'India most important online market, not China'

[drbiohealth]

The only reason why I did away my .in portfolio was because it sometimes becomes so very difficult to distinguish between .in and .co.in for a particular keyword specially when these are on equal footing. Having two tlds of the same popularity level will become a nightmare for the users to remember them correctly....this will become more pronounced if these two continue to be on equal footing in future as what seems to be. Thus, essentially they will help .com to rise further.

.com had been in use in India for quite sometime now and people are pretty aware of it. Regarding the government, since they cannot support .com, they are supporting .in/co.in. It would have been much more sensible step on the part of the government if they had launched just one tld ie, either .in or co.in . The mess is bound to happen in that tld domain. Cheers!

Originally Posted by Dwrixon

I am sure if they are top generics then they will have value. There will not be enough Hindi terms or gTLDs to satisfy the best terms. Whether or not they will be as valuable as Hindi IDN dot coms is another matter.

[donwebcorleone]

i wonder if in india happens the same than in the philippines, when i went to manila everyone speaks english, even at school instruction is in english but at home or among close friends everyone uses tagalog. something like poor people tagalog, educated or middle class filipinos english; the websites from the philippines are also divided, business websites offering services, sales, etc in english; local news, blogs, etc in tagalog.

is people doing the websites to offer services, online stores, etc to domestic india in hindi or english? i guess english for now...? i never feel india as an english dominated country, in fact most Ph.D student from India that i know in Tokyo their english is terrible, i dont imagine the english from people who didnt even attend highschool.

[IDNCowboy]

Originally Posted by donwebcorleone

i wonder if in india happens the same than in the philippines, when i went to manila everyone speaks english, even at school instruction is in english but at home or among close friends everyone uses tagalog. something like poor people tagalog, educated or middle class filipinos english; the websites from the philippines are also divided, business websites offering services, sales, etc in english; local news, blogs, etc in tagalog.

is people doing the websites to offer services, online stores, etc to domestic india in hindi or english? i guess english for now...? i never feel india as an english dominated country, in fact most Ph.D student from India that i know in Tokyo their english is terrible, i dont imagine the english from people who didnt even attend highschool.

Phillipines was ruled by the u.s. for a while (not as a state) so english probably became a tradition there.

http://countrystudies.us/philippines/16.htm

[Rubber Duck]

Originally Posted by donwebcorleone

i wonder if in india happens the same than in the philippines, when i went to manila everyone speaks english, even at school instruction is in english but at home or among close friends everyone uses tagalog. something like poor people tagalog, educated or middle class filipinos english; the websites from the philippines are also divided, business websites offering services, sales, etc in english; local news, blogs, etc in tagalog.

is people doing the websites to offer services, online stores, etc to domestic india in hindi or english? i guess english for now...? i never feel india as an english dominated country, in fact most Ph.D student from India that i know in Tokyo their english is terrible, i dont imagine the english from people who didnt even attend highschool.

Comparing India with an island archipeligo doesn't make an awful lot of sense to me. There are over 7,000 separate islands in the Philipines which are largely heavily forested, so it is little wonder that there is huge linguistic diversity. Nevertheless, having worked extensively with filipinos they have a greatly growing sense of their own cultural identity and definitely predominantly speak their own language amongst themselves. The emphasis on English has to a large extent been driven by the economies dependence on expatriate remittances. I think as the their own economy develops, this will become significantly less important.

[touchring]

Originally Posted by Jeff

Phillipines was ruled by the u.s. for a while (not as a state) so english probably became a tradition there.

http://countrystudies.us/philippines/16.htm

Filipinos speak English with a slight "American accent", so their English will be much more comprehensible to Americans. Indians generally speak with an "Indian accent". A lot of American call centers are moving to the Philippines because of this.

[Rubber Duck]

Originally Posted by touchring

Filipinos speak English with a slight "American accent", so their English will be much more comprehensible to Americans. Indians generally speak with an "Indian accent". A lot of American call centers are moving to the Philippines because of this.

Yes, add to that they have a very friendly helpful disposition and understand the western sense of humour, then the place clearly has a lot going for it. The main thing holding them back has been institutionalised corruption, something else they probably learnt from America.

