I encourage anyone hoarding names in a market void of demand and plump with supply to read my piece on the Founding Fathers. It is meant as a historical analogy to our times, to the Internet itself and particularily to extensions and ideas which may hold promise but for which time may be an enemy. This is not about right or wrong, it’s about timing, resources and strategy.
As it relates to IDNs , the main issue I see is: where to start?
If I were to focus on my native language, Spanish, would I gather names for Mexican Spanish or Caribbean Spanish or Spanish Spanish? If Mexico, then which dialect? There are dozens of dialects in each language and culture, land and tribe. Think of the barriers in e-commerce alone from IDN to IDN when we cannot even get e-commerce between countries right.
And so as a matter of resources and timing, investors would be wise to work in areas with more standardized usage and fewer vacant lots.
Besides, it dismisses a subtle truth that while French is the language of international business, English is the language of the PC and the Internet. For one very simple reason: all the code is in English. Consequence being legions of people being educated and employed by learning the language of the web – whether in customer service, development, code, dating, etc. It’s the benefit of being first.
And America’s founding fathers were first and they were right when they hoarded as much land as they could. Problem was, in their lifetimes, there was never a lack of land to go around. And still isn’t, so you have to buy carefully, in the right area (not Detroit).
Domains are no different. Because if we discuss them like a commodity or property, then we base our investment choices on the same principles of supply and demand.
For .com, there is basis for assessment, a market based on past performance and slim availability of quality ‘land.’ For IDNs, there is no basis, more of a simple understanding of a wildly varying need combined with an endless supply extending to the horizon and beyond.
In other words, caveat emptor, speculator beware.
#1 by Drewbert on March 6, 2010 - 5:54 am
Quote
So what your saying, really, is that juegos.com is worthless because it means nothing in English, the language of international Internet commerce?
#2 by Michael Castello on March 6, 2010 - 6:11 am
Quote
You are correct.
#3 by admin on March 6, 2010 - 7:32 am
Quote
Great question, Drewbert. My point was more about availability of IDNs than languages. And Spanish is a tricky one because the US has so many of them meaning it can work with the .com without issue. And usually does. Instead of IDNs, I simply suggest focusing on country codes – but Spanish does have its marketing place in the dot com realm, yes. I’d like juegos.com, yes.
We benefit by standardizing and connecting the web, not segregating it further. JMHO
#4 by Phio on March 6, 2010 - 7:52 am
Quote
Wow, I could understand this coming out in 2001 when IDNs first hit the market. But IDNs have been in use for the last 9 years. As far as the founding fathers go. Yes they did acquire land from the giant Louisiana Purchase and the State of Alaska for a pretty good price. They bought both properties when the land became available and the price was a great bargain. I guess you can compare that to those who bought ascii domains in the 90’s and held on to them and developed them. As far as the future of IDNs, it’s anyones guess. I’m suspecting that in some countries they will go over pretty well, and it will be in countries that don’t use the latin script.
#5 by Rashid Mahmood on March 6, 2010 - 10:38 am
Quote
Yes you are on target.
#6 by Duane on March 6, 2010 - 12:06 pm
Quote
“If I were to focus on my native language, Spanish, would I gather names for Mexican Spanish or Caribbean Spanish or Spanish Spanish?”
This applies to other languages also. One rule to consider, is not to mess with IDN or ccTLD of countries which language you are not fluent in. Unless you have someone which you can 120 % rely on.
Many domainers, even very well known personality’s which count themselves to the top 20 mess up big time. But not just in registering domains. They think they can jump into a market in a country “Developing ” which they have no idea of.
Be sure that business rules and domaining rules are different from country to country. Europe is a very good example. If you are trying to target Spain, Italy, France, or specially Germany? Forget business as you know it from the US market and get ready to learn a completely new way of business. If you have no one you can absolutely rely on, you are up for a bug surprise.
At last I totally agree with this post.
#7 by admin on March 6, 2010 - 5:55 pm
Quote
The Louisiana Purchase? Alaska? Sorry but your history needs some work. The founding fathers bought land in the 13 colonies, most notably NY and NJ. Again, this is a discussion of when the country was just minted, those items came later.
Neither the purchase or Alaska caused any great land rush, in fact, the purchase nearly doubled our size, got Jefferson reelected.
