Pinyin: For Chinese Domain investors

[DomainDep.com]

There is no true alphabet in written Chinese; instead a system of characters is used, with each character representing a different word or syllable. The average educated Chinese person knows between five and ten thousand characters (as many as fifty thousand altogether have been recorded, though the majority of these are obsolete).

Inputting Chinese characters with keyboard devices designed for Western languages is not an easy task. The standard for domain names does not allow such characters, and much work has gone into finding a way around this, either by changing the standard, or by agreeing on a way to convert internationalized domain names into standard ASCII domain names while preserving the stability of the domain name system.

Internationalizing Domain Names in Applications (IDNA) is a mechanism defined in for handling internationalized domain names containing non-ASCII characters. Rather than redesigning the existing DNS infrastructure, it was decided that non-ASCII domain names should be converted to a suitable ASCII-based form by browsers and other user applications. This was the birth of Punycode.

An example of Punycode would be a domain such as ·Â*ÔU.com which is inputted in Punycode as xn--pw0a62s.com. To obtain the code, users must first input the Chinese characters into a converter and then place the result into the address bar of the browser. This indirect method is not preferred by Chinese users.

Another alterative is Wubi, which stands for ¡°five stroke input method¡±. Wubi maps major components of Chinese characters into Roman letters. The Chinese character components are inputted in the order in which they would be written by hand. Wubi is used primarily by speed typists and those who use a keyboard a great deal, because it is fast. However, it requires special training and ongoing practice and its learning curve is quite steep. Most Chinese do not believe that it is worth the investment in time that learning the Wubi method requires.

The vast majority of computer users in the Peoples' Republic of China type out their words in transliteration, using the standard Roman alphabet keys on a QWERTY keyboard (which is prevalent throughout China). To generate a character, they type out its sound according to the same spelling system. This is the Pinyin method. Using standardized software in conjunction with the English language QWERTY keyboard, a Chinese can type in the word yuming (Pinyin) and ÓòÃûgets put into the document.

To accomplish this, they need to switch typing methods at least twice. For instance, to type ÓòÃû.com into the address blank, they need to:

Switch to Chinese typing mode by using "Ctrl+Shift" at least once, sometimes more.
Type Pinyin yuming , select ÓòÃû from a list of choices that appears for yuming, then
Switch back to English typing mode by using "Ctrl+Shift" or "Ctrl+Blank" , type .com, and then they¡¯re done.
Of course, longer or more complex words make this process all the more burdensome. Since they must use Pinyin anyway, they prefer to have the domain nomenclature in Pinyin so that no further work is necessary.

Pinyin is the official system of China; it is used on street signs, in brochures, and is taught in school as a required subject. Dictionaries are organized by Pinyin as well as by character. Even in Taiwan, people are using modified Tongyong Pinyin instead of Gwoyeu Romatzyh and Mandarin Phonetic Symbols II.

Pinyin has been accepted by the Library of Congress, The American Library Association, and most international institutions as the transcription system for Mandarin. In 1979, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) also adopted Pinyin as the standard romanization for Modern Chinese. Microsoft has integrated Pinyin into its Word software.

The use of Pinyin will become even more widespread as the Chinese becomes ever more comfortable with the Roman alphabet. China encourages its population to learn English and made English compulsory in primary schools from Grade 3 in 2001, while big cities such as Beijing and Shanghai have already introduced English at Grade 1. An estimated 176.7 million Chinese were studying English in 2005 within the formal education sector. As a result of these policies, China now produces over 20 million English speakers each year.

One seeking evidence of the Chinese present level of comfort using Pinyin need look no further than to Baidu.com, the Chinese search engine giant, whose name is taken from a Song Dynasty poem that ¡°compares the search for a retreating beauty amid chaotic glamour with the search for one¡¯s dream while confronted by life¡¯s many obstacles.¡± Baidu.com is the most-trafficked website in China and the fourth most-trafficked website in the world.

In a similar vain, virtually all of China¡¯s dominant Internet companies, such as Tencent, Netease and Shanda, are Pinyin-named,

Understandably, the use of Pinyin in URLs has greatly facilitated searches online for the Chinese speaking population throughout the world. Pinyin-based URLs vastly outnumber their Chinese character-based counterparts and all the major Chinese search engines use Pinyin as their primary search language.

