.com or .jp example

[touchring]

and Canada doesn't even have that big of a population... i'm surprised russia isn't in the top 10

I would try not to believe in those GDP figures. The statistics for Russia will never be accurate - god knows how much of the income is not declared for tax evasion purpose.

For internet market, i would rather look at statistics like internet usage and broadband penetration. These provide better insight into future growth potential:

TOP COUNTRIES AS OF 2004 Q4 WITH
THE HIGHEST INTERNET DSL BROADBAND SUBSCRIBERS

http://www.internetworldstats.com/dsl.htm

 

[DNWizardX9]

I would try not to believe in those GDP figures. The statistics for Russia will never be accurate - god knows how much of the income is not declared for tax evasion purpose.

For internet market, i would rather look at statistics like internet usage and broadband penetration. These provide better insight into future growth potential:

TOP COUNTRIES AS OF 2004 Q4 WITH
THE HIGHEST INTERNET DSL BROADBAND SUBSCRIBERS

http://www.internetworldstats.com/dsl.htm

well from what I heard from a professor who is from Italy

In Italy everyone lies on taxes and only reports a fraction of what they brought in.

 

[DomainTurn.com]

I get traffic with a lot of my .jp

I think it might be the quailty of the term

like

attorney.jp is better than

attorneyjapan.com

but if i could get attorney.com i would give away my .jp

I like .jp alot but that is because i have some nice ones

 

[yanni]

I would try not to believe in those GDP figures. The statistics for Russia will never be accurate - god knows how much of the income is not declared for tax evasion purpose.

For internet market, i would rather look at statistics like internet usage and broadband penetration. These provide better insight into future growth potential:

TOP COUNTRIES AS OF 2004 Q4 WITH
THE HIGHEST INTERNET DSL BROADBAND SUBSCRIBERS

http://www.internetworldstats.com/dsl.htm

Yup, kinda hard to believe that Spain is on the list and Russia or even Brasil aren't.

 

[richard]

I would personally go for <foreign word> + .cn/.jp.tw
etc.. everytime. It's not even a question for me; the
truth is, .com is inextricably linked with the US around
the world and if you're in China or wherever why would
you not want the .cn, in preference to the .com?

The argument about .com being the king of extensions
all around the world is valid, but time often changes
sentiment and <all things being equal> I don't
understand why someone would want e.g. a Chinese
word coupled with a US TLD...

Oh, and what about national pride?.. (if I were in
China, and had the choice, I wouldn't give .com the
time of day).

Don't get me wrong, i'm not anti-.com, far from
it. I have about 30 generic <english> .com's and
I love them to death, but I don't think people
can say .com is 'one size that fits all'.

The .com/ccTLD battle may be a close run thing,
but my money is <quite literally> on the ccTLD.
In any event, there will likely be a market for
both extensions. We'll see...

Richard

 

[Anthony Ng]

Yes, .com is king OUTSIDE China. And since China has the capacity to change the Internet landscape, I wouldn't bet on IDN.com too much.

 

[A D]

Yes, .com is king OUTSIDE China. And since China has the capacity to change the Internet landscape, I wouldn't bet on IDN.com too much.

So NS, are you saying you would go for .cn instead of .com for IDN's?

-=DCG=-

 

[Anthony Ng]

So NS, are you saying you would go for .cn instead of .com for IDN's?

Yes, if I were to target the Chinese audience/market, I would prefer .cn.

 

[touchring]

Yes, if I were to target the Chinese audience/market, I would prefer .cn.

Do not jump to conclusions so quickly, someone on IDNF actually used Google to check the ratio of Chinese .com webpages versus .cn and found it to be almost in equal proportions (ctld only slightly more), similar case with .kr versus .com. However, the same cannot be said of .jp.

 

[richard]

Hi Touchring

I don't think anyone is jumping to conclusions
here, NS is simply expressing his personal
thought that he prefers the .cn suffix for
Chinese IDNs...

I know many IDN speculators have, as it
were, 'gone large' on IDN.com and so my
earlier comment may have been a little
unpalatable for them; it's important to
understand 'though, that it was just my
opinion and what actually happens could
easily go another way ;-)

To some degree, all IDN speculators are
playing in a big 'crapshoot' and, as always,
there will be winners and losers.

