"Death of the URL" No need for IDN's

[IDNCowboy]

Latest post on frank's blog

http://frankschilling.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/05/the_desire_to_c.html

[thefabfive]

This is nothing new. We all know how search is done is Japan.

The big question is how will IDN alter the status quo.

[thegenius1]

This is nothing new. We all know how search is done is Japan.

The big question is how will IDN alter the status quo.

I like your site 為替レート Looks Good :) .

[gammascalper]

Yep, looking good tff :)

[thefabfive]

Ty

[jacksonm]

This is nothing new. We all know how search is done is Japan.

The big question is how will IDN alter the status quo.


Nonsense.

If people in Japan didn't search, then there wouldn't be overture for Japanese terms. I can find quite a lot of generic terms in Japanese OVT which have hundreds of thousands of searches per month.

.

[thefabfive]

I'll spell out my last post a little clearer.

We all know how Japanese web surfers navigate - primarily by search. This is nothing new to most everyone here.

How IDN will change that culture is still unknown. The idea that IDN urls would not be preferrable to ASCII or even numerical urls is shortsighted.

[thegenius1]

The idea that IDN urls would not be preferrable to ASCII or even numerical urls is shortsighted.

That is a understatement come on tell us the real words you would like to use , i bet they rhyme with "pee farted"

[jacksonm]

I'll spell out my last post a little clearer.

We all know how Japanese web surfers navigate - primarily by search. This is nothing new to most everyone here.

How IDN will change that culture is still unknown. The idea that IDN urls would not be preferrable to ASCII or even numerical urls is shortsighted.


Ah, right. I misunderstood you. Sorry.

Actually, I used to type-in quite frequently several years ago, but I stopped doing it altogether after the majority of the sites turned out to be "for sale" or parking pages. That conditioned me over time to just give up typing-in.

.

[Rubber Duck]

I don't think I have ever typed in the sense that I use it as a search method, although, it is clear that many people do tend to search this way.

What I do, is make a mental note of domains and then type them in to navigate to a site that I am familiar with or one that I have heard about or have the URL for. The Japanese, it would appear do not even do this very often. For most of them the address bar is something they do not really understand and for many, might as well not exist at all.

Ah, right. I misunderstood you. Sorry.

Actually, I used to type-in quite frequently several years ago, but I stopped doing it altogether after the majority of the sites turned out to be "for sale" or parking pages. That conditioned me over time to just give up typing-in.

.

[burnsinternet]

It is difficult to tell if he is negative or positive on IDN. In a way, he seems to show that number domains are used and search engines are used, but he blames it on the slow rollout of IDN to the Japanese. I complain about this, too.

I am always accused of being naive and seeing the best in people when I should watch out for myself.... Am I reading this incorrectly?

[touchring]

It is difficult to tell if he is negative or positive on IDN. In a way, he seems to show that number domains are used and search engines are used, but he blames it on the slow rollout of IDN to the Japanese. I complain about this, too.

I am always accused of being naive and seeing the best in people when I should watch out for myself.... Am I reading this incorrectly?


He is not negative on IDNs, but since he doesn't own much IDNs (assuming this), he can't say good things about IDNs, can he? Doesn't benefit him. I mean, we're all like this, what we own, we talk good about, what we don't, we critic.

[Rubber Duck]

Numbers is an interesting topic. Latin numbers have been used for centuries by the Chinese and probably by the Japanese as well, so they are an integral part of the language as indeed as some common Latin Acronyms now.

Numbers are of importance to the Chinese and will continue to be important, but that importance has been exaggerated exponentially because than is about all that was workable. Numbers will continue to be used but they won't be the gold dust that have been in Chinese, and as China was really the main market for number domains their value elsewhere is likely to take a knock as well. If you are investing in number domains, either invest in series of 3 or get something with repeated digits like 118118.

It is difficult to tell if he is negative or positive on IDN. In a way, he seems to show that number domains are used and search engines are used, but he blames it on the slow rollout of IDN to the Japanese. I complain about this, too.

I am always accused of being naive and seeing the best in people when I should watch out for myself.... Am I reading this incorrectly?

[touchring]

Numbers is an interesting topic. Latin numbers have been used for centuries by the Chinese and probably by the Japanese as well, so they are an integral part of the language as indeed as some common Latin Acronyms now.

Numbers are of importance to the Chinese and will continue to be important, but that importance has been exaggerated exponentially because than is about all that was workable. Numbers will continue to be used but they won't be the gold dust that have been in Chinese, and as China was really the main market for number domains their value elsewhere is likely to take a knock as well. If you are investing in number domains, either invest in series of 3 or get something with repeated digits like 118118.


