Developing out .in names has issues

[DotComGod]

So I have been working on a strategy to develop out .in names.

Take rog.in for example, rog in Hindi means diseases.

From speaking to MANY different poeple in india, it seems most people that would go to rog.in would be looking for an english version of the site. If this is true for most cctld's it is definitely something to think about.

There argument is most people now getting on the net that can afford computers now speak english.

Can I get some thoughts from some of our members from India, is this fact or will the be looking for Hindi sites?

-=DCG=-

[FuseFX]

And another argument is that here particularly in India most people expect better and wider quality of information to be availabel in english rather than the local language. Plus, we don't have the availability of local keyboards -- we only get english keyboards. So that's another reason as it is not very easy to write local languages on screen.

[Compassion]

Originally Posted by Lord Brar

And another argument is that here particularly in India most people expect better and wider quality of information to be availabel in english rather than the local language. Plus, we don't have the availability of local keyboards -- we only get english keyboards. So that's another reason as it is not very easy to write local languages on screen.

May I ask, Based on your experience/opinion - what % of Indians are fluent or near fluent in English?

I know English is one of the national languages as per the British occupation

[adityas]

Originally Posted by Lord Brar

And another argument is that here particularly in India most people expect better and wider quality of information to be availabel in english rather than the local language. Plus, we don't have the availability of local keyboards -- we only get english keyboards. So that's another reason as it is not very easy to write local languages on screen.

Absolutely! English Keyboards is a vital point here.

Adaptation towards using a Computer in the English speaking community far outdoes the hindi or local speaking communities.

Besides, Even though Hindi is our national language, it is rarely used Down South, in places like Bangalore and Chennai, and Cochin, where you may expect to get a large audience to your website from.

English is the way to go, even if you have a domain name which means something in Hindi

Regards,
Aditya

Originally Posted by Compassion

May I ask, Based on your experience/opinion - what % of Indians are fluent or near fluent in English?

I know English is one of the national languages as per the British occupation

Fluency is subjective in my opinion.

Quality is not an evaluating factor when determinig the wide use and range of a certain language.

[Compassion]

Originally Posted by adityas

Absolutely! English Keyboards is a vital point here.

Adaptation towards using a Computer in the English speaking community far outdoes the hindi or local speaking communities.

Besides, Even though Hindi is our national language, it is rarely used Down South, in places like Bangalore and Chennai, and Cochin, where you may expect to get a large audience to your website from.

English is the way to go, even if you have a domain name which means something in Hindi

Regards,
Aditya




Fluency is subjective in my opinion.

Quality is not an evaluating factor when determinig the wide use and range of a certain language.

You are right

Fluency is very subjective...

Better stated - how many people in India read/write and speak English well?

(%?)

Perhaps rural vs cities and an overall estimate


Also a subjective opinion

[DomainLobe]

Interesting DCG that you are developing .IN names!

By many measures .India will be at the forefront of the next economic surge and as we have seen during this global recession, the internet has held up very well and in fact online innovation persists unabated.

Good Luck.

[vikrantjain22]

English is spoken from the guy at the lowermost strata to the the guy at the top, what differs is their use of the language, understanding and putting the phonetics of the language to correct use.

Development of .in names with content in English would be a much better perspective than develop them in Hindi. One good example would be to check out the following Website www.webduniya.com

Its a exclusive Hindi Portal serving the needs of the people not fluent in English or comfortable reading in Hindi. You can have a occasional standalone like that targeting the age bracket of 50-80 years bracket who would be more comfortable surfing the net in hindi BUT at the same time you would be discarding 80% of the younger generation to your site who would anyday like to surf a website in English rather than Hindi.

You also need to understand the Indian education system where English is the primary language (Urban and Semi Urban) and Hindi comes as a second language, so in effect most of the youngsters in the age bracket of 12-24 might be excellent and fluent in English but may not be able to write a single sentence in Hindi, without spelling mistakes.

Along with that given the Credit card, Cell phone and ready Cash penetration among the same age group you would be well off making a pitch at these guys in English rather than Hindi and convert a lot of eyeballs into paying Customers.

My belief is based on the trend I see on my website esiksha.com, catering to the same age group and tracking the habits and usage data of close to 100,000 youngsters.

The best advantage India has today in terms of Surfing population is that 80% are in the growing or working age group which is increasing daily, waiting to explode exponentially. So if anyone can target this age group, you have a gold mine waiting to be explored.

[mediawizard]

I'd stick to English too and have.