Richard

 

[Rubber Duck]

Hi Touchring

I don't think anyone is jumping to conclusions
here, NS is simply expressing his personal
thought that he prefers the .cn suffix for
Chinese IDNs...

I know many IDN speculators have, as it
were, 'gone large' on IDN.com and so my
earlier comment may have been a little
unpalatable for them; it's important to
understand 'though, that it was just my
opinion and what actually happens could
easily go another way ;-)

To some degree, all IDN speculators are
playing in a big 'crapshoot' and, as always,
there will be winners and losers.

Richard

I can only say that I have this afternoon received a serious enquiry from the PRC for the purchase of a Simplified Chinese IDN in dot com. I have several name in both extension as do others and the indications are that there is significantly more dot com type-in than dot CN type-in.

I am not trashing dot CN because in a country the size of China you could eventually sell several dozen extensions, but I think it is important to remember the localization function of the ccTLD is largely redundant as the language naturally gives relevant search results.

As far as winner are losers are concerned of course you are right, but for both extensions there are going to be a lot of big winners and in the short-term relatively few small time loosers. Most people are only playing with registration fees at the moment!

Best Regards
Dave Wrixon

 

[touchring]

Hi Touchring

I don't think anyone is jumping to conclusions
here, NS is simply expressing his personal
thought that he prefers the .cn suffix for
Chinese IDNs...

I know many IDN speculators have, as it
were, 'gone large' on IDN.com and so my
earlier comment may have been a little
unpalatable for them; it's important to
understand 'though, that it was just my
opinion and what actually happens could
easily go another way ;-)

To some degree, all IDN speculators are
playing in a big 'crapshoot' and, as always,
there will be winners and losers.

Richard

People in China will in most cases go for .com first. If they can't get the .com (which is often the case, especially when chinese sites like to use pinyin initials), they will go for .cn, and then .net last.

For example, a site like &#37329;&#34701;&#30028; or Jin Rong Jie (in Pinyin), they own jrj.com, jrj.com.cn, and jrj.cn, but they are branding their site as jrj.com.

It may seem inconceivable, but Chinese and Koreans are actually more pro-West than most people in the world and always try to associate themselves with anything western or rather "capitalist", especially American, like McDonalds, etc.

 

[richard]

Wow, sounds like you'll get a good sale
there, congratulations!

Again, I step down a little from my earlier
comment and agree that (currently) .com
probably is more popular for things such as
direct navigation.

Another good thing about .com is that you
do not need to concern yourself, necessarily,
with requirements that may possibly be imposed
upon idn.cctld's (e.g. idn.cn) in the future.

All the best with your .com's, I am sure you
will all do very well

Richard

 

[puxa2]

Exactly, and in the future the .com may be dnamed to a chinese Verisign extension (.idn) ending as well - likely different than the i-dns.net extension currently offered (remains to be seen what will happen in that respect).

 

[Anthony Ng]

It may seem inconceivable, but Chinese and Koreans are actually more pro-West than most people in the world and always try to associate themselves with anything western or rather "capitalist", especially American, like McDonalds, etc.

I guess when we talk about China in particular, the stance of the GOVERNMENT and not that of the people is of primary concern here. That is why .cn (which is relatively under more control of the Chinese government than .com) will remain the baby.

 

[Yojimbo]

"Exactly, and in the future the .com may be dnamed to a chinese Verisign extension (.idn) ending as well - likely different than the i-dns.net extension currently offered (remains to be seen what will happen in that respect)."

This is possible - if Verisign and ICANN keep control. Or, it could go completely toward the i-dns.net direction and China could hypothetically keep native Chinese from even accessing .com or .net. Aren't they moving toward that now? In fact, aren't they using their own IDN style extension that is, in essence, .com but does not map to .com? So, if a native Chinese surfer types your IDN.com they will not end up at your site. They will end up at IDN.IDN under the Chinese root zone overlay.

