IDNs...Where You Stand on These?

[DryHeat]

For last several days, I've noticed a sharp increase in new threads by some select members who are obviously very enthused about developments in the IDN arena. Being in the same shoes myself, like many others here, I definitely can relate to the excitement one feels when finally there are signs of fruitation for one's speculative investments. However, unlike most prior developments relevant to domainers (release of new tlds like .info & .biz, opening up of ccTlds like .us & .in, pending release of geo-specific tld .euro, etc) I find myself quite aloof to all this apparent excitement regarding IDNs. My hunch is that I'm not alone in this. So, rather than keep on wondering I'd like to ask other regular domainers like myself, the folllowing:

1. Are you already, or planning to get, into IDNs?
2. Do you feel that from a practical standpoint, a pure English-only domainer can make intelligent speculative investments in IDNs?
3. What are the chances that like many other MS products in the past IE7 has significant issues in regards to IDNs and a reverse-decision is made to drop them?
4. What is the realistic aftermarket potential for such investments? I think this is very relevant since despite some sales here and there so far we have not seen any significant/consistent aftermarket events for either .cn or .in. , the two prime candidate countries for IDNs.
5. Are there reliable tools for an English-only domainer to use to speculate in IDNs, and if so where?

I hope we could get some useful and informative posts here in this thread to educate those of us who have not yet wet our feet with IDNs to decide once and for all whether this is our cup of tea or not?

 

[Dale Hubbard]

Good post, DryHeat. Yes, there are some staunch advocates of the IDNs -- some members are highly enthusiastic as indicated by their post count on the subject. I remain doubtful that a large portfolio will reap rewards, but I will be pleased to be proved wrong. They are either pioneers and true entrepreneurs or hopeful gamblers. I don't own any; nor do I plan to for a good while. Just my 2c.

 

[none]

1. 300+
2. It was much easier even a few months ago when IDN was amazingly still under the radar. I fumble around in Japanese and speak Cantonese but do not write and thus I've made many mistakes. That said, ironically, my Russian domains are some of my best. So, yes, it is possible to make intelligent speculative investments but the window for the obvious money-terms has closed. Seek off the beaten track and you may find what you're looking for.
3. In my humble opinion, this cannot happen. Microsoft is desperate for growth and highest growth is ex-US.
4. Aftermarket potential will be a function of traffic (I know you know that, but I said it anyway!). My Japanese domains have a combined overture score of about 10,000,000, so if it works, it'll be apparent.
As you can tell, my bet is that it works. Some of my IDN are paying for themselves with traffic from countries that have a higher proportion of Firefox use. Firefox resolves IDN correctly.

5. Yes -- any translator, dictionary and the usual suspects like overture inventory tool. Append ?mkt=xx to the overture URL with the country code replacing xx.

テニス (tennis - JP)
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/?mkt=jp&term=テニス

Edit: I should also add that in 2000-2001 a couple of larger entities paid $70 a piece for over 40,000 of the best IDN in multiple languages in .COM. They've paid hundreds per domain in reg fees per domain since then, so they won't be selling them anytime soon. Supply for the best names on the reseller market is tight.

 

[dillpupp]

1) Already in,300+ IDN's.I was fascinated by IDN's a few years ago which led me into domaining in the first place.
2) Absolutely.I took French and Spanish in high school,so I started there and now I'm slowly picking up Turkish.For Chinese/Japanese there's some decent translators online.
3) This isn't even on a radar of possibility IMO,IDN's are way too widespread already.
4) I've already made $XXXX sales on IDN's,and get offers on my top names weekly.I'm making most of my money on parking though.My 300+/- IDN's get about 100,000 visitors/$3500 per month.They are mostly European,but I have a few nice Chinese keywords too.
5) Even the standard Overture tool is a good tool to find IDN's.IDN's with Overture with extension are quite common in many languages.Some of mine:gamzeözçelik.com,téléton.com,bailandoporunsueño.com,özgürgündem.com.The second name is actually a typo IDN with OVT...that should say alot for IDN usage.
Babelfish is good choice for easy translating and http://sebi.axone.ch/idn/ is great for IDN conversions.
Most of the good stuff is long gone,but if your good you can still get some nice IDN's.Plus IDN's drop everyday just like any other domains.I picked up Multimédia.com on a drop last year (French) and get offers all the time on it.IDN's do naturally take a little more work to understand,but definetly worth the effort IMO.

 

[Domagon]

[*]Are you already, or planning to get, into IDNs?

