COLLAPSE OF the MOBI & IDN MARKETS -- the aftermath

[Gerry]

"Anything goes" doesn't work in global branding and marketing. In fact, it is the exact opposite of good marketing.

The point is to simplify, to make standard, to not complicate. and that is what DOTCOM does.

The only people who want IDNs and .MOBIs and Alt TLDs to work are the domain speculators. You can throw in few small business end users too.

Yeah, and a few small countries like Germany (.de), Netherlands (.nl), Japan (.jp), China (.cn).

The "anything goes" was for all these designer, clever, cutesy, and asinine ways of designating a site is mobile.

Again, being anti .mobi or lDN still has not stopped it from happening, has it.

[DaddyHalbucks]

Yeah, and a few small countries like Germany (.de), Netherlands (.nl), Japan (.jp), China (.cn).

The "anything goes" was for all these designer, clever, cutesy, and asinine ways of designating a site is mobile.

Again, being anti .mobi or lDN still has not stopped it from happening, has it.

Good examples. A few CC TLDs *have* been successful in their respective countries/ markets. But, they are still sideshows to the American/ global impact of DOTCOM.

I am not "anti" .MOBI. I am just a realist. It appears global corporations and the bulk of global consumers prefer DOTCOM.

As the titles suggests, the market for MOBIs and IDNs is not strong.

[acesfull]

What are we going to do with the potential thousands of TLD's to come?

Mainly ignore them.
Anyway, there won't be many.

[bwhhisc]

As the titles suggests, the market for MOBIs and IDNs is not strong.

The title by the original OP was just to stir conversation and controversy. Even DN101 is aware of some of the big ticket IDN sales, most behind the scenes. He in fact holds a pretty good portolio of IDNs. In terms of sales, lists of IDN sales including many x,xxx and xx,xxx are updated regularly at IDNTools.com.

Here is an article from today's Elliot's Blog entitled "Why IDNs should matter to Domain Investors".
Worth the read for those that might be interested in this emerging domain market.

http://www.elliotsblog.com/why-idns-...nvestors-53923

[MobileDesigner]

Realist!? and the others are not realists?! we are just imagining this!? poor you. You simply don't know and therefore your reality is that what you do not, doesn't exist.

[bwhhisc]

Yo OP....
Another batch of those stinkey "$10" IDNs still LIVE at auction...
I predict auction bids will keep on rising....still a good 48 hours to go.
徳島市.com, $262
武蔵野市.com $262
上尾市.com, $262
草加市.com,$242
小金井.com $100
伊勢崎.com $120
松島.com $182

This IDN auction is STILL going....as of today these two are getting some nice $$$$ bids.
Still a minumum of 48 hours to go....I think your IDN Myth is "Busted". BTW, did you read
what passed unanimously in Seoul at the ICANN meeting yesterday? Investors take note...

Latest bids...
伊勢崎.com $550
徳島市.com $850

[Rubber Duck]

"Anything goes" doesn't work in global branding and marketing. In fact, it is the exact opposite of good marketing.

The point is to simplify, to make standard, to not complicate. and that is what DOTCOM does.

The only people who want IDNs and .MOBIs and Alt TLDs to work are the domain speculators. You can throw in few small business end users too.

Corporations want simplicity, surfers want simplicity --and simplicity is DOTCOM.

Are you sure SIMPLICITY is not those who have managed to convince themselves that the rest of the World speaks English.

Most IDN are dot Coms and always will be.

[Banned: dn-101]

Rational approach to idn future?
And this is from the guy who goes bananas every day/every hour.
I can't think of any web development that succeeded just because one of the players screamed and made threats

[Rubber Duck]

Rational approach to idn future?
And this is from the guy who goes bananas every day/every hour.
I can't think of any web development that succeeded just because one of the players screamed and made threats

You can take it from me that ICANN will take little or no notice of what any domainer says or does. But what they say and do has a huge impact, especially when they very occasionally start responding to real needs. Much of what they are now doing is indeed the consequence of some serious coercion, but not that of domainers full of hot air. As with all market and investment, it is a question of acting on what you see and observe. If you don't watch development within the market and the policy development of those that regulate the markets, you haven't a chance in hell of capitalizing on the opportunities that develop. I would bet that most here wouldn't get more 2 out 10 on simple questions about the launch of New ASCII domains, let alone IDN. But to get the most out of this you need to understand how the global internet and economy is structured and developing. How the user base is developing and how the needs of the those users are going to be served. But when it comes to providing useful information, well DNF - clueless, Namepros - clueless, Traffics - clueless, sedo - clueless, DNJ - not really much idea. And why? Because these are essentially US oriented organisations and American Domainers are generally CLUELESS. Or was that putting the chicken before the egg?

[Banned: dn-101]

Most people rarely forget threats and intimidation.
This is your legacy

[Rubber Duck]

Most people rarely forget threats and intimidation.
This is your legacy

What being trolled by a raving nutter?

But, then again, wasn't that where all this started?