Chinese number characters are actually words, less of "number" in the sense of arabic numerals.

Words:
English: One, two, Three
Chinese: 一,二,三

Numbers:
English: 1, 2, 3
Chinese: 1, 2, 3

Chinese used to have its own "number" system, but which is now extinct.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_numerals

Suzhou (蘇州) or huāmǎ (花碼) numerals

In the same way that Roman numerals were standard in ancient and medieval Europe for mathematics and commerce, the Chinese formerly used the rod numerals, which is a positional system. The huāmǎ system is a variation of the rod numeral system. Rod numerals are closely related to the counting rods and the abacus, which is why the numeric symbols for 1, 2, 3, 6, 7 and 8 in the huāmǎ system are represented in a similar way as on the abacus.

Nowadays, the huāmǎ system is only used for displaying prices in Chinese markets or on traditional handwritten invoices. According to the Unicode standard version 3.0, these characters are called Hangzhou style numerals. This indicates that it is not used only by Cantonese in Hong Kong. In the Unicode standard 4.0, an erratum was added which stated:

The Suzhou numerals (Chinese su1 zhou1 ma3 zi) are special numeric forms used by traders to display the prices of goods. The use of "HANGZHOU" in the names is a misnomer.

All references to "Hangzou" in the Unicode standard have been corrected to "Suzhou" except for the character names themselves, which cannot be changed once assigned, according to the Unicode Stability Policy[1]. (This policy allows software to use the names as unique identifiers.)

In the huāmǎ system, special symbols are used for digits instead of the Chinese characters. The digits are positional. When written horizontally, the numerical value is written in two rows. For example:

〤〇〢二
拾元

The top row contains the numeric symbols, for example, 〤〇〢二 stands for 4022. The bottom row consists of one or more Chinese characters that represents the unit of the first digit in the first row. The first part in the bottom row indicates the order of the first digit in the top row, e.g. qian1 (千) for thousand, bái (百) for hundred, shí (拾) for ten, blank for one etc. The second part denotes the unit of measurement, such as yuán (元 for dollar) or máo (毫 or 毛 for 10 cents) or xiān (仙 for 1 cent) or lǐ (里 for the Chinese mile) or any other measurement unit. If the characters shí yuán (拾元, "10 dollars") are below the digits 〤〇〢二, it is then read as forty dollars and twenty two cents. Notice that the decimal point is implicit when the first digit '4' is set at the 'ten' position. This is very similar to the modern scientific notation for floating point numbers where the significant digits are represented in the mantissa and the order of magnitude is specified in the exponent.

When written vertically, the above example is written thus:

拾〤
元〇
　〢
　二

The digits of the Suzhou numerals are defined between U+3021 and U+3029 in Unicode.

Zero is represented by a circle, probably the numeral '0', letter 'O' or character 〇 may work well. Leading and trailing zeros are unnecessary in this system. Additional characters representing 10, 20, 30 and 40 exist: 十, 卄, 卅, 卌.

For those who cannot see the Unicode glyphs in the web browser, here is an image with the appearance of these digits:

Note: 9 is a dot on top of a variant of the 〤 (4) symbol (〩,not represented in the image); this symbol looks like the Chinese character for "jiǔ (久)", compare to the formal character '9' "jiǔ (玖)". (Some web browsers, e.g. IE 5.5, display this character incorrectly as the "fǎn wén", or reverse "wén" radical (夂 & 攵 & 夊 & 文), click here to see the correct graphic glyph.)

The digits 1 to 3 come in the vertical and horizontal version so that they can alternate if these digits are next to each other. The first digit usually use the vertical version. e.g. 21 is written as 〢一 instead of 〢〡 which can be confused with 3 (〣).

[Rubber Duck]

They were actually both, but are rarely used for arithmetic these days.

[rofsjan]

Frank wrote: all those IDNs will need their ascii equivalent for global trade.. :)

I doubt it.

[Rubber Duck]

I doubt it.

Frank cannot seem to get it in to his head that Global Trade is only the summation of a lot of local trade. If you do not nail down all those individual market sectors there is no global trade.

[domainguru]

It is difficult to tell if he is negative or positive on IDN. In a way, he seems to show that number domains are used and search engines are used, but he blames it on the slow rollout of IDN to the Japanese. I complain about this, too.

I am always accused of being naive and seeing the best in people when I should watch out for myself.... Am I reading this incorrectly?

