुशी.net Happiness
गृह.net House
नीलामी.net Auction
पाकिस्तान.net Pakistan
बंधक.net Mortgage
ब्लॉग्स.net Blogs
योगाभ्यास.com yoga ?
योगासन.com Yoga ?
रूस.net Russia
विक्रय.com Sales
विचार.net Idea ?
सुरक्षा.net Security
सेल.net Sale

Thanks in advance