The state of IDN at the start of 2007

[Edwin]

Given that we've just flipped the calendar into a new year, I thought it would be handy to sum up where IDNs seem to be right now.

Right now, most major languages (Japanese, Russian, Korean, Chinese, Arabic etc.) have been fairly well "mined". Having said that, lateral thinking will still net results, especially in the realm of two-word keyphrases (just be VERY sure they're truly "generic" in the target language).

There are a lot of folks out there waiting for the boost from IE7. Microsoft muddied the waters by rolling the new browser out in a staggered fashion via autoupdate i.e. instead of it being presented to all users, it is only being presented to a subset, with that subset growing by perhaps a million a week. As such, it may take many months for EVERY eligible computer user to see an autoupdate for the browser.

So where are we right now?

Well, if you have Firefox, Opera or IE7 - and you don't have any conflicting plugins on your system - you should find that you're able to type in IDNs right now today and get them resolving. Alternatively, you can type in the IDN domain (with extension) into Google or Yahoo and, so long as it resolves AND the front page has already been indexed, that should show up as one of the top search results (usually the first).

Of course, you still have to have the relevant language tools to be able to type that IDN in the first place, but ALL users of non-English OSes should have those tools by default.

Of the major browsers, only IE6 won't resolve IDNs so the more that ANY other browser eats into the IE6 market share, the more folks will be able to make use of IDN.

Looking at the Japanese market for a moment, many companies are resorting to suggesting a keyphrase to search for (in Japanese of course) at the end of their ads, rather than putting an ASCII URL because they believe it's easier to remember a Japanese language keyphrase than an ASCII domain.

Traffic to IDN will vary widely over the next year or so depending on how used to typing stuff in that market is, and how deeply IDN-ready browsers have penetrated that market. There's no one-size-fits-all answer to how much traffic can be expected to "IDNs" since they're not a monolithic entity.

If the IE7 rollout continues at its current pace, it is likely that most major markets will have a majority (50%+) of users able to type IDNs natively into their address bars by the time 2007 rolls into 2008. Beyond that, it's down to "education" i.e. how long does the "hey, you can type domains in your own language now" message take to filter through significant portion of the online population.

The sudden flood of traffic some were hoping for probably won't ever materialise, but there's a definite trickle of traffic already, and it's growing slowly but steadily - given enough time, it will grow into a torrent. It may take years rather than months, but the trend is clear.

While the picture is still cloudy, I believe 2 things are clear: IDN are coming, and IDNs will be in a much better position at the end of the year than they are right at the beginning (even if they still haven't reached total "maturity" in the market)

[acesfull]

Originally Posted by Edwin

While the picture is still cloudy, I believe 2 things are clear: IDN are coming, and IDNs will be in a much better position at the end of the year than they are right at the beginning (even if they still haven't reached total "maturity" in the market)

I am particularly interested in the application of DNAME to make IDN.com into IDN.IDN.

I recall a discussion of testing DNAME, which was suppose to be done in the past few months, or in the near future. And that DNAME implementation may happen near the end of 2007.

Can you confirm any of this, or add anything new?

Also, I would think, if and when IDN.IDN is implemented (assuming DNAME, and applied to existing IDN.coms), that IDNs will have reached the intended goals, which (I think) was the plan since 1998 or earlier.

I am also guessing that there may still be a number of technical issues, mainly with e-mail and other applications that process URLs.

[DNWizardX9]

can we ban rubber duck from responding in this thread? or is there a way to put him on mute

[Edwin]

I'm afraid I don't have anything definitive to add about IDN.IDN. I understand that there is definitely some discussion about it, and there is also the possibility that existing names (in .com, I presume) might be grandfathered, but again I haven't heard anything conclusive.

[DNWizardX9]

grandfathered if DNAME occurs........ other than that it came from Rubber Duck.


DName has to happen tho. If it doesn't happen it will be a mess as there are so many different scripts. Having a different .com TLD for each country that is seperate from each other would kill the concept.

[bwhhisc]

Originally Posted by Edwin

Given that we've just flipped the calendar into a new year, I thought it would be handy to sum up where IDNs seem to be right now. While the picture is still cloudy, I believe 2 things are clear: IDN are coming, and IDNs will be in a much better position at the end of the year than they are right at the beginning (even if they still haven't reached total "maturity" in the market)

Thanks Edwin for another excellent post. I think you are right on target with your observations.

[touchring]

Now everyone is just waiting.

[stuff]

Originally Posted by touchring

Now everyone is just waiting.

for what?
Miracle?

[touchring]

Originally Posted by stuff

for what?
Miracle?

