Marchex paid $10 million for Spanish domain portfolio

[wrdekle]

P.S. I can't talk for the japanese. But I coworked for years with Ukranians. They have special keyboards to type both Cyrillic and western characters, those were the standard computer keyboards, according to them.
They told me they have to make special efforts to type Cyrillic. The keyword default function was for typing western characters.
I remember when I asked a guy to type "Kasparov" in Cyrillic by Yahoo chat, and that's how he told me how the thing worked.

How is that in Japan? China? I know there are something like 500 "drawings" they use in common language in a day. How does that look in the keyboard?
I bet they need several strokes to type one of their native characters, even in a keyboard prepared for that, just like my Ukrainians fellows.
So, what is easier and shorter, アダルト.jp or adult.jp?
I don't know that, but I've been always curious. Since you're in Japan, I guess I will finally know.

Well, for the Japanese and Chinese they use querty keyboards mostly. Its a bit difficult to explain well - we set a mode and type in a-da-ru-to and press enter and voila! it is アダルト. No big deal. Remember that knowing the alphabet and knowing how to spell english are completely different things. One takes about 2 weeks of memorization, the other takes many years of education and constant use.

If people doubt that the Japanese can type Japanese efficiently with a querty keyboard ask yourself this - how come when you go to a Japanese website it is all in Japanese and not English? when you go to a Japanese convenience store - how come the magazines are all in Japanese and not English? The answer is because the Japanese easily type in Japanese using a querty keyboard.

Thanks for your explaination fischermx, it's very useful to know. I'm surprised though that so many people in latin america are unable to type accents for their books, magazines, websites and now don't use them - all because of the availability of a keyboard. It's fascinating how technology can change culture.

Apparently, latin IDN type-ins are doing very well. Russian IDNs get great cyrillic type-in traffic too. With your language skills, you should check them out. IDN .es should get announced soon I think!

 

[DNabc]

Some of those domains don't have accents, so they are 100% correct, for example: fotos, mujer, tarjetas, etc.
They are incredible domains, and were sold for a low price. But we don't know the whole story, so it's difficult for us to comment this or that decision.

 

[Explorer]

Oh, so you're talking about the missing accents...
It's a long story. I'd like to have time to research it seriously, and share the study somewhere on the web, but sadly, I can't.
To start with, there are three stories:
- Spain
- Mexico and the 15 millions mexican living in US plus another some millions from latinamerica living in the US.
- The rest of latinamerica (excluding Brasil).

For Mexico, I'll start by telling you that my older Dell computer was shipped with a US keyboard, so, there were no accents to type. I had to buy an spanish keyword on the local computer store. The laptop I bought in McAllen, TX didn't have an spanish keyboard either.
And 20 years ago, my first computer didn't have an spanish keyboard either, again.
Most Spanish speakers just don't type the accents. And we won't type the accents till the death.
Newer generations, some day, will see accents naturally and type it on their browsers. But heck, you'll have to wait like 15 years more for that.

BTW, some millions of people say it "fútbol" (Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay) and some other millions say it "futbol" (non-written accent on the "o"). In Mexico, and some other places, we say it like "fút-ból", but we type it "futbol" all over the place including the mainstream media. So there's no typo here.

For Spain, they kill for their language, that's another story. I bet you there are millions of typos a day due people actually typing the accents and finding no websites there.

For the rest of Latinamerica, well, with exception of Argentina and Chile, let's wait they have a computer first, then we can talk about the internet. No offense for those who have both, please.

So, to conclude: It is not, that we are willing to change, we just learned in the US way: no accents.

P.S. I can't talk for the japanese. But I coworked for years with Ukranians. They have special keyboards to type both Cyrillic and western characters, those were the standard computer keyboards, according to them.
They told me they have to make special efforts to type Cyrillic. The keyword default function was for typing western characters.
I remember when I asked a guy to type "Kasparov" in Cyrillic by Yahoo chat, and that's how he told me how the thing worked.

How is that in Japan? China? I know there are something like 500 "drawings" they use in common language in a day. How does that look in the keyboard?
I bet they need several strokes to type one of their native characters, even in a keyboard prepared for that, just like my Ukrainians fellows.
So, what is easier and shorter, アダルト.jp or adult.jp?
I don't know that, but I've been always curious. Since you're in Japan, I guess I will finally know.

You have to be forward thinking. That's what big players are doing by paying multiples of future annual revenues for generic domain names.

 

[bwhhisc]

Not necessarily, parked pages are becoming better and looking more like websites over time. Plus it's easier to add interactive features like blogs, forums, photo, video, etc. I can see the day when it will be really easy to develop a huge number of domains and have the sites look good.

You are exactly right. This is happening right now, with new companies entering the arena to develop that technology. Parking as we know it today will soon give way to multiple page mini-sites.

 

[fischermx]

Thanks for your explaination fischermx, it's very useful to know. I'm surprised though that so many people in latin america are unable to type accents for their books, magazines, websites and now don't use them - all because of the availability of a keyboard. It's fascinating how technology can change culture.

