How far can the japanese IDN .jp secondary market grow?

[touchring]

A lot of "subject" terms are the same in Chinese (some simplifed, some traditional, some slightly different - extra stroke, etc) and Japanese .

I just got to go thru the homepage of yahoo.jp. A lot of top chinese .com are actually registered by people from Japan:

旅行
天気
音楽
動画
結婚
健康
不動産
新聞
雑誌
雇用
金融
写真
歴史
文学
環境
教育
大学
政治
国会
議員
自然科学
技術
生物
地球
天文
化学
社会科学
経済学
心理学
社会学

[donwebcorleone]

Originally Posted by touchring

A lot of "subject" terms are the same in Chinese (some simplifed, some traditional, some slightly different - extra stroke, etc) and Japanese .

I just got to go thru the homepage of yahoo.jp. A lot of top chinese .com are actually registered by people from Japan:

旅行
天気
音楽
動画
結婚
健康
不動産
新聞
雑誌
雇用
金融
写真
歴史
文学
環境
教育
大学
政治
国会
議員
自然科学
技術
生物
地球
天文
化学
社会科学
経済学
心理学
社会学

that is completely true with IDN .com in kanji as a lot of kanjis are used in both languages. though be aware, thats not 100% like that, kanji in chinese=japanese ; many kanjis are written with different number of strokes depending on the country. u should also remember that in japanese "borrowed terms" as computer, blogs, etc, are used in katakana, in china they use a kanji, so i cant guess very well what kanji the chinese are using for that.

anyway i think chinese can learn to read faster japanese, than japanese chinese. thats why, for me, it is a cheaper bet to do, what i said a japanese guy is doing, to visit chinese websites where chinese students offer their services to translate or create content in chinese. cheaper and free of any grammar error for me.

[Olney]

But Don,
If I'm still registering one word Japanese in katakana for good products then you should be able to also.
It is smart to expand to the Chinese market. I probably won't because I still have to develop some of these IDN's into high traffic Japanese sites..
My experience with IDN domains started last summer but my experience with Japanese domains started many moons ago..

[rhys]

Originally Posted by donwebcorleone

the point of discussion with my friend is how far this second market will go? . A japanese IDN .com is again only good for one country, japan.

Yeah DWC, like you, I don't buy your friend's argument. It's like saying that once upon a time there was a land called "Urban Slum" and everybody had to live there in squalor with no street addresses until one day people found an adjacent land called "Tropical Paradise" and had an opportunity to move or buy a second house on the beach for cheap. What will people do?

I believe that there will be an initial landrush within 2 years and I believe that there will be a strong secondary market for prime domain names after that. And because Japan has a predilection for "booms", I even bet that there will be a speculative bubble 4-5 years from now as everybody looking for a thrill suddenly becomes a "どーメイナー”　 .

Part of your friend's argument about the secondary market is that the primary market is weak to begin with because companies are happy with their english names. I think that clearly that is not the case. QR Codes (2D barcodes) like the one you showed us the other day for mobile phones exist precisely because Japanese companies do not have what they need with their current URLs. Few can remember or type them in. They aren't popular in the US for a variety of reasons but one of them is that there really is less need. I've discussed it with T-Mobile and Cingular execs quite recently in fact.

Companies will expand the number of domains they own because they will need: 1.superior Japanese language corporate branding 2. (as olney points out) campaign driven needs 3. to capture natural type-in traffic. This will then be supplemented by individuals and small companies who will procure domains. Don't discount the importance of small business as it is the largest employer in Japan not large Corporates or Keiretsu. Since Japan is the second largest economy in the world by a long shot (Osaka by itself is the 9th), the Japanese can actually afford to pay for domains unlike many other economies where you can get paid but it will be in jars of pennies for the timebeing.

Supply may well be less restricted than the english language case because you will always have more extentions available to you for fewer people, but I bet the Japanese will become more snobby about extentions therefore restricting themselves. At the end of the day the secondary market will be a healthy one because most of the highest quality domain names will be owned by a few companies and supply will be constrained that way. Look let's state the obvious - one day Google, Yahoo, or Microsoft will buy up all the high quality domains in English and every other market of importance because the natural traffic makes it a necessity for search and portal purposes. The reason they don't currently is because the English domain market is still undergoing consolidation and it is a messy game to buy up domains until there are only a handful of companies to negotiate with. The reason I know this, where I work and what I do

Myself, I'm still most worried about natural traffic in Japan. Until I see it, I won't sleep well.

[touchring]

What his friend said is actually true to some extent, at least long term "growth" prospects are better in many parts of China than Japan due to the openness of the economy in many provinces (it's crazy since China is supposed to be communist).

How many of you guys that lived and worked in Japan actually visited places like Dalian, Shanghai and Hangzhou?

Last but not least, diversification is the axiom of good investment practice. In the short to medium term (2 to 8 years), Japanese domains will still be more valuable.