Of course he is positive. The clue is in the blog title:

"The Desire to Communicate in Your Native Language"

There is nothing else to say.

[alpha]

My two cents

Frank is neither right or wrong. yeah i'm sitting on the fence :)

why?

Nobody yet knows how IDN's will be used in the global marketplace, but I have no doubt that we will go through a number of interations before we see the model settle down.

take the here and now..

If I was running a Japanese e-commerce business, lets say I was selling Japanese comics and i export round the globe...

I am an established business, and I have established myself on an ascii.com or ascii.jp domain name.

If I was clued up, I would probably buy myself some related keyword IDNs.com/.jp and simply forward to my ascii site.

we all know today that IDN rank well in Yahoo, and this would probably be a lot cheaper way of bringing new traffic to my door than paying out more for good old fashioned SEO on my ascii domain.

As IE7 slowly replaces the incumbant IE6 browser, then through analytics I may decide one day to start advertising my new IDN domains.

at the end of the day, as a webmaster I will follow the traffic and trend.

but as Frank says, in a global market, i still need to provide an address for my non Japanese visitors (assuming my platform was multi-lingual) but that doesn't mean I NEED the English ascii version of the Japanese IDN keyword I am using, I just continue using the ascii I have always used.

[mulligan]

For an established online business it would require a leap of faith to go fully IDN and frankly could be a very stupid thing to do if they are multinational, dealing in several countries other than their own (Depends on the language your consumers speak I guess) ... not such a leap if they are only doing business in their own country.

But for new businesses and all future new online commerce sites it may be an easier pill to swallow to go IDN from the outset .. again it might depend on whether they are multi national or just a national concern but for an 'in country' business it shouldn't take too long for webmasters to see the benefit of using their native language, there are many more domain names available even in the most heavily mined languages than there are in ASCII .... so it would be a no brainer if you wanted a more descriptive domain name for your paper clip selling business to go native

[Rubber Duck]

Well, you probably chose the worst possible example as a comic is going to be by its very nature culturally and linguistically specific.

I never said that that there was no place for ASCII, and I never said that anyone should exclusively go over to IDN before browser support is in place.

What I said is that is there is no such thing as Global Market other than the summation of a lot of segments, and specifically geographical, linguistic and cultural segments. Each of those segments needs to be targeted in a specific way, and yes perhaps in some instances the biggest and most important need to be target with ASCII domains. That still doesn't justify Frank's concept of a global anchor site. Even the currently mighty US market is just one geographical segment which is arguably sub-divided into different cultural segments, although obviously not to the same extent as Europe.


My two cents

Frank is neither right or wrong. yeah i'm sitting on the fence :)

why?

Nobody yet knows how IDN's will be used in the global marketplace, but I have no doubt that we will go through a number of interations before we see the model settle down.

take the here and now..

If I was running a Japanese e-commerce business, lets say I was selling Japanese comics and i export round the globe...

I am an established business, and I have established myself on an ascii.com or ascii.jp domain name.

If I was clued up, I would probably buy myself some related keyword IDNs.com/.jp and simply forward to my ascii site.

we all know today that IDN rank well in Yahoo, and this would probably be a lot cheaper way of bringing new traffic to my door than paying out more for good old fashioned SEO on my ascii domain.

As IE7 slowly replaces the incumbant IE6 browser, then through analytics I may decide one day to start advertising my new IDN domains.

at the end of the day, as a webmaster I will follow the traffic and trend.

but as Frank says, in a global market, i still need to provide an address for my non Japanese visitors (assuming my platform was multi-lingual) but that doesn't mean I NEED the English ascii version of the Japanese IDN keyword I am using, I just continue using the ascii I have always used.

[domainguru]

For an established online business it would require a leap of faith to go fully IDN and frankly could be a very stupid thing to do if they are multinational, dealing in several countries other than their own (Depends on the language your consumers speak I guess) ... not such a leap if they are only doing business in their own country.

But for new businesses and all future new online commerce sites it may be an easier pill to swallow to go IDN from the outset .. again it might depend on whether they are multi national or just a national concern but for an 'in country' business it shouldn't take too long for webmasters to see the benefit of using their native language, there are many more domain names available even in the most heavily mined languages than there are in ASCII .... so it would be a no brainer if you wanted a more descriptive domain name for your paper clip selling business to go native

It also seems to be the "get out clause" for IDN doomsters that "we live in a global community so we all still need ASCII domains". The reality is that for most Japanese busineses, they are addressing a purely Japanese audience. The same for China. The same for Korea. The same for Thailand. The same for Vietnam. You get the idea.

