New Frank Schilling interview - IDN Forums

Drewbert · #1 (**permalink**) 25th August 2009, 07:09 PM

http://www.playingtheangles.com/inte...ank-schilling/

Poor Frank's still tied up in the "global marketplace" thing and can't seem to get that a local marketplace for a country of 150+ million people can make money.

I need to take him aside one day and have a wee chat.

**sbe18** · #2 (**permalink**) 25th August 2009, 08:18 PM

Still focused on the keyboard issue across languages...

owning 350,000 names..
at $6 to $7 a pop....

A lot of the wrong language traffic is going to vanish .

A Chinese business may not want to go global.
It may want to sell a product in China, to Chinese, in Chinese with a Chinese brand .

would guess his $20 mil/ yr run rate is at half..

nice problem to have though ..(grin)

bwhhisc · #3 (**permalink**) 26th August 2009, 01:24 AM

Frank's has his own viewpoint about global commerce being "only" English, but the smart guys and the real end game will be to own your "keywords" in all languages and top extensions where you have customers or future customers. FS might take a bit of time to study how many people in the world don't speak a lick of English (85% plus), and that might give him some additional global perspective as well. At any rate he's making a sh*tload of money and doesn't need to give a rats ass about IDN. Giving him credit from the article...he does says "I agree that these names are relevant and useful in regional commerce and that there will be great fortunes made investing and selling in these extensions."

5. What do you think of opportunities with International Domain Names (IDN)?

FRANK: I’ve always been tepid on IDN tld’s because they are purely regional and impractical for the global commerce the Internet invites. India, South American, Europe and North America are not going to run out and adopt Farsi, Cyrillic, Chinese keyboards, nor are those with Arabic keyboards going to rush out to buy Chinese, Cyrillic, Farsi keyboards.

But all these Countries will continue to have Latin keyboards. My point is that this puts IDN names at a huge disadvantage in global commerce. That said, I agree that these names are relevant and useful in regional commerce and that there will be great fortunes made investing and selling in these extensions. Your point is extremely valid IMO. To channel Peter Drucker for a moment, we are not in the domain business, we are all in the human behavior business, and it will be a long arduous process to unwind the .com juggernaut.

Rubber Duck · #4 (**permalink**) 26th August 2009, 05:05 AM

I would still rather be buying domains like Rumcakes at $5000K a shot.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bwhhisc

Frank's has his own viewpoint about global commerce being "only" English, but the smart guys and the real end game will be to own your "keywords" in all languages and top extensions where you have customers or future customers. FS might take a bit of time to study how many people in the world don't speak a lick of English (85% plus), and that might give him some additional global perspective as well. At any rate he's making a sh*tload of money and doesn't need to give a rats ass about IDN. Giving him credit from the article...he does says "I agree that these names are relevant and useful in regional commerce and that there will be great fortunes made investing and selling in these extensions."

5. What do you think of opportunities with International Domain Names (IDN)?

FRANK: I’ve always been tepid on IDN tld’s because they are purely regional and impractical for the global commerce the Internet invites. India, South American, Europe and North America are not going to run out and adopt Farsi, Cyrillic, Chinese keyboards, nor are those with Arabic keyboards going to rush out to buy Chinese, Cyrillic, Farsi keyboards.

But all these Countries will continue to have Latin keyboards. My point is that this puts IDN names at a huge disadvantage in global commerce. That said, I agree that these names are relevant and useful in regional commerce and that there will be great fortunes made investing and selling in these extensions. Your point is extremely valid IMO. To channel Peter Drucker for a moment, we are not in the domain business, we are all in the human behavior business, and it will be a long arduous process to unwind the .com juggernaut.

Rubber Duck · #5 (**permalink**) 26th August 2009, 05:12 AM

If Americans actually understood Globalization, they would not have such a massive trade deficit. Of course this will come down as the rest of the World starts to cut their credit off. I cannot believe the number of idiots that spout about the Dollar as the World's Reserve currency, and then go to spout a lot of Protectionist propaganda. I tell you, if there were a charity collecting to build primary schools in America, I would give. Sorry Africa, your need is clearly not the greatest. I wonder how long it will be before America is full of Chinese Missionaries?

Drewbert · #6 (**permalink**) 26th August 2009, 06:15 AM

Well, yeah, except that Frank is one of the Queen's loyal subjects, rather than a Merkin.

Drewbert · #7 (**permalink**) 4th September 2009, 09:49 PM

Here's something that disproves Franks "global marketplace in English" theory.

Some FDIC bank seizures see the bank also putting out a press release in languages other than English. This proves that they are a large number of people happy to do business in a non-English language even in a country predominantly English speaking...

http://www.fdic.gov/news/news/press/2009/index.html

Those people are quite likely surfing the intertoobs in their native language and probably would be extremely happy to being allowed to do it using domain names in their native language.