Have about 100 IDNs and buying more all the time.

[*]Do you feel that from a practical standpoint, a pure English-only domainer can make intelligent speculative investments in IDNs?

It's possible, but one needs to be very careful of definitions ... some languages have multiple spellings / symbols for the same word due to gender, usage, etc. Google's translation tool and similar leave much to be desired - many definitions don't reflect real-world usage and/or are ambiguous.

[*]What are the chances that like many other MS products in the past IE7 has significant issues in regards to IDNs and a reverse-decision is made to drop them?

IDNs are here to stay, but with significant restrictions in how they will be treated by various applications, in particular web browsers.

For example, an IDN that contains characters from multiple character sets (ie. English and Russian) are subject to being highlighted / blocked; IDNs are now required to have a language tag ... those that have invalid tags may at some point may be subject to being deregistered in some limited instances - with that said, there are various legitimate reasons for mixing languages, but again to be clear, most software, such as MSIE 7, will highlight / block them by default.

[*]What is the realistic aftermarket potential for such investments? I think this is very relevant since despite some sales here and there so far we have not seen any significant/consistent aftermarket events for either .cn or .in. , the two prime candidate countries for IDNs.

I view IDNs, even in .COM, as being more like glorified ccTLDs ... thus as a group will have limited value compared to traditional A-Z only domains, especially in .COM.

I'm running into a lot of issues that many IDN folks aren't discussing - probably because they've not consider them ...

Various issues / threats / questions:

?? The existance of numerous diverse dialects, even totally different languages, etc in the same country ... it's among the reasons that English dominates in some areas; some natives, even if they can understand a particular dialect, will sometimes speak a totally non-native language, such as English, instead to avoid risk of offending the other party. One can't assume one language dominates an entire region - languages can also overlap many areas ... it's one of the reasons some are pushing for language / culture based TLDs, such as .CAT (among the dumbest ideas ever, but that's another discussion for the .CAT thread running here on DNF).

?? An IDN that contains western european characters that very close matches a non IDN ... ie. cafe.com verses café.com ... what happens? Will the IDN be highlighted / blocked by default? ... likely an easy UDRP target? ... introduction of a new IDN specific dispute procedure? -perhaps there already is one?

?? Trademark issues ... ie. an IDN that is similar / exact to a trademark in another country ... less obvious, what about an IDN that translates to that of a trademarked word / phrase? -I believe there's a thread discussing such an issue now on one of the other boards here.

?? language variants (more applicable to asian languages, etc) related issues ... how good / stable are the various language variant tables?

?? what happens when a language variant table changes? -how are conflicts handled?

?? what happens if a character variant (an IDN [IDL package] technically can comprise multiple character variants [code points]) is released? ... does the current registrant get first dibs? ... even if yes, it may not be quite that simple if a character variant occurs in numerous permutations.

?? What happens if a reserved character variant is changed to a preferred character variant? - while such a change would have little to no effect on affected IDNs (IDL packages), it could result in the appearance of some IDNs changing ... probably not a biggie compared to some other issues, but one to be aware of.

?? How reliable, especially for those in languages with numerous character variants, will IDN domain resolution be? ... IDN resolution depends on much client-side APIs.

?? How well will IDN resolution APIs be regulated ... I can easily envision scenerios in which a web browser and/or other applications (email, IM, etc) implement resolution differently ... ie. adding and/or ignoring one or more valid language associations for a particular IDN / converting similar-looking western european characters to standard A-Z characters, etc. A related concern is language table management - I'm a little hazy on if the tables will be internally stored by each app or remotely loaded for each session, etc.

Rambling on, but there are a lot of things that one needs to be aware of with IDNs.

[*]Are there reliable tools for an English-only domainer to use to speculate in IDNs, and if so where?

I've not seen any. With that said, there are some IDN specific message boards out there that have many members who specialize in IDNs, and are in the process of developing / refining various IDN related tools.

I hope we could get some useful and informative posts here in this thread to educate those of us who have not yet wet our feet with IDNs to decide once and for all whether this is our cup of tea or not?

IDNs are definitely worth considering ... but, in my view, don't bet the ranch on them. IDNs are best suited for applications in which a standard A-Z domain is far less than ideal, such as for Chinese and Japanese domains. In contrast, western european IDNs are a potential minefield; have limited value.

A lot of information ... hope this helps.

