Wall Street Journals reports on IDN rollout

[bwhhisc]

http://online.wsj.com/public/articl...pXs0YNMxe0_20071109.html?mod=tff_main_tff_top

Long-dominated by English, the language of its founders, the Internet is about to take a big step toward becoming a truly world-wide Web. Starting on Monday, Web surfers will be able to test Internet addresses in 11 languages that don't use the Roman alphabet -- the 26 letters used in English and most other European languages.

The development means the domain-name suffix, the part of a Web address after the dot -- such as "com" or "org" -- could now be in a language like Japanese or Hindi. Until now, that part of the address had to use the Roman alphabet under the Internet's system of addresses, overseen by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or Icann, a private, nonprofit organization. The change follows Icann's decision in 2003 to allow the part of a domain name preceding the dot, called the secondary-level domain name, to be in a language that uses a non-Roman alphabet.

 

[burnsinternet]

Does any other group (.org, info, ws, cc, tv, jp) plan on using foreign language extensions? Does this mean .com and .net will be in different languages or is this for future, undiscovered extensions?

 

[DNWizardX9]

Does any other group (.org, info, ws, cc, tv, jp) plan on using foreign language extensions? Does this mean .com and .net will be in different languages or is this for future, undiscovered extensions?

Tina couldn't answer about cctlds - that is entirely up to each individual cctld operator whether they will give the cctld holders (.jp for example their .idn counterpart) the ext or sell it seperately.

Regarding .ws, .cc etc who knows..

 

[QuantumBeam]

this should bring another big BOOM to the the .com again!
:cheer2::thumb::cheer2:

 

[socalboy]

Does anyone know the answer to this:

Today, if someone types in china in chinese characters and ".com", do they go to a different page than "china.com"?

Thanks.

 

[RazorNF]

Today, if someone types in china in chinese characters and ".com", do they go to a different page than "china.com"?
Thanks.

These would be two different domains.

 

[socalboy]

Interesting. In one fell swoop they've essentially launched dozens of new extensions. Is this really going to be a boom for .com? I would think that most of the traffic from places like India and China will now go to domains in their own languages.

 

[myst woman]

so do i have to now buy www/mydomain."indecipherable character text" ?

 

[bwhhisc]

so do i have to now buy www/mydomain."indecipherable character text" ?

Nope, you don't have to do anything you don't want to do.
IDNs are mostly going to be used by the people in the countries that speak the languages AND by multi-national businesses that want to reach customers in those countries. Hard to effectively advertise memorable urls when no one can read (and remember) the word.

80% of the world does not speak English, so IDNs just make it easier and more pleasurable for non-English speaking users to surf the internet. No voodoo here.

There will be idn.com, idn.net, idn.biz, idn.ws, idn.tv etc. (foreign script/english extension)
AND/OR
there will be idn.idn (foreign script/ foreign language extension).
Many holders of idn.com hope they get the equivalent idn.idn as well.

All in all pretty simple. As the post above said they are still sorting it all out as idn.com, idn.net, idn.cc etc. are active and working extensions.

The biggest holdup to worldwide use has been lack of browser support to make IDNs resolve. That is now solved with IE7 which is widely in use in most english speaking countries, but still a bit "on the back burner" for Asia. They are now saying auto-update for Asia in 2008 which will really accelerate things. You can download it yourself now but most people don't bother. The big change will come when IE7 is offered (for free) and you just click to upgrade or is standard on new PCs.

Interesting. In one fell swoop they've essentially launched dozens of new extensions. Is this really going to be a boom for .com? I would think that most of the traffic from places like India and China will now go to domains in their own languages.

Bingo. If you speak only English would you choose Chinese or Russian to have your internet addresses in?
Same thing in reverse, if you speak only Chinese or Russian etc. etc. you would probably choose to use your native
language (again, assuming most can not read English). No doubt they will STILL use English urls to some extent
and bookmark familiar sites. Many sites will use both IDN and ASCII. IDNs just adds another dimension and
ease of use to their internet

 

[Domagon]

This is good, assuming the IDN TLD is aliased with its equivelant traditional ASCII TLD ... which, from my understanding, will be the case for .COM

Ron