Waiting for the browsers to all support IDNs so you can start using ø instead of o.

[stuff]

Originally Posted by touchring

Waiting for the browsers to all support IDNs so you can start using ø instead of o.

understand.
But I still don`t see how IDN.COM can work. Ok, it can work in german üõäö. If there are only a few idn letters.
I could see IDN.IDN work.

[Edwin]

Originally Posted by stuff

understand.
But I still don`t see how IDN.COM can work. Ok, it can work in german üõäö. If there are only a few idn letters.
I could see IDN.IDN work.

Right now, anyone in the world is able to type ASCII letters if they have to - after all, every major site in every language up until now has had an ASCII domain name.

IDN.com will mean that they can type their own language for the IDN bit and then add the ".com" (or ".jp", or whatever) in ASCII, just like they have been doing until now to reach current websites. A look down Alexa's ranking of the busiest sites in the world will show a lot of non-English sites with ASCII URLs (all of which people are able to type in to get to): http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_sit...obal&lang=none

IDNs just make it that much easier for people not entirely (or not at all) comfortable with English to remember the web addresses of sites they visit, or see advertised, since all they have to do is remember something in their native language and stick ".com" on the end.

Search engines will index the IDN bit and will show matches within it in bold, just like they do with keywords inside ASCII domains right now. For example, if you search for "hotels" on Google, the result for www.hotels.com has the "hotels" part bolded, showing that Google has "noticed" the keyword matches the search query. If you had been searching for hotels in Japanese (ホテル) and the result was from www.ホテル.com, the keyword would have similarly been bolded.

In a sense, that's a poor example since most people (with any native language) will likely be able to spell "hotel", if they've travelled at all. But imagine requiring people who don't speak English to remember how to spell and write "car insurance" or "home theater system" - it's infinitely easier for them to remember the equivalent expression in their own language.

If there's still some doubt, let's flip the situation around with a practical example. Assuming you don't already happen to know Japanese, which of the following will you remember if you were tested a minute, an hour or a day later?

- life insurance (or lifeinsurance.com)
- 生命保険 (or 生命保険.com)

Both mean EXACTLY the same thing, but there are 130,000,000 people from the 2nd richest economy in the world who will do MUCH better with the latter.

[stuff]

Originally Posted by Edwin

Right now, anyone in the world is able to type ASCII letters if they have to - after all, every major site in every language up until now has had an ASCII domain name.

IDN.com will mean that they can type their own language for the IDN bit and then add the ".com" (or ".jp", or whatever) in ASCII, just like they have been doing until now to reach current websites. A look down Alexa's ranking of the busiest sites in the world will show a lot of non-English sites with ASCII URLs (all of which people are able to type in to get to):.

That is the thing. How will they be able to add .com in the end!!! They will have to have some kind special keyboard or wswitch languages.

[Edwin]

Originally Posted by stuff

That is the thing. How will they be able to add .com in the end!!! They will have to have some kind special keyboard or wswitch languages.

They switch languages all the time right now. Literally ALL THE TIME. To enter an URL now, they MUST be able to use ASCII - as I just explained above. So by definition, they'll still be able to use ASCII in the future. No problem.

In the case of Japanese, it's a single toggle switch that Japanese users hit as they type without consciously noticing it (assuming you're talking about people who actually know how to type, of course - but if they don't they're not exactly going to be doing much online!). I haven't seen how it works in other languages, but I assume it's similarly smooth and transparent.

The computers sold in most countries have keyboards that include ASCII characters as standard alongside the local country's character set(s), plus some kind of switching or shifting mechanism to change character sets. For example...

Russian: http://www.hooleon.com/miva/graphics...lose-large.jpg
Japanese: http://www.johnnyjet.com/images/PicF...SEKEYBOARD.JPG (the toggle switch I mentioned above is labelled)
Arabic: http://www.savetz.com/vintagecompute.../keyboard1.JPG
Korean: http://www.esagase.com/buy/upfile/CIMG1063.JPG
Thai: http://static.flickr.com/70/186824248_943075072f_m.jpg
Chinese: http://img.slate.com/media/1/123125/...KeyboardEX.jpg

So it's impossible for users who know how to type on their own keyboard to not be able to easily key in ASCII if they need it.

For languages other than English, the problem with ASCII domains has never really been about typing them - it's been about REMEMBERING them (and consequently using them in ads etc.)!

[stuff]

Originally Posted by Edwin

They switch languages all the time right now. Literally ALL THE TIME. To enter an URL now, they MUST be able to use ASCII - as I just explained above. So by definition, they'll still be able to use ASCII in the future. No problem.

