Country specific extensions

[burnsinternet]

Can anyone point me to a thread or voice an opinion: After IDN.IDN, will country specific extensions (e.g. fr, ru, cn) go the way of .us if they don't follow the lead of .de? Or will they catch up and surpass .com? I know that most here would argue that .jp or cn will surpass .com, but what about .ec, .es, .pt, .br, .fr, and the rest? Is there a rule of thumb?

[Rubber Duck]

Originally Posted by burnsinternet

Can anyone point me to a thread or voice an opinion: After IDN.IDN, will country specific extensions (e.g. fr, ru, cn) go the way of .us if they don't follow the lead of .de? Or will they catch up and surpass .com? I know that most here would argue that .jp or cn will surpass .com, but what about .ec, .es, .pt, .br, .fr, and the rest? Is there a rule of thumb?

My personal view is that with the exception of Latin languages IDN.IDN will make country extension much less popular than before. IDN will get you to the correct linguistic context. ccTLD have helped companies in Europe to get seen, IDN will help companies in Asia get seen locally, even with the dot com extension. Only China which has put great impetus behind its ccTLD is likely to suceed with its own extension. Russia was also in a strong position, but appears to be in the process of blowing it completely.

[burnsinternet]

Any news on the smaller countries? For example, there are a lot of smaller French, Spanish, and Arabic speaking countries that could move quickly to IDN if they wanted. We hear so much about big Russia and China, but are others in the news?