[donwebcorleone]

Originally Posted by Dwrixon

Comparing India with an island archipeligo doesn't make an awful lot of sense to me. There are over 7,000 separate islands in the Philipines which are largely heavily forested, so it is little wonder that there is huge linguistic diversity. Nevertheless, having worked extensively with filipinos they have a greatly growing sense of their own cultural identity and definitely predominantly speak their own language amongst themselves. The emphasis on English has to a large extent been driven by the economies dependence on expatriate remittances. I think as the their own economy develops, this will become significantly less important.

dwrixon, i did the comparison based on the fact both countries have been ex-colonies of english speaking countries and they both are using english on business. i was wondering if in India people are choosing english by choice or by force.

but i think there are more languages spoken in India than in the Philippines, tagalog is one but the only major one spoken by the filipinos; in india there are several languages spoken each one by hundreds of millions. anyway i dont know much about India, so i shut up.

[touchring]

Originally Posted by donwebcorleone

dwrixon, i did the comparison based on the fact both countries have been ex-colonies of english speaking countries and they both are using english on business. i was wondering if in India people are choosing english by choice or by force.

but i think there are more languages spoken in India than in the Philippines, tagalog is one but the only major one spoken by the filipinos; in india there are several languages spoken each one by hundreds of millions. anyway i dont know much about India, so i shut up.

Literacy in India averages only about 60% - http://www.mapsofindia.com/census2001/literacyrate.htm. The number of people that can speak a 2nd language will be even lower.

Literacy rate in the Philippines exceeds 92% http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/...k/geos/rp.html, even higher than China's 90% literacy rate.

Even in developed countries, less educated (although not iliterate) people are always at the disadvantaged - i believe so for Japan as well, where drivers and cleaners are having a hard time with the high cost of living and can only afford to eat rice rolls for lunch.

As such, one can anticipate poverty gap in India to widen rapidly over the next 10 years as educated and city people become wealthier, while illiterate people continue to be poor, and some even poorer. What will happen then?

Most Westerners will say, India is a democracy, democracy will take care of it. But we all know that democracy is controlled by the rich and educated. What do illiterate villagers know about who to vote? They would vote for a guy that buys them an ice cream.

[Rubber Duck]

Originally Posted by donwebcorleone

dwrixon, i did the comparison based on the fact both countries have been ex-colonies of english speaking countries and they both are using english on business. i was wondering if in India people are choosing english by choice or by force.

but i think there are more languages spoken in India than in the Philippines, tagalog is one but the only major one spoken by the filipinos; in india there are several languages spoken each one by hundreds of millions. anyway i dont know much about India, so i shut up.

Choice or force is not really a meaningful concept. Nearly everyone chooses to learn a language in reality, but the driving forces are largely economic. India was trading extensively with Britain before it was colonised. Many Indians would have been in favour of British Rule because it will have brought prosperity to some. However, British they may have become, underneath there is still a very deep and rich Indian culture that influences much of their decision making. That is not negative observation, but a recognition of ancient culture with merit of its own over and above anything that has been imported from Britain.

Indians still use English extensively and will continue to do so, of course it can be as incomprehensible to Americans, as their corrupted form of English with non-traditional pronounciations can be to other English speakers. That is unlikely to change as Holywood the main engine for promoting American English has little influence in India. The reason that they use English is that is a neutral medium understood by all, but probably not greatly respected by any. Tamils and other groups would prefer to continue to use English in this way rather than adopt Hindi as a single universal language. They are part of Federation. If they are forced to convert to Hindi, they will feel they are being Colonised.

The defacto language of government in India is English, just as in the EU, it was French. That just goes to show how ephemeral these things can be. Virtually nobody outside France speaks much French within the EU, except for Belgium and Luxembourg. Business in the EU has within a few years switched largely from French to English, although this has not been recognised in any formal way, and the Institution itself maintains the pretence that French has an equal standing.

None of this really changes the fact that Indians don't really speak English. If they are in peer groups they speak their native tongue. If they are in mixed business groups they will speak English, but this doesn't mean that they write their diaries in English or will surf the Internet in English if they are give a choice. The point is that to date there has been little choice, there has also been comparatively little use of the internet. The Indian govenment has clearly recognised that local character content and IDN are essential to secure the economic growth that will come from rapid implentation of the Internet. Of course they have expressed their support for dot In. What government would seriously try to detract from its own ccTLD. They are, however, much more interested and commited to the implementation of IDN. Of course they can use their influence over dot IN to ensure IDN implementation at that level.