The China Internet Network Information Center reported that there were 123M Internet users in China as of June 2006. New York's eMarketer say this figure is expected to grow to 200M by 2007, which would make China the largest Internet market in the world by the end of next year.

Increasingly, the Chinese are adopting the type-in method for searching, the use of which is now widespread among English speaking searchers. Typing-in is the practice of searching for information on the Internet by entering the query subject directly into the URL bar. This type-in traffic is also referred to as direct navigation. WebSideStory, a market research organization, reports that direct navigation has a conversion-to-sale rate which is almost double that of traditional search engine clicks.

For example, if a Chinese were interested in obtaining shopping information for a long weekend in Beijing, instead of performing a search-engine search for beijinggouwu (Pinyin for Beijing shopping), they would type-in beijinggouwu.com in the browser's address bar to quickly review the suitability of the site content.

Pinyin domain names are presently selling for pennies-on-the-dollar relative to their English language counterparts. Recently, the domain caopiao.com (lottery ticket) sold for the equivalent of around $4,600. It has been widely estimated that its English counterpart is worth in the very high $XX,XXX and possibly $XXX,XXX.

It is not our position that domains in Pinyin and English will reach a parity in value over the shorter term. We do feel, however, that the gap between the two will unquestionably narrow in the next year or two, thus making Pinyin domain names a very astute investment.

[DNWizardX9]

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Keep in mind the Chinese IDN investors aren't stupid either. Some of the top idners actually speak chinese as their native language and despise pinyin.

Pinyin-based URLs vastly outnumber their Chinese character-based counterparts and all the major Chinese search engines use Pinyin as their primary search language.

This is because until this year IE 7 wasn't around. Pre IE 7 required a plugin to view IDN urls. It is not a fair example. Pinyin urls could have been entered since the stone age since it only uses the latin character set.

[Named]

Inputting Chinese characters with keyboard devices designed for Western languages is not an easy task.

Uninformed nonsense.

[DomainDep.com]

What do u guys think about Japan and Korea? Both are using ABC for their web address, i think China will be the same imo.

[DNWizardX9]

What do u guys think about Japan and Korea? Both are using ABC for their web address, i think China will be the same imo.

Thats because IE 7 just got released a few months ago. It will take at least a year for most users to use the browser. The Koreans are very active on snapnames buying Korean IDN for x,xxx amounts. The Korean market is very strong and they have a few major korean domain forums.

[wrdekle]

What do u guys think about Japan and Korea? Both are using ABC for their web address, i think China will be the same imo.

Asian countries are only using ASCII domains because they lack any other choice. Now that IE7 will begin to spread, they will finally have the option to use domains in their own language. If you think the Japanese are comfortable with the alphabet you would be right, they use it as one of four different writing systems used in daily life. If you think the Japanese are comfortable with English spelling, you would be dead dead wrong. I know this strikes some folks as surprising but homo sapiens is not born with an innate sense of English spelling. Even 8 years of English education doesn't make them comfortable with it. How do you spell yahoo? Why bother just keep the search engine as a bookmark. How do you spell Amazon? Why bother just type it into yahoo.co.jp and click the first link. The Japanese do not type-in URLs today for one reason - they don't want to/can't type in English.

[DomainDep.com]

where do u guys reg for chinese idn???

[touchring]

What he said is not totally incorrect, but for marketing, branding purpose, and keyword SEO, the original chinese character is still better.

[picassoface]

Just curious... What do you think of the domain name Zhong-guo.com ? Would it be a good pinyin name or would Zhongguo.com be more Recognized in China ?

Xie Xie !!!

[Rubber Duck]

If you are investing in Pinyin, you are getting in as everyone else is getting out.

CNNIC is now earning substantially more from IDN than it is Pinyin names. It is also predicting that entire Chinese market will be IDN in two years.

Yes, this is a cultural and marketing issue primarily, but in China especially it politically driven. You may be surprised but there is also very strong government backing for IDN in India, because they at least recognise that the vast majority of Indians do not function well in English.

[netfounder]

Quote:
caopiao.com (lottery ticket)
It is wrong!
caipiao.com is correctly.caopiao means money
BTW
I want to say .
Pinyin is english character same,only differently ,abc is other meaning.
IDN is national language,non-ascii char.

Just curious... What do you think of the domain name Zhong-guo.com ? Would it be a good pinyin name or would Zhongguo.com be more Recognized in China ?