Ron

 

[Rubber Duck]

1. 2000 Plus
2. No language skills in any of the relevant languages. Have totally ignored French in which I was once reasonably fluent.
3. Absolutely Nil.
4. There potential is in line with the markets they serve. That is why you get regular bulletins on the Chinese Economy, which will in the medium term be the World's largest.
5. There are libraries full of information at [DELETED]. Its membership has leapt 22% in as many hours. If you don't think there is a landrush going on here, then you are probably in a minorty. In overall membership it is a lot small than DNForums. In terms of the number of posts per day, it now probably more significant.

Best Regards
Dave Wrixon

 

[WhoDatDog]

My guess is that most people investing in these names will get detroyed (financially). People are buying these names with absolutely no understanding of the words. They don't understand the subtle nuances that make the words valuable....or not. It's pretty much a dotcom world....you don't see too many UDRP cases involving names other than Dotcom (guess what that means). Hopefully they keep buying them though because that leaves more of the Dotcom names for me. Dotcom gets stronger every day because of all of this. There are exceptions to every rule but my money is on WIPEOUT.

 

[DryHeat]

Now, this is what I feel is a series of useful, informative posts on IDNs...Thank you all for pitching in; special thanks to Domagon (Ron) for his detailed, balanced and insightful post.

 

[Rubber Duck]

My guess is that most people investing in these names will get detroyed (financially). People are buying these names with absolutely no understanding of the words. They don't understand the subtle nuances that make the words valuable....or not. It's pretty much a dotcom world....you don't see too many UDRP cases involving names other than Dotcom (guess what that means). Hopefully they keep buying them though because that leaves more of the Dotcom names for me. Dotcom gets stronger every day because of all of this. There are exceptions to every rule but my money is on WIPEOUT.

Some of today's registrations in Tamil. Please explain what you mean by subtle nuances:

xn--clc3aa5bg3a3obd.com வர்த்தகம் Business
xn--clca7bxab2d1ebd6fqz.com பொழுதுபோக்கு Entertainment
xn--hlcka4d8hc.com சட்டம் Law
xn--rlca2ach6a0fc0ie.com மருத்துவம் Medicine
xn--mlca0cpj0dev2dvc.net விளையாட்டு Sport

Best Regards
Dave Wrixon

 

[Olney]

I'm the owner of "the other place"
I'm actually helping with translation & seeing if these IDN domains have value.
I think that all my members can agree I basically taught members how to refine their search strategy even if they don't speak the language. I thought some things were obvious since I'm bilingual but they weren't.

My standpoint is I first made the first resource for IDN domains, then I'll develop the second stage of that also.

So most of these guys are not just registering everything under the site. They have quality, real quality.

I only own 37 IDN domain all Japanese & 20 of them collectively are worth a mint...

& I am saying this from a currently living in Tokyo, & working for an internet related company in Japan.

 

[touchring]

Well, lots of arguments.

I think anyone playing with IDN will be "detroyed financially" only if they are speculators - and expect IDNs to become successful overnight with the launch of IE7.

OTOH, if they are investors, like our Mr Olney - he got only 37 generic IDNs, paying 37 x $7 for another 3-4 more years (IE8 will be out by then) would hardly destroy him financially.

It's a time game.

 

[none]

Well, lots of arguments.
...and expect IDNs to become successful overnight with the launch of IE7.

Well said touchring. And good thread DryHeat.

I'll add this: current prices are predictive of the market. I've bought a couple in the aftermarket already, and so have some domainers I know.

Even though it may be the usual suspects replying to your thread, if you do a little digging, you'll see some old-hats long IDN -- and incredibly premium IDN at that. They were laying low to pick up the low-hanging fruit.

The word is now out. Sorry.

 

[Domagon]

Addendum: Some additional comments / thoughts ...

Each IDN has a language association. This is a point that many people do not fully understood / glossover. MSIE, and many other applications for that matter, are configured with default language association(s) regardless of how many character sets are installed on one's computer.

The characters considered part of a language association is subject to change anytime; some applications may choose to ignore / add characters on their own accord.

Some examples:

MSIE for most U.S. users are set to English default only. Where it gets sticky is that some select characters outside the traditional A-Z characters, such as é may be considered part of the language set ... so when someone types in say café.com where should the user be directed? café.com (silently or should browser warn?) or perhaps instead directled to cafe.com ... or possibly neither, and instead be presented with a warning. Lots of questions that remain up in the air - western european IDNs are a trainwreck waiting to happen ... be forewarned!

