Russia to Launch Cryllic extension early 2009 - SMH

[netfleet]

Interesting that Australian press reporting on Russian domains.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/web/russia-to-launch-cyrillic-web-addresses/2008/06/30/1214677908635.html

 

[ssamriga]

I am not sure abut the success of this extension, .ru is very well liked and popular...

 

[argoss]

IDN.рф will be huge...

Both the Russian president...and the largest Russian registrar (nic.ru) are pushing for it bigtime!

 

[Ronald Regging]

I don't think it's hard to see that this could have a major impact. As far as I can tell, the Cyrillic alphabet was adopted in the USSR back in the 40's as a way to create a common language amongst the various Soviet republics. It's important to understand that it's not just a different language, but an entirely different alphabet. I am not certain to the extent that English is used in Russia, but the article did say that most Russians (of the 24% who are online) find it difficult to use the Latin alphabet. How would you like having to use the internet using an alphabet that you were not very familiar with? It would suck. So, create an extension that allows Russians to surf the web using their native alphabet and suddenly you have a lot more Russians online.

 

[auriga]

Russian users know well latin alphabet, but they don't speak English well. The new IDN TLD РФ will not be popular.

 

[Meongtae]

its another reason that shows why we will one day have one language...

 

[Dean]

its backed by the government so I think it will be successful.