Xie Xie !!!

zhong-guo.com? rigister by youself or purchase from other people/
I dont think the domain worth much .
maybe eastern recognize,

[Bramiozo]

There's the matter of ambiguity with pinyin, every chinese character will have several correct phonetic translations to latin characters which (ironically) you pointed out with the argument of the dropdown menu.

[touchring]

Just curious... What do you think of the domain name Zhong-guo.com ? Would it be a good pinyin name or would Zhongguo.com be more Recognized in China ?

Xie Xie !!!

It doesn't work that way, there are no hyphens in chinese. All characters are stuck together.

Even Shanghai or Beijing, no one will write as Shang-hai, or Bei-jing.

[ChinaStar]

Regarding Chinese Pinyin Domains... I started out my domaining "career" buying up pinyin domains which to date have give me close to zero returns.

I own www.baihuogongsi.com which means www.departmentstore.com in Chinese and can be considered a premium

I also own www.baiwanfuweng.com which means www.millionaire.com in Chinese.

After finding out about IDNs it was hard to come to terms with the fact that I had been doing things wrong and that this was the future for the internationalization of the internet.

Pinyin names will go absolutely no where once IDNs kick off. Which is sometime about... now.

[Rubber Duck]

There's the matter of ambiguity with pinyin, every chinese character will have several correct phonetic translations to latin characters which (ironically) you pointed out with the argument of the dropdown menu.

Yes, the problem is that the alphabetic characters only give the basic sound without the pitch, as I understand it. Chinese is tonal language, so to totally clarify things you have to use the full version of Pinyin, which is more like Pin3Yin4. Don't get on to me with a correction on that as I don't speak the language, so I don't know the exact translation off hand, but I do know that not everyone we refer to has Wang has the same Chinese Surname, even though one form of Wang is the most popular name of all. In pinyin there will be Wang1, Wang2, Wang3 and Wang4.

As not everyone will be fully conversant with the full Pinyin, they effectively type in an approximation and select from a short list.

[Bramiozo]

How must I interpret the numbers, do they only pronounce the vowels ?

[Rubber Duck]

How must I interpret the numbers, do they only pronounce the vowels ?

As I understand it, and trust me I am no expert, I think the numbers give you the intonation to use whilst pronouncing the letters. You really need Giant in on this one to explain it properly.

...Having checked you can find at more at Wikipedia.org

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

Essentially the number after replace diacritic or tonal marks over the vowels.

In other words, without the numbers you would need IDN and special keyboard to properly type in Pinyin domains.

In short Pinyin is just another mechanism of ASCII self-delusionment!

[touchring]

How must I interpret the numbers, do they only pronounce the vowels ?

Numbers are Mandarin tones. Can be applied to any word, not just Chinese.

English words might also come in tones.

e.g.

Can1 - "Can"
Can2 - "Can..."
Can3 - "Can you".
Can4 - "Can!"

The Mandarin tones and standard accent are extremely difficult to master in actual usage, even Chinese from HongKong, Cantonese that migrated to Canada, UK, America might not be able to get the tones and accent correct even with considerable practice. In fact, the only sure way to get the correct accent is to learn it from very young. Henceforth, why we see some news reports of people hiring mainland chinese nannies to teach their babies.

[Rubber Duck]

Numbers are Mandarin tones. Applies to any word, not just Chinese.

English words might also come in tones.

e.g.

Can1 - "Can"
Can2 - "Can..."
Can3 - "Can you".
Can4 - "Can!"

The Mandarin tones and standard accent are extremely difficult to master in actual usage, even Chinese from HongKong, Cantonese that migrated to Canada, UK, America might not be able to get the tones and accent correct even with considerable practice. In fact, the only sure way to get the correct accent is to learn it from very young.

I acknowledge what you are saying about tonality in other languages, but between English and Chinese, I think there is a huge difference. In English tonality can be used to produce an interrogative, or shown sarcasm or to negate the meaning. My understanding though is that in Chinese it used to differentiate between many words that would otherwise be the same. We have puns in English and this is the basis for much humour. However, we can easily function without this tonality. My understanding is that with tonality Chinese would be chaos. In other words it is an integral dimension of the language. Without tonality, it would be very hard for the Chinese to communicate effectively.

[Mao xiaofei]

Hehe, I am a Chinese, I know pinyin domain name is not a good choice in China.