On an aside, Overture scores can be really misleading for western european IDNs ... it appears some characters are grouped together with latin a-z characters. I recently came across a real-life example for an IDN that a seller claimed had an OVT with extension of nearly 2000 ... yet it appears the OVT includes that of the standard A-Z domain, which is a popular website, not the IDN. Furthermore the seller acknowledged the IDN in question gets very little traffic, which tends to confirm my suspicions that OVT scores can't be relied upon for western european IDNs without much additional verification.

MSIE for most German users is set to German language by default. Many of the same issues as with English default above, but with an added twist, english may also be setup by default too ... that adds a level of complexity and ambiguity.

MSIE for most Canadian users is set to English, and often French too. Where it gets sticky, beyond the issue of more than one default language association, is the order will vary ... some with English set as primary, some with French set as primary.

MSIE for most Japanese users is set to Japanese, and possibly other languages too such as English.

In short, western european IDNs are likely result in much confusion and ambiguity while Asian IDNs, in comparison, by and large have relatively few issues in regards to confusion with current standard A-Z domains - it appears that asian IDNs are likely to be more widely adopted, and function as originally envisioned.

IDNs, even in .com, are akin to glorified ccTLDs ... this will become even more appearant when language translated TLDs (ie. com would appear in the same language as the rest of the IDN) are introduced - then an IDN really will, in a sense, look like a ccTLD.

The standard A-Z characters (and also 0-9, and -) are WILD and will work in all languages without warnings / blocking, etc. No IDN can match that universal functionality...

For example a company, etc that advertises a domain name world-wide either has to register zillions of IDNs and hope the language associations of users matches their expectations; even in an area that seems simple, such as the U.S. and Canada there can be multiple languages (and default orders) to account for, such as English, French, and Spanish.

To be clear, IDNs are here to stay and have some value, but I predict that sales of standard A-Z domains will really skyrocket, since many companies, etc that register particular IDN(s) will also want to own the related / equivalent standard A-Z domain(s) too.

Ron

 

[Rubber Duck]

IDNs, even in .com, are akin to glorified ccTLDs ... this will become even more appearant when language translated TLDs (ie. com would appear in the same language as the rest of the IDN) are introduced - then an IDN really will, in a sense, look like a ccTLD.

The standard A-Z characters (and also 0-9, and -) are WILD and will work in all languages without warnings / blocking, etc. No IDN can match that universal functionality...


Ron

Nice work on the whole, but before you get too smug try Googling this "三"

I have actually asked to have my membership cancelled, so I shall not reply again.

Best Regards
Dave Wrixon

 

[touchring]

It won't happen overnight but it is inevitable - i think everyone knows that. Even the cTLDs in Asia and some European countries are supporting IDNs, and with Google/Firefox bearing upon Microsoft - how to turn back??

 

[Sarcle]

Nice work on the whole, but before you get too smug try Googling this "三"

I have actually asked to have my membership cancelled, so I shall not reply again.

Best Regards
Dave Wrixon

The standard A-Z characters (and also 0-9, and -) are WILD and will work in all languages without warnings / blocking, etc. No IDN can match that universal functionality

2nd google listing for ASAIN char. "三" for 3:

Welcome to 3
Third generation (3G) mobile network. Features service and handset details,
coverage map, ordering and price guide.
www.three.co.uk/ - 31k - Cached - Similar pages

hm... what's wild and universal? What can't match the functionality? They surely can. They already do.

Great work Dave. To bad we are losing you here. :laugh:

 

[none]

So DryHeat -- how was IDN hunting?

mole has been conspicuously absent too!

 

[Sarcle]

So DryHeat -- how was IDN hunting?

mole has been conspicuously absent too!

Most of the "old-timers" and many of the "noobs" have yet to come out of the closet about idns. Even though I know for a fact a few of them are investing big.

Happy hunting.

 

[DryHeat]

So DryHeat -- how was IDN hunting?

Thanks for asking but after some considered contemplation I've decided to stay out, not necessarily because I'm not convinced of their future potential but primarily due to the fact that having had spent pretty much all of my spare time in (new-tld) domaining over these last 4-5 years (that have just recently started showing results) I don't find myself with the drive and energy to jump into yet another new area of domaining that I have absolutely no knowledge about. I wish good luck to those who decided to get in at the right time; I can relate to the feeling quite well being myself there for .info, .biz and .us....k:

 

[mole]

mole has been conspicuously absent too!

sssh, secret squirrel :bandit: