Indian Domain Names Forum- www.inforum.in

[bwhhisc]

http://www.inforum.in/

Just found this, a growing forum with 1700 members, 5000 posts...
Wonder what the concensus there is on Indian languge IDNs.

I don't see an IDN section or even an IDN mention anywhere.

[yanni]

Mostly people from NP and DNF, no?

[bwhhisc]

Originally Posted by yanni

Mostly people from NP and DNF, no?

Probably so, I saw on Alexa ratings that 15% of DNF traffic is from India. They are very keen domainers, also some very helpful members at DNF. I am curious to start an IDN thread and see what they think the future holds.

I had PM'd a few at DNF a year or 2 ago about IDNs and most were pretty keen that ascii.com and ascii.in was going to be the dominant internet addresses for India and they did not see IDN playing a big role. From my reading now, as well as posts by senior members here most feel the big use of Indian IDNs will hve their value found in addressing the mobile phone internet for the vast majority of the Indian population that does not speak English.

[Wot]

Founded on the back of sales successes with .co.in /.in.
I am sure they will not be averse to putting in an Indian languages specific IDN section.

[bwhhisc]

Originally Posted by Wot

Founded on the back of sales successes with .co.in /.in.
I am sure they will not be averse to putting in an Indian languages specific IDN section.

Lots of money made with .in and .co.in. I have seen some nice sales of ascii and nice traffic stats too. Maybe we shouldn't get these guys too interested in IDNs yet...still some nice Hindi, Bengali, Marathi etc .com names to be had. Huge numbers of speakers in all the main languages, and the number of computers (think cell phones wth computer capability) is going to be second to only China.

Hindi 422 million speakers
Bengali 83 million speakers
Telugu 74 million speakers
Marathi 72 million speakers
Tamil 62 million speakers
Urdu 52 million speakers
Gujarati 46 million speakers

[Rubber Duck]

Russian language forums got it completely wrong. I think we can assume that the opinions of the English Speaking Indian forums will be a little off base, as well.

[Wot]

Originally Posted by bwhhisc

. Huge numbers of speakers in all the main languages, and the number of computers (think cell phones wth computer capability) is going to be second to only China.

IDN.mobi then

[dnnames]

Yes that is a new forum for .in names and it seems to be growing in popularity everyday. Most of the members are from NP and DNF though. I'm new to Indian IDNs, and because there are so many different languages, I really don't know where to start. There's probably still many good domains out there to be found, because a lot of poeple are probably like me, put off by all the confusion lol.

[bwhhisc]

Originally Posted by dnnames

There's probably still many good domains out there to be found, because a lot of poeple are probably like me, put off by all the confusion lol.

Indian languages still have good opportunity for finding quality names right now.

[Wot]

Originally Posted by dnnames

Yes that is a new forum for .in names and it seems to be growing in popularity everyday. Most of the members are from NP and DNF though. .

I think that is where most of the people that are here came from!

I have generally steered clear of Indian idn as I have a lot of exposure via .co.in/.in to that area. In addition the confusion of so many languages is a bit too difficult for someone of my great years.

[Rubber Duck]

Originally Posted by bwhhisc

Indian languages still have good opportunity for finding quality names right now.

Hindi is roughly where Chinese was 3 years ago in terms of Unicode Web Content. The body of local language web content is expanding at an almost exponential rate.

Not only are you now getting images on Google but is noticeable that Geo's throw up Map content and that you now have searchable News content.

Those that don't think Hindi is going anywhere have little concept of where it and all the other languages have come from.

When I first got into this Google hadn't even indexed Russian and Arabic. But there again go back just over ten years and it hadn't even indexed English.

[camarro]

they do have an idn subsection under the general discussion section.

[kartik786]

I am a member at Inforum.in

The forum gets its members by targetted ads put up on NP and DNF through google adsense

And Jeff is the admin there, a very helpful guy.

[bwhhisc]

Originally Posted by kartik786

I am a member at Inforum.in
The forum gets its members by targetted ads put up on NP and DNF through google adsense. And Jeff is the admin there, a very helpful guy.

So what do the majority of domainers think of Indian IDNs going mainstream. Most of the guys I talked to at DNF felt most internet users in India would rather use latin urls. After reading articles and posts by DrBioHealth and SteveEpstein, I am more convinced than ever that the mobile websites will be dominated by Hindi urls since most of the users do not speak English.

[kartik786]

most of the users do not speak hindi either thought it is the national language, regional languages dominate the hetrogenity.

Also, users with cell phones use cell phones only for 2 reasons

a.) calls
b.) sms

Internet penetration on cellphones even in the elite audience is very poor.

Just yesterday i was a part of panel discussion on digital media and we discussed that mobile services / mcommerce is going to take half a decade or more atleast to take off in India.

[bwhhisc]

Originally Posted by kartik786

most of the users do not speak hindi either thought it is the national language, regional languages dominate the hetrogenity.

Also, users with cell phones use cell phones only for 2 reasons

a.) calls
b.) sms

Internet penetration on cellphones even in the elite audience is very poor.

Just yesterday i was a part of panel discussion on digital media and we discussed that mobile services / mcommerce is going to take half a decade or more atleast to take off in India.

Most typical cellphones as used today do not resemble the cellphones that will be commonplace in the future. The phones of the future will have much stronger capabilities as computers and for online access to maps, resources, and information.

[Rubber Duck]

I am lost! I am being told that M Commerce will be buzzing in about five years time, so we should forget about investing in Indian domain names now? Am I missing something here? Do you seriously think that you are going to be able to buy in then when India will have one of the highest concentrations of billionaires on the Planet?

[bwhhisc]

Originally Posted by Rubber Duck

I am lost! I am being told that M Commerce will be buzzing in about five years time, so we should forget about investing in Indian domain names now? Am I missing something here? Do you seriously think that you are going to be able to buy in then when India will have one of the highest concentrations of billionaires on the Planet?

Seems that most of the Namepro and DNF Indian domainers have convinced each other that the India will always be dominated by English URLs. I think they are partially right, but completely wrong for the 80% of the population does not speak English. That's could be about 400 million+ Hindi speakers (that don't speak English). Assuming 20% penetration with cell phones (computers of the future mind you)....that's 80 million people online who can input Hindi or other language IDNs. But then what do I know....

[dnnames]

Is there any news of .co.in or .in adopting IDNs?

[Rubber Duck]

Originally Posted by dnnames

Is there any news of .co.in or .in adopting IDNs?

They are definitely doing it. Not sure when.