Good examples. A few CC TLDs *have* been successful in their respective countries/ markets. But, they are still sideshows to the American/ global impact of DOTCOM.

I am not "anti" .MOBI. I am just a realist. It appears global corporations and the bulk of global consumers prefer DOTCOM.

As the titles suggests, the market for MOBIs and IDNs is not strong.

But as they say Buy Low and Sell High. Current valuations are no guarantee of future worthlessness, except perhaps in the case of Dot Mobi. The point is the price is only ever going to change is there is some other change which is going to trigger it. Not clear how that might happen in the case of dot Mobi, you would need to be blind, deaf and dumb to have not noticed that there are developments in the IDN market.

[jaugusto]

I don't give a s* about this discussion. One think I know, my best .mobi have ZERO traffic, but my best idn.com have 5000 visitors daily. (parked)

[Fearless]

IDNs are getting a lot of press now. I saw a story on CNN today about IDNs. ICANN is putting it's stamp of approval on IDNs for one reason only, more money.

IDNs are doomed just like mobees. When 99+% of the inventory is owned by domainers, failure is certain. People that use funny characters will quickly tire of only getting parking pages and go back to using non-funny characters to navigate.

[Rubber Duck]

IDNs are getting a lot of press now. I saw a story on CNN today about IDNs. ICANN is putting it's stamp of approval on IDNs for one reason only, more money.

IDNs are doomed just like mobees. When 99+% of the inventory is owned by domainers, failure is certain. People that use funny characters will quickly tire of only getting parking pages and go back to using non-funny characters to navigate.

Yes, just so much easier to go out and learn Klingon or something. You guys are priceless!

[bwhhisc]

IDNs are doomed just like mobees. When 99+% of the inventory is owned by domainers, failure is certain.

Overall, that is way far from reality.

People that don't read English will certainly use domains in their native languages they can read and understand as will companies and advertisers.

IDNs are no different than ASCII names in how the market is predicted to develop, there are plenty of names and extensions for development and those with the resources will buy and develop .com and cctlds.

[Gerry]

I don't give a s* about this discussion. One think I know, my best .mobi have ZERO traffic, but my best idn.com have 5000 visitors daily. (parked)

Then you picked the wrong mobi if it is your "best".

[Seraphim]

Polish .pl and .com IDN are essential if you own and have developed the ASCII counterpart. Other than preventing traffic bleed by pairing them up, I don't foresee any serious Polish developers ever using an IDN as a stand alone domain, they usually opt for the ASCII counterpart instead. I own and use IDN in this "support" format, and in this role they will always have a use in Poland.

Hypothetical Example:

bizuteria.pl [top tier developed and search indexed website]
biżuteria.pl [non indexed domain using forwarding or a redirect]

krakow.com [top tier developed and search indexed website]
kraków.com [non indexed domain using forwarding or a redirect]

There are three reasons why you won't see the IDN used as the main search indexed domain in this case, with the ASCII as the support domain. The first reason is that ASCII has been the top tier standard for so long in Poland, that everyone seems to be set in their ways on it. The second reason is that ranking an ASCII within Google is easier, and you will encounter less problems. The third reason is that Poland is so close geographically to countries that use other language scripts, that they always use ASCII as top tier because it has international accessibility, whereas the IDN domain is restricted to domestic use obviously.

My 2 cents on the Polish IDN angle. Obviously many Polish IDN have huge value, and pull down hundreds or thousands of type-in traffic visitors per day. That isn't going to change anytime soon, and so they will always have trade value and some aftermarket appeal.

[jaugusto]

The second reason is that ranking an ASCII within Google is easier, and you will encounter less problems.

WRONG! I can show you some of my IDNS that beat the non IDN versions on ranking.

[Seraphim]

WRONG! I can show you some of my IDNS that beat the non IDN versions on ranking.

In my experience you can rank them without question, but they don't rank as easily, and as problem free as ASCII domains. I have experienced numerous indexing glitches, or problems with the IDN being improperly labeled, tagged, or cached. In other cases I have simply not been able to get the IDN indexed at all, and when trying to force the indexing via Google Webmaster Tools, the domain still can't be properly identified [which was strange, because the account recognized the same non ASCII characters in other IDN domains that I had]. I'm not saying these problems occur every time, but when it comes to ASCII domains I have never had any of those sorts of problems, and I've had thousands of domains indexed over the years.

Search promotion with IDN can also be problematic as well, where some blog and web editing software still won't recognize non ASCII characters, and any attempt at a link back ends in error. Many people that I know who operate blogs in Poland, still to this day do not know what a punycode for a Polish IDN domain is.

I am speaking exclusively about Polish IDN domains, and my experience with them. Outside of that language script, I have only briefly attempted to rank German and Romanian domains, though I don't have a large amount of experience pushing those character sets into the search engines. I have never attempted to rank any IDN outside of those three character sets.

[bwhhisc]

A few more Chinese IDN sales this week....once again the market dispells the topic of this thread.

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