I dont know major figures but from an educated guesstimate i'd assume that 90% of the online population reads and writes english.

That is enough imho to develop exclusively in English. Plus the fragmentation of the left over population would make it commercially untenable.

[sashas]

There is one other major point when it comes to developing "Hindi" domains: there are more often than not, several words in the Hindi language that mean the exact same thing. What is common in the dictionary and in books is rarely common in the spoken tongue.

For instance, "Rog" does mean disease, but this word is hardly ever used in common day to day speech. The more frequently used word is "bimari". "Rog" is used in newspapers and books and official speech. Your internet users are more likely to use "bimari".

Thus, you can never be sure about the level of popularity of a hindi term unless and until you have lived in India and know the language

[ecomindia]

IN-teresting.

Some basic facts:
IN - 1,147,995,898 population
Area: 3,166,944 sq km
Capital City: New Delhi - GNI p.c.US$ 620 ('04), per World Bank
60,000,000 Internet users as of Sept/07, 5.2% penetration, per ITU
3,130,000 broadband Internet connections as of Mar.31/08, per TRAI (the telecom regulation body...)

Hindi is the mother tongue of about 20% of the Indian population in the area known as the 'Hindi-belt' or the 'cow-belt' of northern India. This includes the states of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand/Uttaranchal, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Chhatisgarh and Rajasthan. Haryana and Himachal Pradesh also have Hindi as their official language. Like the other languages of the north, Hindi is of Indo-Aryan origin. But in south India, it's quite a different scene altogether. The Dravidian languages bear little resemblance to their Indic or Indo-Aryan counterparts.

English enjoys a special status and remains the additional official language of India. It is the authoritative legislative and judicial language. In fact, one could say that English is the official language of India for all practical purposes

IF we see the latest stats, India is ranked #2 next to US with the most # of english language . And again, as per the enlish speakers/capita , India is 11th at 10%.

This considering, that the eighth schedule of the Indian constitution recognizes 22 languages beside many 100 local, tribal and ancient languages spoken across

I just am very shocked to see few countries who only speak ENGLISH, do not have any history / culture and still have 5%-50% people speaking forgien languages

We are a diverse nation and Today we are celebrating our Republic Day

[MoonlightMedia]

Are you saying he would be better off with diseases.in then rog.in or vice versa?

[ecomindia]

definitely YES!

Till the time number of hindi speaking internet users with supported gadgets in India increases at much higher level

Like english has so many synonymns, hindi words too have synonymns for many (and in India, hindi + basic urduis spoken together ) specially in North India

[audi]

if most of the internet users speak english, why we need to develop any .ins, .com's are in english, and indian's are used to using .com websites anyway.

developing in hindi or local languages makes more sense I guess. Like chinese.

[rokoroko]

I am just considering the right approach to develop my DirtBike(s)in + co.in domain names.

I am prepared to use the regular english language on the website(s), actually I havent think about any other options like Hindi.

maybe some ebay affiliate with BANS script?

rokoroko

[ecomindia]

i am making this dead thread little active again.

i was going through the .in and .co.in sites of some famous brands..
no where , and literally meaning no where is much support of multilingual.
3-5% (which are manily web based companies - PORTALS i should be saying) do support , else auto companies, beverages, clothing, jewellery, internet and technologies do not have multi-lingual support.

As I did mentioned earlier, regional and local speaking internet users are too low and most of them are english speaking o r rather say english understanding visitors.

still, Indian companies are struggling not only for multi-lingual transition but also for tech support interms of infrastructure and resources

But, Indians (specially internet literate and regular/frequent users) are now having a very clear perception of OUR COUNTRY DOMAIN (they do not understand extention or TLD or any techy stuff).

What there understanding is "DOMAINS ENDING WITH .IN is INDIAN SITE OF THE BRAND THEY ARE LOOKING AT".

ANd I have noticed, even i do that... example mcdon####s.com, i try it with mcdon####s.co.in to check the indian variation!!

You all just need to concentrate on
1) DOMAIN NAME QUALITY
2) ENGLISH LANGUAGE IS A SURE PLUS PLUS AND DO NOT THINK OF MULTI LINGUAL
3) THINK INDIAN AND INDIAN CUSTOMER BEHAVIOUR (note U in the word)

Follow UK ENGLISH completely, no US english.

WIll add more after i AM through with shower and then dinner

[Geek]

I can see most of the companies are advertising in television using .in & Co.in names only..