Domain Speculation Tokyo Style!

Rubber Duck · Oct 18, 2005

Anyone who is really interested in what is going down in the Far East ought to check this out!

www.素敵な日本語ドメイン名.jp

Best Regards
Dave Wrixon

gpmgroup · Oct 18, 2005

dwrixon said:
Anyone who is really interested in what is going down in the Far East ought to check this out!

www.âfâGâÃâÃºâ{ÅÃªÆhÆÂÆCÆââÂ¼.jp

Best Regards
Dave Wrixon

hmmmm

The page cannot be displayed
The page you are looking for might have been removed or had its name changed.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please try the following:

Open the www.âfâGâÃâÃºâ{ÅÃªÆhÆÂÆCÆââÂ¼.jp home page, and then look for links to the information you want.

If you typed the page address in the Address bar, make sure that it is spelled correctly.

If you still cannot open the page, click the Internet Explorer
Search button to look for similar sites.

Rubber Duck · Oct 18, 2005

gpmgroup said:
hmmmm

The page cannot be displayed
The page you are looking for might have been removed or had its name changed.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please try the following:

Open the www.âfâGâÃâÃºâ{ÅÃªÆhÆÂÆCÆââÂ¼.jp home page, and then look for links to the information you want.

If you typed the page address in the Address bar, make sure that it is spelled correctly.

If you still cannot open the page, click the Internet Explorer
Search button to look for similar sites.

Works, when I click on it. Might be something to do with your computer settings, like using IE 6.0 without the IDN plug in. Actually, it forwards to this:

http://www17.ocn.ne.jp/~dom/

However, you will still have problems viewing if you do not have Far East character sets installed on your operating system.

Best Regards
Dave Wrixon

britishbulldog · Oct 19, 2005

dwrixon said:
Works, when I click on it. Might be something to do with your computer settings, like using IE 6.0 without the IDN plug in. Actually, it forwards to this:

http://www17.ocn.ne.jp/~dom/

However, you will still have problems viewing if you do not have Far East character sets installed on your operating system.

Best Regards
Dave Wrixon

Cant understand japanese ?

Rubber Duck · Oct 20, 2005

britishbulldog said:
Cant understand japanese ?

Neither can I!

Edwin · Oct 20, 2005

It's showing some examples of sites that are using Japanese-language IDN domain names as their primary URLs.

Personally, I think they're years ahead of reality and it can only hurt their business right now, as a huge number of people even in Japan can't reach that kind of URL. Maybe 5 years from now the can't see it contingent will be down to an acceptable fraction of the population, but right now they're just hurting themselves...

Olney · Oct 20, 2005

Actually I see it a bit different. As a designer who does some consulting on SEO I see it as a customized parking page for those domains. Google is already displaying IDN domain names natively in search results. 90% of the IDNs are not parked anywhere. This means when their site is launched the search engines will view it as a brand new site. It's it's 2 years later then it's 2 years of being spidered & pagerank can be built also backlinks.

I've put up a few no meaning pages on some of my IDNs too.
That's all I see it as.

Rubber Duck · Oct 21, 2005

Olney said:
Actually I see it a bit different. As a designer who does some consulting on SEO I see it as a customized parking page for those domains. Google is already displaying IDN domain names natively in search results. 90% of the IDNs are not parked anywhere. This means when their site is launched the search engines will view it as a brand new site. It's it's 2 years later then it's 2 years of being spidered & pagerank can be built also backlinks.

I've put up a few no meaning pages on some of my IDNs too.
That's all I see it as.

Yes, that is all I see it as, but it shows someone has bought a very large number of very expensive dot JP IDN and they don't even seem to be very high grade, as I went through some of the list to check their overture in case I wanted to register the dot coms. I didn't!

Best Regards
Dave Wrixon

Edwin said:
It's showing some examples of sites that are using Japanese-language IDN domain names as their primary URLs.

Personally, I think they're years ahead of reality and it can only hurt their business right now, as a huge number of people even in Japan can't reach that kind of URL. Maybe 5 years from now the can't see it contingent will be down to an acceptable fraction of the population, but right now they're just hurting themselves...