#8 by admin on March 6, 2010 - 5:58 pm
Quote
Absolutely, stay away from languages you don’t speak. And Spanish is particularly tricky – there are so many verbs and their conjugation, you must know what is part of the everyday venacular.
#9 by Phio on March 6, 2010 - 6:54 pm
Quote
Yeah, Founding fathers, my bad. Anyways, as far as IDNs are concerned perhaps this video will help those who don’t yet understand what’s going on with them: http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid17699847001?bctid=51199103001
#10 by David J Castello on March 6, 2010 - 7:26 pm
Quote
@Duane:
You hit the nail on the head here:
“One rule to consider, is not to mess with IDN or ccTLD of countries which language you are not fluent in. Unless you have someone which you can 120% rely on. “
#11 by admin on March 6, 2010 - 7:40 pm
Quote
Thanks for the link. But again, the point of the piece is not to argue the fundamentals or viability of IDNs but to assess as a current investment option based on economic principles.
That is why I use the fathers, they were indeed right but it simply did not fit the reality and inventory of the times. Cheers…
#12 by Phio on March 7, 2010 - 10:56 am
Quote
Yes, your article on the founding fathers was a good one. I think we need also to be cautious also of shortsightedness. Most American companies are suffering from this ailment, and it has left the economy a wreck. Finding the right time to come into a market is important, but it is very difficult to know when to jump in. The only thing we can do right now monitor the sales for the rest of 2010 and see how things go.
#13 by Drewbert on March 8, 2010 - 4:11 am
Quote
>Great question, Drewbert.
Thanks Pal!
>My point was more about availability of IDNs than languages. And Spanish
>is a tricky one because the US has so many of them meaning it can work
>with the .com without issue. And usually does.
Right. But Spanish isn’t where IDN’s come into their own. There’s a few cases when a Spanish IDN rocks – cabañas.com being a good example – but they are few and far between. You need to think outside the box.
>Instead of IDNs, I simply suggest focusing on country codes – but Spanish
>does have its marketing place in the dot com realm, yes.
No denying country codes are the way to go with many languages, IDN country codes will be even better for many of them too. Remember the stats regarding hyphens and IDN’s for .de
>I’d like juegos.com, yes.
Who wouldn’t.
>We benefit by standardizing and connecting the web, not segregating it
>further. JMHO
Ah. That old chestnut.
The web is already segregated into bits that you don’t understand and bits that you do. The world hasn’t stopped turning, luckily.
IDN’s don’t make any difference to YOU in that regard. You still won’t understand any of the bits you don’t understand right now.
But for the people that DO understand those bits, it will make it easier for them to navigate to those bits because they won’t have to learn English – or worse, have to understand the latin alphabet – to get there.
(sidenote: I’m sure you wouldn’t be in the position you are today if the DNS had been invented in Japan, spread globally from there, but you could only use Katakana characters in domain names. You certainly wouldn’t be complaining that the later addition of the ability to use latin chars in domain names was a bad idea because it would segregate the internet!)
IDN’s make the Internet far easier for them to use, putting them on par with those of us lucky enough to understand the latin char set.
THAT is where IDN’s will make a big difference – and both in ccTLD”s AND gTLD’s.
You do yourself and your readers a disservice by writing off IDN’s with blanket statement. Lemme show you some IDN traffic stats in Prague in October so you can see what I mean.
Non english/latin alphabet users are taking to IDN’s like ducks to water – as was expected.
#14 by admin on March 8, 2010 - 5:10 am
Quote
Love it, Drewbert, that’s the kid of stuff we need back in this biz!
Think in part you make the point by discussing the traffic in Prague in October(fest?) – sounds iffy or specialized like one could register a million domains before hitting it in a single market, a single language or even dialect.
With up to 2 billion speakers, is it not large enough to be dubbed a global market? Aren’t you limiting yourself (like ccTLDs) to specifics instead of the larger market?
I am NOT dismissing IDNs, simply weighing them as a whole – with an eye on the economics of supply and demand.
In fact, I said I thought they are right just more of a stretch than a mature market under a SINGLE language and not spread across the globe into hundreds, perhaps thousands of little niches.
I truly believe you and I are actually on the same page, I can envision everything you speak of, without a doubt.
But when I compare the current markets and the economics and the options (remember too, we ARE speaking English, are we not? And we are English speakers ourselves, speaking on a .com, not hyi–iuch—5nbcv), I think a comparitive is a bit premature. Perhaps we need ask which specific IDNs should we look at?
