A high-profile American ASCII domainer publicly realizes the value in IDN and all you can say is "and?" ? For me, the first thing which came to mind was "A rising tide lifts all boats".
This is very surprising, given the past consensus regarding IDN among the American ASCII domainer crowd. Of course, all of that could have just been a front to attempt to suppress prices while they were acquiring tier1 and tier2 in stealth on the secondary market.
Also, while the US economy takes a nose dive, the rest of the world may do otherwise. The money is going somewhere. Might be time to start thinking about foreign investments...
...hoping this is true, and could not agree more that there are still good names out there.
I just picked up 1234.**.** yesterday and puppies.**.** the day before.
I think one of the tricks is to be sure you're targeting the right area with the right keyword for domain choices. No sense using American slang in Germany...