Extensions, Type-ins, Value
 

Nobody seems to be looking at IDNs from an angle that seems would play a significant role in perhaps deciding how much type-ins a name would get in future and ultimately how much value the name will command.

Which one will have more value - IDN.cctld or IDN.com? Two factors may be critical here,

1. How easy/memorable .com extension would be in each IDN language? This basically means how easy it would be for locals to type in the extension after the IDN name.
2. Whether the .cctld exists in that market and if that extension is typein "friendly"?

Likely scenarios:
1. My sense is that .com extension will rule those markets where IDN cctld does not exist yet and the .com extension in IDN there is relatively simple & intuitive.

2. Similarly, if in a market IDN cctld exists and is "friendly + assigned .com extension proves to be compex -> IDN cctld will rule.

For example, in Russian IDN cctld is absent + I see a cool mapping of .com <-> .KOM -> good market for IDN.com.

I am not sure how markets in Japanese, Chinese, and Korean are from this perspective, and whether cctlds in IDN exist there and how complex .com extension is likely to be in these lingos.

It would be nice to hear from locals and what they feel about their languages.

Re: Extensions, Type-ins, Value
 

Agree with you on all above. But I think the most important factor is, where will the browser bring you to when you press Ctrl + Enter after typing in IDN? If Chinese IE7 is like English IE7 ---> .com, then IDN.com will rule.

As for typing .cn and .com after IDN, both are easy to type, and both are easy to remember.

Re: Extensions, Type-ins, Value
 

It's hard to say what native users will eventually use long term.

In Opera & Safari (I think) when you put a term in the broswer it goes to the dot com. It used to do this on FireFox & then they switched it to go to the first results in Google

but

In Browsers like Firefox with dot com the punycode is displayed. With dot jp the punycode is never displayed in all browsers. (there is an issue with words that have ”ー” character in it.

Re: Extensions, Type-ins, Value
 

Yes, that's another valid dimension/variable to look at. Not sure though how many use Ctrl + Enter compared to pure type-ins.

Re: Extensions, Type-ins, Value
 

We have discussed this in many threads, you can search the posts 'ctld'. Absent now doesn't mean absent forever. Technology changes all the time. Type-in habits will also change, although it takes a long time to change.

There are many factors, but i think the most important for IDNs in the Long Term (5-10 years period) is idn.idn. The longer ICANN delays idn.idn, and if country NICs go ahead with their own idn.idn (as in the case of CNNIC), the more type-in locals will use ctld for idns.

Think this way, had cltds been operating for 5 years before ICANN launched .com, will .com still be the global tld it is today?

Re: Extensions, Type-ins, Value
 

No wonder you think prices are rising too quickly, if you seriousl believe IDN.IDN is on a 5-10 year time frame. Seriously, nobody is going to wait that long. ICANN have about 6 months to show some serious credibility in this field.

Something has to give and soon. ICANN are only still there because nobody wants to rock the boat, but if something doesn't get sorted out in a reasonable time frame and we are seriously talking less than a year, ICANN and the US Government will simply be told thanks, but no thanks. Authority, will almost certainly be passed to the UN. Verisign will not tie themselves to the mast of a sinking ship either.

Re: Extensions, Type-ins, Value
 

Well, I'm just considering all the possibilities - afterall, it took them 5 years to finish "introducing" xn-- prefixed domains - the smartest act ICANN has done for IDNs the past 6 years, as Giant has put it. :)

But, I also do not discount the end of year timeline that everyone here is talking about.

Re: Extensions, Type-ins, Value
 

I have never understood why "ctrl + enter" functionality is important. Does anyone have any stats for how widely used it is? Because I never use it myself. Why would Internet "newbies" use it when the results are unpredicatable?

Re: Extensions, Type-ins, Value
 

The US is simply deluding itself over how much authority it actually has. Registries are just lists and Root Servers largely belong to Verisign I guess, but if individual government wanted to they could requisition anything based on their soveriegn soil in the interests of national security. The US is in danger of splitting the Root and will most probably end up alone on the other side of the fence until something gets sorted out. All that would happen is the www. would get replaced with other strings and take you to different zones depending where you were. Most people would just you the default, but you could probably still access the entire internet if you knew which strings to input.

At the end of the day Verisign would protect its own interests which may not be aligned with those of the US Government or ICANN.

If you think Bush has done a good job up until now, well you have no concept of how stupid he would need to be to depart down this particular road. You might as well put Donald Duck in the White House.

Frankly, it is only a small group of Internet Officianados that actually know about this option, if that is what it is. It has no commericial significance whatsoever.