I am afraid that image of India as a homogenius English speaking country with a population of 1 Billion is only really useful for a handful of get rich quick merchants on DNForum that appear to have scoped the Pool in English dot In Generics. The question has to be asked why this was allowed to happen. I think the real answer is that Indians themselves did not percieve these domains to be of any great value. The question is whether that was because they were naive or simply because they do not recognise the relevance of English Generics on the Indian Internet?

[touchring]

Originally Posted by Dwrixon

The question is whether that was because they were naive or simply because they do not recognise the relevance of English Generics on the Indian Internet?

I think the problem lies in the Asian perception that the URL is just an address and there's no point spending money on it.

To most Indian small businesses, even the $7 a year fee is expensive, many would use geocities for it's free url.

In China, i've seen 2nd tier dot com companies using variant urls (pinyin typos) since the pinyin is taken. For instance, using pinnyin.com.

Another reason, particularly so for India and China is the practice of not paying for virtual products, e.g. most people would not pay for software or movie - i've seen people who would not even pay $1 for duplicates - the cheapest way is to download.

Of cos, i'm talking about end-user valuation. Should the keyword attract significant type-in and clickthru, it's valuation will be based on price earnings of say 5-10 years, and not how much an Indian business will pay.

[Rubber Duck]

Originally Posted by touchring

I think the problem lies in the Asian perception that the URL is just an address and there's no point spending money on it.

To most Indian small businesses, even the $7 a year fee is expensive, many would use geocities for it's free url.

In China, i've seen 2nd tier dot com companies using variant urls (pinyin typos) since the pinyin is taken. For instance, using pinnyin.com.

Another reason, particularly so for India and China is the practice of not paying for virtual products, e.g. most people would not pay for software or movie - i've seen people who would not even pay $1 for duplicates - the cheapest way is to download.

Of cos, i'm talking about end-user valuation. Should the keyword attract significant type-in and clickthru, it's valuation will be based on price earnings of say 5-10 years, and not how much an Indian business will pay.

Interesting, I wondered why I kept getting stuff with geocities on it. I just delete it all without opening it.

A few years ago nobody in the States would have given more than reg fee for any domain. Indians will invest heavily in things that they perceive as having value. The value of domain will become all too apparent to them all to quickly, you only have to read articles about cybersquatting on dot CZ to realise how fast the message travels. Underestimate the Indians at your peril, if you do they will be eating your lunch, and they will be perfectly entitled to do so!

[donwebcorleone]

the only thing is that i think internet can reach a higher position in india than in china, because in india at least they are in a better knowledge of english. china internet use grow only as websites in chinese grow. different in india, that they dont need an website in hindi to search the net.

[touchring]

Of cos, perceptions do change - the only issue is when.

I share your belief that good generics, even from less popular languages, are a good investment.

[Rubber Duck]

Originally Posted by donwebcorleone

the only thing is that i think internet can reach a higher position in india than in china, because in india at least they are in a better knowledge of english. china internet use grow only as websites in chinese grow. different in india, that they dont need an website in hindi to search the net.

The number and quality of web content in Chinese is stunning. I think you'll find that it dwarfs Japanese.

The main reason that you cannot search the internet in India, is because most of the Hindi sites are still in non-portable fonts and because there is a dire shortage of Indic Script Keyboards. English will be most signficant in the technology transfer phase, when information is required from America about how to set things up and get the job running. It will not be the primary medium for browsing.

[OldIDNer]

The only reason why I did away my .in portfolio was because it sometimes becomes so very difficult to distinguish between .in and .co.in for a particular keyword specially when these are on equal footing.

Yeah I don't like that much either. And then right now it seems .co.in is the better type-in extension, more used and well known but the thinking is that .in will be the adopted extension in time (in the .in sphere) so its like, which do you develop, do you need both? Thats why I tried with the few names I have to get the .in and .co.in so this way I could have whichever url they typed and could make a site that resolved with either extension form.

I do agree with the idea that there is limited play in the English arena, absolutely (that's really true with all extensions but .com, in a sense). And of course you will always have people registering bad domain names (self included). People do speak of the English/India connection, but this is often done by many who are not even aware of domain names. There is a lot of information on the internet that suggests English is an important language in India, a sort of neutral second language, closely allied with business, govt, and, money. But of course, what most people speak and type when they shop/buy (spend money) is very important. And IDN will make it possible for people to communicate the way they wish.