It's interesting to say the least, and, if other countries such as Russia and Japan move in the same direction it will get very confusing and IDN.com's may suffer some of the consequences.

Originally I felt that a chinese IDN.cn would be better than a chinese IDN.com. But now... with the development of the chinese IDN.IDN that doesn't map to .com, it seems impossible to tell what is going to happen over time. Especially if other countries follow china's lead.

 

[touchring]

"Exactly, and in the future the .com may be dnamed to a chinese Verisign extension (.idn) ending as well - likely different than the i-dns.net extension currently offered (remains to be seen what will happen in that respect)."

This is possible - if Verisign and ICANN keep control. Or, it could go completely toward the i-dns.net direction and China could hypothetically keep native Chinese from even accessing .com or .net. Aren't they moving toward that now? In fact, aren't they using their own IDN style extension that is, in essence, .com but does not map to .com? So, if a native Chinese surfer types your IDN.com they will not end up at your site. They will end up at IDN.IDN under the Chinese root zone overlay.

It's interesting to say the least, and, if other countries such as Russia and Japan move in the same direction it will get very confusing and IDN.com's may suffer some of the consequences.

Originally I felt that a chinese IDN.cn would be better than a chinese IDN.com. But now... with the development of the chinese IDN.IDN that doesn't map to .com, it seems impossible to tell what is going to happen over time. Especially if other countries follow china's lead.

China has 3 sets of IDN.IDN launched in 2003.

IDN.Network -> this is mapped to IDN.Network.cn.
IDN.Company -> this is mapped to IDN.Company.cn.
IDN.China -> this is mapped to IDN.cn.

All 3 are distinct from IDN.com. What mapping are you talking about?

Some statistics from Google:

site:*.cn Results 1 - 10 of about 51,200,000 Chinese (Simplified) pages
site:*.com Results 1 - 10 of 45,000,000 Chinese (Simplified) pages
site:*.net Results 1 - 10 of 8,410,000 Chinese (Simplified) pages

.cn also includes .com.cn -
site:*.com.cn Results 1 - 10 of 15,800,000 Chinese (Simplified) pages

I guess when we talk about China in particular, the stance of the GOVERNMENT and not that of the people is of primary concern here. That is why .cn (which is relatively under more control of the Chinese government than .com) will remain the baby.

Not true, they can't control what domains people use.

Before anyone jumps to conclusion again, please take 10-15 seconds to look at the Alexa top 100 Chinese sites:
http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_sites?ts_mode=lang&lang=zh_gb2312

Perhaps a quarter of these Alexa top 100 Chinese sites are also in the Alexa top 100 list. Many of them have their sites in Pinyin.com (romanized) form, and would gladly brand their site in IDN.com. People go for .cn because they can't get or are unwilling to acquire the .com equivalent.


Finally, what i am trying to say is that the Chinese market is big enough to accommodate various extensions and there won't be a case whereby any one of them will dominate - none of them will have more than, or even close to 50% market share - as is the case for extensions like .uk, .jp and .de. Neither IDN.com nor IDN.IDN (CNNIC's) will dominate, that's for sure.

In fact, ironically, there's another thread blasting IDN.IDN as junk domain, also people jumping to conclusions without checking up - http://www.dnforum.com/f5/sell-com-registered-until-march-2008-a-thread-136596.html?highlight=idn

 

[puxa2]

CNNIC and ICANN are working together:

http://english.people.com.cn/200603/03/eng20060303_247684.html

http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;565784098;fp;16;fpid;0

 

[touchring]

CNNIC and ICANN are working together:

http://english.people.com.cn/200603/03/eng20060303_247684.html

http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;565784098;fp;16;fpid;0

Let's put it this way, many of us have missed the brick and mortar opportunity in China - people that made it in China are those that jumped in directly after Tiananmen. Most of them Taiwanese and Hong Kong firms that built the factories that are export to America/Europe OEM the past 5-8 years, and now starting to export direct in their own brands.

I was still in school then, but i'm determined this time not to miss out on the idn opportunity.

 

[puxa2]

I haven't invested in Chinese IDNs myself. I agree that it is a huge, huge market and there may be different ways to play.