But I totally agree on the advent of ccTLDs and the integration of IDNs within them (even as typo protection), I did not consider it, you da man as always…cheers…
#15 by epsilon on March 8, 2010 - 6:22 am
Quote
> …sounds iffy or specialized like one could register a million domains before hitting it in a single market, a single language…
Different metrics for languages other than English? Why would you need a mil. domains to hit it in Chinese? Not sure I understand – unless you’re talking about traffic, in which case you’re partially correct.
> With up to 2 billion speakers, is it not large enough to be dubbed a global market? Aren’t you limiting yourself (like ccTLDs) to specifics instead of the larger market?
Limiting, no. More like opening up to the other 4.6 billion who don’t speak Engrish. [ sorry, I had to
]
Niche is good anyway; less traffic but better targeted and more potent.
The supposed 2 billion English speakers in whole are not really your market, especially if you’re selling product. They’ll try their cctld first when they, say, want to buy car insurance. Eventually, they should get comfortable with the local IDN which should offer them product/info in the language they’re most familiar with.
> But I totally agree on the advent of ccTLDs and the integration of IDNs within them (even as typo protection)…
The ASCII being the typo in this case, not the IDN, correct?
> But when I compare the current markets and the economics and the options
Totally agree with you here.
Allow me to take this a step further for a moment, and urge you to use the same metrics/comparisons to locate the most promising language/territory to invest in.
#16 by admin on March 8, 2010 - 8:09 am
Quote
> Limiting, no. More like opening up to the other 4.6 billion who don’t speak Engrish. [ sorry, I had to ]
I knew somebody would, lol! Now that’s an old and good chestnut.
Part of the point is that the other 4.5+ billion don’t all speak the same language – the groupings are very disparate. So one can CHOOSE to think globally or regionally based on varying factors like fluency, locale, market size, etc…
Again, you IDNers are getting huffy for the wrong reasons. Making a comparison to .com is not, by definition, a pure dismissal of any other extension – alternately it is analysis. To say that gold may be a better investment does not mean silver is a bad one. So rest easy, I’ll go get some IDNs, lol!
Great info guys, always welcome…
#17 by Mo on March 8, 2010 - 2:32 pm
Quote
The argument for the prospects of ccTLDs applies to IDN. Limited but targeted market.
Take one example from Japan (second largest economy in the world) – forced to use URLs like game.jp, games.jp, or any of the other possible phonetic versions of “game” in Japanese. Now comes along ゲーム.jp (game(s) in Japanese) and you have a single URL combining the three or more possible variations they have been using into one that all Japanese speakers can understand.
IDNs are not competing for the global marketshare, but like ccTLDs, for the local share forced to use unfamiliar characters.
#18 by admin on March 8, 2010 - 9:44 pm
Quote
> IDNs are not competing for the global marketshare, but like ccTLDs, for the local share forced to use unfamiliar characters.
YES! That is the point! Well done sir!
#19 by Rashid Mahmood on March 10, 2010 - 9:22 am
Quote
Even if we presume that the area and region addressed by the geo idn in question has a reasonable market for some sort of definitive ‘city guide’, how do we leverage that? Anyone checked out some of the click prices for these places? Yeah, I suppose we could wait forever for someone in Ulan Bator to make a killer bid for our .com and maybe the risk/reward metrics are there for speculative ownership for some European and Japanese cities, but for those of us who develop and own domains as earning platforms rather than as “collectibles”, where’s the beef?
#20 by jeff on March 10, 2010 - 10:16 pm
Quote
If you don’t own any IDNs you shouldn’t make any statements. Also if you don’t own any “premium” IDNs you should not make statements.
If you did look into IDNs:
A. You bought junk with a bad translation (single character in Korean etc).
B. You bought Sex.com with an accent on ebay and said OMG an IDN! Has an accent – must be French!
C. You had a weak IDN that didn’t have enough searches.
Sonny, where is all this imaginary traffic coming from? Why are there names in multiple languages getting over a million searches a month? They obviously did not type in English.
Pingback: [EN] IDNs and the Slippery Slope
#21 by Drewbert on March 19, 2010 - 6:12 am
Quote
>where’s the beef?
You’d turn down a Japanese [idn].com with an RPM of $112 that pays for itself every 3 weeks?
What’s speculative about that?