I think we are agreed that these are parking pages not business websites.

We agree that the access to sites with IDN as their primary URL particularly with dot com is still very limited. However, because EI 7.0 will roll out as an automatic update on XP Service Pack 2, it won't take 5 year for EI 6.0 to be consigned to the dust bin of history. 6 months from release of EI 7.0 is a more realistic estimate.

Best Regards
Dave Wrixon

Edwin · Oct 21, 2005

Except... how many businesses in Japan have upgraded to Windows XP? How many home users? And how many of those have the automatic updates configured correctly? I only have access to 1 Japanese site's logs, but that shows 69% of visitors have XP. So even if 100% update, that's still 31% of the market that's being lost.

Of course, over time things will get better, but it's not nearly as straightforward as you make it sound.

Rubber Duck · Oct 21, 2005

Edwin said:
Except... how many businesses in Japan have upgraded to Windows XP? How many home users? And how many of those have the automatic updates configured correctly? I only have access to 1 Japanese site's logs, but that shows 69% of visitors have XP. So even if 100% update, that's still 31% of the market that's being lost.

Of course, over time things will get better, but it's not nearly as straightforward as you make it sound.

Yes, but commercially that 31% is likely to be the least significant and those machines are pretty much obscelete and will be largely replaced in the next 12 months or so!

Most business will have Service Pack 2 for security reasons.

Anyway, it is a question of awareness. If you can get to 10-20% of the population fairly quickly and they like what they see, it won't belong before most of the rest are made aware pretty soon!

Best Regards
Dave Wrixon

Edwin · Oct 21, 2005

That's an idealistic view which is simply not how things work here in Japan.

Rubber Duck · Oct 21, 2005

Edwin said:
That's an idealistic view which is simply not how things work here in Japan.

Well new ideas can be difficult to sell. But how hard a sell is persuading them to use their own language instead of a foreign language that has up until now been a necessity because of inadequate systems and software?

I think it is the West that often holds the idealistic view. The French more than a century ago tried to get their language adopted as an international standard. They failed, mainly because their power and influence as a nation was in terminal decline.

It may seem difficult for some to imagine, but Britain's influence in the world is negligible. English dominates because the USA has been the economic and technological superpower. That is now clearly changing. America's influence is in steep decline. I would not go as far as to say it is terminal, but the momentum they would need to impose their language on the Far East just is not there!

Neither Japan or China is about to let their national culture and language become subservient to Anglo Saxon domination. It may take as little as 6 months or at worst as long as you predict 5 years, but it will come and the assumption in the places that matter already is that it is on its way. Whether it is slow train or an express, only time will tell.

Best Regards
Dave Wrixon

Limit$ · Oct 21, 2005

oh, japan japan please stop doing stupid things.

Olney · Oct 21, 2005

Edwin said:
That's an idealistic view which is simply not how things work here in Japan.

Hey Edwin maybe we can have a drink in Shibuya sometime. I just came back to Tokyo & believe that these will start being in use from next year (possibly end).

This is of course if the IE update comes out this year.

I'm saying this also from a biased position, I'm in a position to pitch campaigns to companies like Dentsu & Hakuhodo. After a first major portal starts using IDNs they will take off. Also some sites like kakaku.com people are trying to access it from typing in the kanji. If you use the OVT japan tool you'll see the stats.

Rubber Duck · Oct 22, 2005

Olney said:
Hey Edwin maybe we can have a drink in Shibuya sometime. I just came back to Tokyo & believe that these will start being in use from next year (possibly end).

This is of course if the IE update comes out this year.

I'm saying this also from a biased position, I'm in a position to pitch campaigns to companies like Dentsu & Hakuhodo. After a first major portal starts using IDNs they will take off. Also some sites like kakaku.com people are trying to access it from typing in the kanji. If you use the OVT japan tool you'll see the stats.

For those who are not set up to do this:

678,312 without extension
833,105 with extension.

No, I have got that right way round!

Best Regards
Dave Wrixon