In the case of Japanese, it's a single toggle switch that Japanese users hit as they type without consciously noticing it. I haven't seen how it works in other languages, but I assume it's similarly smooth and transparent.

as I have asked before, please show me a keyboard that japan people are using right now?

[Edwin]

See my revised post above. That's a standard keyboard, just like the one on my wife's PC.

[stuff]

Originally Posted by Edwin

See my revised post above. That's a standard keyboard, just like the one on my wife's PC.

I have seen this ones.
Please tell me a normal guy who first changes keyboard language to IDN then he types in the word, then he has to change the language back to ACII and type in .com. Its too much trouble. Thats why it can`t work. Or am I wrong. I am just viewing it from my side. I would not to it.

AND that all for just one address to type in

[touchring]

Originally Posted by stuff

I have seen this ones.
Please tell me a normal guy who first changes keyboard language to IDN then he types in the word, then he has to change the language back to ACII and type in .com. Its too much trouble. Thats why it can`t work. Or am I wrong. I am just viewing it from my side. I would not to it.

AND that all for just one address to type in

It doesn't work for IE7 (unless someone tells them to change it), but for Firefox 2, there's no need to switch key to type .com or .net, or any extension that has a dot in front, at least for Chinese.

e.g. 人寿保险.com. Lifeinsurance.com, i type the thing in Chinese and add the .com, without switching key - of cos, i must be in Chinese IME mode in the first place.

I must admit, this is one of the hardest concept to understand in the domain world, unless you already type Chinese, Japanese or Russian.

If you are a ABC typist only, the closest thing to imagine how this works is the caps people use at beginning of the sentence of European languages. Do you have to "remember" to press the shift key at the beginning of every sentence when you type a letter?

[Edwin]

Originally Posted by stuff

Please tell me a normal guy who first changes keyboard language to IDN then he types in the word, then he has to change the language back to ACII and type in .com. Its too much trouble. Thats why it can`t work. Or am I wrong. I am just viewing it from my side. I would not to it.

You are wrong, I'm afraid.

In the case of Japanese, there are three character sets in addition to ASCII, and all are used in daily life so a typist is constantly switching between them. It's impossible to understand (without seeing it) just how "naturally" a native Japanese speaker does this switching process - I can't stress strongly enough that they do it subconsciously without pausing, as they type.

If you haven't yet had the opportunity to see people type in a language other than English, please take the word of those of us who have... or take a few minutes to learn by watching a video.

Here's a real-time example video of somebody typing in Japanese, including several Japanese character sets and also ASCII characters. I estimate they're about "average" in typing speed...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WaWDJWX0V0

Here's somebody (who's actually a fairly poor typist judging by how often they use the Backspace key) using the alternative character set on a Japanese keyboard to input several paragraphs of text. You can also see how the "smart" IME understands how to convert large blocks of phonetic text into more complex characters, and also how the user can go back and select other characters, make modifications etc.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vicgZ6nIYx0

[stuff]

Originally Posted by Edwin

You are wrong, I'm afraid.

In the case of Japanese, there are three character sets in addition to ASCII, and all are used in daily life so a typist is constantly switching between them. It's impossible to understand (without seeing it) just how "naturally" a native Japanese speaker does this switching process - I can't stress strongly enough that they do it subconsciously without pausing, as they type.

If you haven't yet had the opportunity to see people type in a language other than English, please take the word of those of us who have... or take a few minutes to learn by watching a video.

Here's a real-time example video of somebody typing in Japanese, including several Japanese character sets and also ASCII characters. I estimate they're about "average" in typing speed...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WaWDJWX0V0

Here's somebody (who's actually a fairly poor typist judging by how often they use the Backspace key) using the alternative character set on a Japanese keyboard to input several paragraphs of text. You can also see how the "smart" IME understands how to convert large blocks of phonetic text into more complex characters, and also how the user can go back and select other characters, make modifications etc.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vicgZ6nIYx0

Ok, I know that You can type in Japanese. That is not tht point!
I am just saying IDN.com too much trouble

[touchring]

Originally Posted by stuff

Ok, I know that You can type in Japanese. That is not tht point!
I am just saying IDN.com too much trouble

Ok, another assumption, Europeans tend to be good at English, standards vary but even French and Germans are many times better in English than the average Japanese. And the average Japanese is many times better than the average Chinese at English.

If you want to know how bad it is, just visit - http://www.engrish.com/category_inde...er%20Countries. It's funny, i'm sure even Europeans that don't read English well won't make that kind of mistakes.