I do admire India (and China) for opening their namespace up. NIXI/inregistry in particular is a very competent registry imo. I remember when many of the registrars were licking their lips getting ready to auction the names off and nixi came in and shut that down right quick. Their TM sunrise process went relatively smooth too. Contrast that with what happened with .info (I think nixi's backend is handled by afilias) or what is happening with .eu. Of course, .in is a cctld and easier to manage that a more global gtld but I still think they responded very quickly to issues.

Now movie/movies.in is a great English .in domain, imo. They sure love their movies.

[donwebcorleone]

Originally Posted by donwebcorleone

the only thing is that i think internet can reach a higher position in india than in china, because in india at least they are in a better knowledge of english. china internet use grow only as websites in chinese grow. different in india, that they dont need an website in hindi to search the net.

what i mean here is that, IMHO, chinese couldnt reach a high number of internet users because the number of websites in chinese was minimal. what was the greatness of having internet at home if u didnt understand a word of most websites?

now that a lot of content in chinese is being done, even by western companies, the use is skyrocketing. on the other hand, i think people in other countries as India or Latinamerica didnt need their own language websites that much to surf the net; thats why they started to use it a lot english .com ; now things change.

anyway m sure chinese content is now huge, and in the future when at least 50% of the chinese reach to have internet at home to do websites, buy online, create blogs, etc in chinese, they will be able to double or triple the numbers of websites existant in all other languages for sure. thats what unfortunately cant occur with .jp

[touchring]

Originally Posted by OldIDNer

Yeah I don't like that much either. And then right now it seems .co.in is the better type-in extension, more used and well known but the thinking is that .in will be the adopted extension in time (in the .in sphere) so its like, which do you develop, do you need both? Thats why I tried with the few names I have to get the .in and .co.in so this way I could have whichever url they typed and could make a site that resolved with either extension form.

I do agree with the idea that there is limited play in the English arena, absolutely. And of course you will always have people registering bad domain names (self included of course), they see someone with some names and decide to get in on it and reg names but often most of the valuable space is long gone. People often do speak of the English/India connection, but this is often done by many who are not even aware of domain names. There is a lot of information on the internet that suggests English is an important language in India, a sort of neutral second language, closely allied with business, govt and, money. But of course, what most people speak and type when they shop/buy is very important.

I do admire India (and China) for opening their namespace up. I think NIXI in particular is one of the most competent registries I have even seen. I remember when many of the registrars were licking their lips getting ready to auction the names off and nixi came in and shut that down right quick. That was very cool. Their TM process went relatively smooth too. Contrast that with what happened with .info (I think nixi backend is handled now handled by afilias, ironically) or what is happening with .eu. Of course, .in is a cctld and easier to manage that a more global gtld but I still think they responded very quickly to issues.

Now movie/movies.in would be a great .in domain, English wise, imo. They sure love their movies.

Dave, if the UK nic suddenly announces .uk, will it take off? Say www.bbc.uk.

What do you think?

[drbiohealth]

All said and done, I concur with Dave that this indeed is/was once in a lifetime opportunity.

We are actually seeing the 2nd phase of this whole game, or may be the 2nd phase too will soon pass by.

First phase was in 2000-01. Those people who booked names that time are sitting pretty with real gems. Take for example, I keep stumbling upon this name in the IDN whois scene, "netcorp". I imagine this is the same group which holds a lot of premium english.com. These guys were not fools to shell out reg fee for thousands of names year after year.

My sense is that all guys on this forum will fare well in future as they must have got by now at least a few "too good" domains in their kitty. However, with with time newcomers will face the same tune similar to what happened with english.com. History repeats!!!

[Rubber Duck]

Originally Posted by touchring

Dave, if the UK nic suddenly announces .uk, will it take off? Say www.bbc.uk.

What do you think?

I don't think they have the rights over it somehow. The only people using .uk at the moment is central government who have such an inflated view of their own importance that they will probably hang onto it. I think there would be opposition to from big business who are already commited heavily to co.uk and dot com. I think really for most it would only create a huge amount of unwelcome work and unnecessary investment. It would have been better if .uk had been launched as an extension right from the start as was the case with .de.

Originally Posted by Jeff

What about the Tamil ppl?

Seems like english won't be the key then but probably a mix of tamil/hindi

Well tamil is unlikely to be the second most important online language as it would have to compete with Bangla, Urdu, Marathi, Telugu and Kannada, but it will be significant nonetheless.