IDN Domain Names

Future of IDN Domains

[Janochka]

With IE7 auto update around the corner, what is your opinions in regards to IDN domains investing?
i see some positive and some negative opinions and just am trying to determine if history can repeat what happaned with ascii domains, making idn's a logical and a great opprotunity or is it just not worth it?

[trader]

My view on IDN's is that since we have a difficult time making good money on English names how could we possibly do well with foreign characters when we do not even know the language (or use a foreign keyboard).

Is there even such a thing as a foreign language keyboard? If not, how do Chinese people use the Internet when Wickapedia say's this: "The number of Chinese characters contained in the Kangxi dictionary is approximately 47,035, although a large number of these are rarely-used variants accumulated throughout history. In China, literacy for the working citizen is defined as knowledge of 2,000 characters"

How big is that keyboard anyway (unless I am missing something)? Please excuse my lack of knowledge on IDN.

[edited by: trader at 9:54 pm (utc) on Sep. 25, 2006]

[Janochka]

IMO For that same reason idn's might be an amazing opprotunity, as it is a "fresh" and new market where we have not miss the train yet.
of course there is the language barrier but there are translation services, some better then others...and since most registrars offer the 5 day credit it is enough time to confirm the translations with native users.

p.s theyre are foreign keyboards :)

i mean just imagine if all url's would be in russian characters...i guess thats pretty much what they feel

[LifeinAsia]

Is there even such a thing as a foreign language keyboard?

Yes, there are a number of them. Probably at least one type for every in-use langauge. I've used computers with Korean and Japanese keyboards, although some of them just had Western keyboards with stick-on labels for the Japanese/Korean character sets.

In regards to Chinese, each ideograph is actually a collection of a limited subset of strokes. A very rough analogy would be the way an English word is composed of letters of the alphabet, and Chinese ideographs are typed similarly to the way English speakers type words in English. (This is a very rough analogy only used for illustrative purposes- Chinese typists will probably cringe at my description. :) )

Here's a picture I found of a Chinese keyboard, with measurements:
[libai.math.ncu.edu.tw...]

You can find others using Google's image seach.

[edited by: LifeinAsia at 10:12 pm (utc) on Sep. 25, 2006]

[trader]

I just counted the number of keys on my Dell Keyboard, there are 104 keys and the board is 18" wide. Does that mean a Chinese keyboard to have 3,000 characters would need to be almost 288 times wider (my math may be wrong)?

[Janochka]

The chinese keyboard is the same size to the best of my knoweldge...just the way native chinese type is diffrent but if i understand correctly, it comes natural to chinese like typing english is to us

[leadegroot]

Whats the connection between IE7 auto updates and use of IDNs?

[Janochka]

IE7 is capable to "show" idn's properly in the browser tab...in the native language, unicode format and not like it used to be in the puny code (xn--efjefhexample)

since the vast majority of world wide users use ie the launch of ie7 with the auto update will increase idn visibility tremendously and the natives will become familiarized with idn domains

[domainstosell]

trader, here are a couple of links to help you better understand, at least in the case of Chinese, how the typing works:

[en.wikipedia.org ]
[slate.com ]

As far as other languages go, they also have keyboards in their specific language.

[leadegroot]

Ah, thank you Janochka - I had forgotten about that :)

[Janochka]

NP leadegroot :)
But what do you guys think?
History usually repeats itself, may this be the case?

i am concerned with 1 aspect of idn domains only.

now it is i.e nativeCharacters.ExtensionInEnglish but if i understand correctly the extensions will be "mapped" to make it 100% native language domain which imo should be huge success...

just imagine if we would only be able to go to japanese language url's.

Thoughts,Comments and opinions appriciated.