[IDNCowboy]

Originally Posted by donwebcorleone

there is not secret in my marketing, i just reach the stores that have crappy .com names and sell them a semi good IDN .jp

the point of discussion with my friend is how far this second market will go? he was saying that if someone register a not so good IDN .jp odds are he wont ever sell it on secondary market. different what it did happen with bad .com, or as he think it will happen as well with bad .cn, dont forget they have 1.1 billion more people than japan. so if someone register now lets say an IDN chinashoes.cn bestshoesofchina.cn to sell it on secondary market at the end odds are, that even when it is not shoes.cn, someone eventually might take it. Why someone would pay $XXXXX for a bad japanese IDN when the market is so small?

the advantage of japan is that people can afford to buy interesting IDNs in good money, while for most chinese stores or citizens sums like $9.000 dollars that i use to sell my IDN is a lot of money. In Tokyo, u can reach any corner store selling an IDN in one million yen or $9.000 and if they are interested for them that isnt a big sum at all, it is very cheap in fact for the purpose u buy it. With japanese IDNs is easier to get good money if u sell them, but there is a reduced limit to the people you can reach. dont forget that most companies in japan tend to be big as very few individuals can afford to start a business and pay the ultra expensive tokyo office rent fees.

i guess there will be a short period of great interest to get good japanese IDN .jp for companies, but then the secondary market will vanish more and more. In other markets, the secondary market will be high for good or bad IDN because they are huge or because one single IDN .com, u have the advantage that u can reach many countries as it is the case of arab, russian or spanish .com IDNs . A japanese IDN .com is again only good for one country, japan.

One country with 140 million ;-) is alot ..

Honestly who cares if people buy IDN's from others or not

remember that Google will LOVE these url's sooner or later. Results would appear up top with little or no work or you could get some SEO done...

You would get search engine traffic. WIth some people here having "airlines" "finance" and other terms they will get money in the bank from clicks or commissions!

Also you can set up shop on adwords if you have "Anime" "Video Games" etc and sell games.

[Rubber Duck]

Originally Posted by Jeff

One country with 140 million ;-) is alot ..

Honestly who cares if people buy IDN's from others or not

remember that Google will LOVE these url's sooner or later. Results would appear up top with little or no work or you could get some SEO done...

You would get search engine traffic. WIth some people here having "airlines" "finance" and other terms they will get money in the bank from clicks or commissions!

Also you can set up shop on adwords if you have "Anime" "Video Games" etc and sell games.

Is that coded speak for "Its a no brainer"?

[touchring]

What Jeff said is correct, in the long term, all "SEO-ed" domains with prime keywords in them are valuable because search engines give top preference to domains with keywords in them. For such domains, the anchor text has the keyword even if only the URL is hyperlinked.

This kind of search engine traffic can potentially far exceed any type-in (except for typos).

What i do not know for now is whether IDNs are treated the same way as Latin domains.

This argument will support Japanese domains because it costs so much to do SEO - and using a domain with the exact keyword in it, i can well replace what i need to pay to an SEO consultant for my website.

Well, my 健康保険.net is starting to look better? :-D

[Olney]

It's even better if you have a Japanese Amazon clone site & it's a high selling category....
But I wouldn't know about that... not yet...

[rhys]

Originally Posted by Olney

It's even better if you have a Japanese Amazon clone site & it's a high selling category....
But I wouldn't know about that... not yet...

That's interesting Olney.

My buddy used to run finance for amazon associates so I am willing to bet that adsense will almost always pay out more than amazon associates. Unless you are talking about not joining amazon's associates program....if I were Amazon, I would pay bigtime for cateogry domains!

[Olney]

It depends on the situation.
You own IDN domains like
PC Game - 117,934ovt
TV Game -791,466ovt
Adult Video - 711,399ovt
Bikini Model/Idol - 1,821,222ovt
Game Hobby - 1,054,142ovt
Anime - 254746

Then I'm pretty sure marketing wise I've got a pretty good amount of very high selling categories that would beat what I could get just with Adsense...

[touchring]

Originally Posted by Olney

It depends on the situation.
You own IDN domains like
PC Game - 117,934ovt
TV Game -791,466ovt
Adult Video - 711,399ovt
Bikini Model/Idol - 1,821,222ovt
Game Hobby - 1,054,142ovt
Anime - 254746

Then I'm pretty sure marketing wise I've got a pretty good amount of very high selling categories that would beat what I could get just with Adsense...

What kind of traffic are you getting now for those? Just curious.

Note: No doubt these are extremely valuable, but i want to know if OVT == Traffic.

[Edwin]

Here's the thing - most Japanese businesses do NOT have their own domain name yet. I speak from experience as I am involved in an area guide project for which thousands of local businesses have been contacted.

A lot of businesses (probably >>50%) don't even have sites, and the ones that do often use the "free" webspace that came with their ISP. It makes me wince every time I see it, but many companies are spending literally millions of yen to plaster their ads all over the trains with an URL like http://www2.ocn.ne.jp/~dumbuser/index.html and then wondering why nobody comes knocking...

The Japanese internet market seems to be about 3 years behind the US, and that has been true all along i.e. to see next year's trends here, think back a couple of years at what was happening abroad!

[Olney]

This is a really good point.
I remember taking the Toyoko line & seeing a huge billboard for a company
& the website address was a Geocities site...
This one is pretty old but they just never changed the URL on the ad.

[IDNCowboy]

Originally Posted by Olney

This is a really good point.
I remember taking the Toyoko line & seeing a huge billboard for a company
& the website address was a Geocities site...
This one is pretty old but they just never changed the URL on the ad.

I almost picked tv game up a longg while ago but thought had no clue what a tv game was :P

then i realized that tv games = video games months later lol oh well