Extensionless query redirection is a separate and much more important subject.

Re: Extensions, Type-ins, Value
 

Shift+Enter = .net
Ctrl+Shift+Enter = .org

How many people use .net or .org because of the keys?

The king is still .com.

Re: Extensions, Type-ins, Value
 

Dot Com is king in the American psyche but that is by no means universal. Currently country codes dominate in both Germany and Russia. That might change in Russia with IDN, but in Germany dot DE is definitely King.

Re: Extensions, Type-ins, Value
 

Well, this can only be significant if the masses use it, which appears not the case. Even I became aware of this short-hand technique after reading some post on this forum. If people prefer typing the complete URL in the address bar, the complexity of .extension of IDN will become important in deciding which .extension will ultimately be preferred. Normal logic: river water always follows the path of least resistance. Another secondary factor here is, which .extension would move faster and feed the masses first. Moreover, it needs to be seen how the end-user (industry) laps this opportunity.

I am curious to know if IDN.IDN .ccTLDs exist in chinese/japanese as of now? If they do, then ICANN needs to buck up before people there start getting addicted to IDN .ccTLDs.

I see that if there are no IDN.IDN ccTLDs for languages like Russian, Arabic, Indic for next two years or so, IDN.IDN in .com will have a chance there.

Re: Extensions, Type-ins, Value
 

Only Chinese and I believe Korean as well, but yes they do resolve. ICANN definitely needs to get it finger out of its arse, or it won't have one to sit on at all!

Re: Extensions, Type-ins, Value
 

And, how popular are these IDN.IDN ccTLDs in these two countries? When did they initiate the IDN ccTLDs?

Re: Extensions, Type-ins, Value
 

I was interested in this question 3 years ago when I tried to decide whether I should reg some ASCII.cn and IDN.cn domains when they were first introduced in 2003. Here's what I found:

-The Chinese tend to use Ctrl + Enter feature more compare to English speakers, maybe because they are not good typers as English speakers.

-In 2002, I got a copy of Chinese Windows 2000, and I believe most computer users in China used the same copy. The IE came with this Windows would send you to .com.cn by default after Ctrl + Enter. I tried to make some changes in the registry so that I could go to .com instead, but failed. The only way I succeeded doing it is deleted the whole IE and its folder and then downloaded and installed a fresh IE. It's fair to say very few users knew how to do this.

-In 2003 - 04 - 05, I noticed that .cn domains had very little traffic but .com.cn had a lot. Also, my IDNs.com were getting more and more traffic because new Windows like XP and 2003 are .com by default with Ctrl + Enter feature.

Before Mar. 1st this year, most Chinese traffic go to .com.cn, quite a few go to .com, but very few go to .cn.

My conclusion: Ctrl + Enter was being used quite frequently. If most Chinese users are typing .com.cn like English users do, then we should see traffic to .cn too.

Re: Extensions, Type-ins, Value
 

Cannot really say as they run in parallel with IDN.CN and IDN.KR. I guess nobody will have split traffic data. We do know, however, that there very significant traffic on IDN.com in the languages of both countries and much of it is coming from Asia rather than Europe or the West.

Thanks, very interesting. Well that would explain the dot CN scenario, although most content is going there now rather than .com.cn.

Seems unlikely that IE 7.0 is going to direct them com.cn. Has anyone downloaded the the Chinese version. I guess it will still go to dot Com?

Re: Extensions, Type-ins, Value
 

Wouldn't that seem a fragile situation then depending on which way IE7 directs the traffic.


Do you mean IDNs of these extensions, or simple ASCII?

Re: Extensions, Type-ins, Value
 

Yes, that's my first concern for my IDN.coms :). I also know that CNNIC also tries to get .CN as default for Ctrl + Enter in IE7, but I think they won't get it.

Chinese IE7 Beta is not available yet.

Re: Extensions, Type-ins, Value
 

Well a bit of both, but as an extension the importance of com.cn is flagging by the day.

Well you tell us. It appeared to me as though it was:

http://www.microsoft.com/china/windows/ie/default.mspx

Re: Extensions, Type-ins, Value
 

Interesting, but are you actually saying you *know* Chinese people use Ctrl-Enter frequently, or just your research suggest that is likely? Because there is always more than one explanation for everything :)

Seems strange to me anyone would type an ASCII domain name, and then have "difficulty" typing .com ... surely that is the easy part?

Also, even if it is true that the Chinese use Ctrl-Enter, it sounds like a Chinese-only
thing to me. I've never seen a Thai use Ctrl-Enter, and like others, I had never even heard of this "shortcut" until I came to this forum.