I'm sorry for this misunderstanding, let me correct a little.
Of course printed media, books, magazines always have the accent in their place. My examples were an old computer and an even older computer and computers we get in the USA, so of course they don't have a spanish keyboard. Add a little lazyiness and you have a log of people not typing accents.
These days you can get a computer in Walmart or SAMS (we have both here) and they have a Spanish keyboard, so no excuses.

But in websites, people is still lazy to type, check this example:
"árbol" 12,100,000 results
"arbol" 6,640,000 results

It's a lot of people not typing accents.

 

[hugegrowth]

I think there will always be keyword type in for domains, as long as domains are used, because:

1) kids and people not born yet, or first time internet users, will always try to type in names and phrases that interest them when they first go online

2) people on the internet now are always finding new interests and subjects they want to find out about. For example, if I decide to go organic with my food, I might type in organicfood.com, or organicfoods.com to see what's there. If I'm moving to boston, I might type in boston.com or bostonhomes.com to see what's there.

These kinds of events are happening all the time and will sustain type in traffic at some level for as long as domains are used. It isn't a static evironment, there is always fresh blood coming in.

 

[wrdekle]

These days you can get a computer in Walmart or SAMS (we have both here) and they have a Spanish keyboard, so no excuses.

But in websites, people is still lazy to type, check this example:
"árbol" 12,100,000 results
"arbol" 6,640,000 results

It's a lot of people not typing accents.

Agreed. But I'd rather own árbol.com than arbol.com if given a choice.

You have to be forward thinking. That's what big players are doing by paying multiples of future annual revenues for generic domain names.

I think you misunderstand my quote explorer. We are agreed that multiples are a decent valuation method to buy revenue producing domain names. It's just a question of whether for spanish language domains (some of which are not the primary spelling of the word) it should be a multiple of 8x versus say 4x. There are factors to consider including the rise of competition from IDNs and the future value of Spanish language PPC relative to English.

 

[dvestors]

I don't know if I feel shame or cheated.
I thought different from Chris.

But the worst is I think he sold cheap.

He probably wanted/needed the $10M to help bring other goals to fruition..or maybe he just flat out wanted $10M in cash. Either way, congrats to Chris on the sale.

 

[Seraphim]

He did sell way too cheap, but $10M will also make you $500K+ a year in interest with 0 risk, no downside to that at all. Even subtracting taxes owed, you're still setup for life.

 

[DNabc]

That's right, maybe he didn't want to take any chances, and wanted the money right now. Or maybe he wants to dedicate to projects outside the domain biz. I have no doubt that he knew what he was doing.

As for the accents, in Portugal it's the same, so better to get the generic and the idn one. Most people don't type them because they are lazy, but all keyboards here have those 3 keys: ç ã á

 

[fischermx]

Agreed. But I'd rather own árbol.com than arbol.com if given a choice.

BTW, in IE 7, if I type árbol.com, I get http://xn--rbol-4na.com/ in the toolbar.
I understand that's the punycode for the IDN, but what does it change it?
Why it does not keep what I typed ?

 

[AlienGG]

BTW, in IE 7, if I type árbol.com, I get http://xn--rbol-4na.com/ in the toolbar.
I understand that's the punycode for the IDN, but what does it change it?
Why it does not keep what I typed ?

You need to install the language.

 

[wrdekle]

BTW, in IE 7, if I type árbol.com, I get http://xn--rbol-4na.com/ in the toolbar.
I understand that's the punycode for the IDN, but what does it change it?
Why it does not keep what I typed ?

AlienGG is right. My guess is that you are not running a Spanish version of Windows, you will need to install the language in your browser to see the web pages and with that comes the ability to see the IDN in the URL bar. I copied simple instructions for you below.

At first we were concerned when MS implemented this as an anti-phishing safety measure but it doesn't bother us any more because the vast majority of Japanese surfers are running Japanese windows so they see the unicode not the punycode by default. I imagine that it is probably the same for most of the spanish speaking world no?

"To specify another language for webpage content
Some websites offer their content in several languages. To specify which language you prefer to view webpages in, follow these steps.

In Internet Explorer, click the Tools button, and then click Internet Options.
Click the General tab, and then click Languages.
Click Add.
Select the language you want to add, and then click OK.
Repeat steps 3 and 4 to add all of the languages you would like.
Organize the languages by order of preference. If a website offers multiple languages, content will appear in the language that is highest on the list.
When you are finished ordering the languages, click OK twice. "

 

[DNabc]

Mozilla Firefox also changed from showing the IDN to showing the puny code, because of phishing problems. It was easy to fool some people into thinking that they were at Paypal, etc.

 

[TurNIC.com]

I'm saying that while a word like "cocina" is the real deal, a domain like "futbol" is just a typo of "fútbol".

Are you kidding? Get out of the usa and look for the Earth. Futbol means football for many languages. Only that domain name can worth that money. It is a damn cheap deal.

TurNIC