Of course there are exporters and webmasters interested in audiences outside their language. But for most Asian websites and people, this is simply not the case. They do not run multi-lingual websites. They run websites in their native language, and only readers of that language will have any interest in that website. Pure and simply, the language of the website dictates whether IDNs are appropriate labels for that website or not. The % of multi-lingual websites is tiny compared with mono-lingual (if that is a word).

[Drewbert]

Don't worry. Frank will come around. Mark my words.

[Olney]

I took a video of how common it's becoming

http://japansem.com/13/suggested-search-box-more-frequent-on-offline-ads/

As we all know the main reason why this is becoming popular is because Japanese can't remember the domains in English.

The Global thing I understand. Use an ASCII domain, but my company has clients spending $100,000 to advertise just in Japan & not a cent overseas.
IDN's are great initially as campaign domains...

[rhys]

It also seems to be the "get out clause" for IDN doomsters that "we live in a global community so we all still need ASCII domains". The reality is that for most Japanese busineses, they are addressing a purely Japanese audience. The same for China. The same for Korea. The same for Thailand. The same for Vietnam. You get the idea.

Of course there are exporters and webmasters interested in audiences outside their language. But for most Asian websites and people, this is simply not the case. They do not run multi-lingual websites. They run websites in their native language, and only readers of that language will have any interest in that website. Pure and simply, the language of the website dictates whether IDNs are appropriate labels for that website or not. The % of multi-lingual websites is tiny compared with mono-lingual (if that is a word).

Exactly! You should post this on Frank's blog minus the doomsters language. I know it is hard for americans to believe they aren't the center of the commercial universe but, you know, tough breaks! People have their local markets to make money from why are Americans expecting every shop-owner in Nagasaki to put up websites in English for them. Even corporates bifurcate their web presences leaving it up to local subsidiaries.

I must say I appreciate Frank's occasional mentions of IDNs, even though he says some naive things on there sometimes with regards to them. Remember that time he predicted that there might be little need for IDNs because global language trends showed a consolidation of languages and everyone would probably just learn to speak English faster than the need for IDNs would arise. Uh right.

[touchring]

I think he is trying to brainstorm and find the logic in investing in asian idns, but the truth is there's no need to know or understand, especially for the Chinese market - JUST GET IN!!!

Once the market opens up fully in 15-20 years, you'll find yourself being attacked by a burgeoning biz community 100 times the size of HK.


http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_05/saxena051007.html



China Will Replace the United States as
the World's Most Important Economy

Puru Saxena
9 May 2007

A gradual transfer of wealth and power is currently underway. Thanks to globalisation and economic reforms, the great wealth divide between the industrialised nations and the "emerging" economies is contracting. Over the coming decades, I anticipate this process to accelerate. In other words, I believe the future will bring rising consumption and a higher standard of living in today's impoverished countries (China, India, Brazil and other "third world" countries), whereas we are likely to witness the reverse in the United States and parts of Western Europe.

Over the past decades, the United States has been the engine of global growth; however its dominance will be challenged in the not too distant future. If my assessment is correct, China will replace the United States as the world's most important economy. Before you dismiss my claim as a far-fetched fantasy, I want you to consider that China has the biggest population in the world, the largest foreign exchange reserves (over US$1 trillion), a booming China economy, an extremely high savings rate and expanding surpluses. Moreover, its currency is extremely undervalued and China (despite extremely low per-capita consumption levels) has already surpassed the United States as the biggest consumer nation.

Skeptics who doubt China's role in the global economy should take note of the fact that Europe already imports more from China than it does from the United States. To top it all, the U.S. is the largest debtor nation the world has ever seen, its debt to GDP ratio is over 400%, it has a negative personal savings rate, its currency is overvalued and its society is heavily dependent on consuming cheap, imported goods.

To be fair, thanks to the Federal Reserve's expansionary monetary policies over the past five years, U.S. asset-prices have risen considerably; also known as the "wealth effect". At the end of last year, the market capitalisation of the U.S. stock market rose to a record-high of US$20.6 trillion, matching the value of household real estate, which also rose to a record-high at the same time. On the surface, this may seem like brilliant news, however you must realize that this "wealth illusion" achieved by an ocean of money and record-high indebtedness is only a consequence of inflation. Moreover, history shows that although asset-prices can come down rather abruptly, debt must always be repaid. So, I remain cautious of this engineered American "prosperity".

Today, China has become the manufacturer to the whole world and (at least for now) it continues to sell its merchandise in exchange for U.S. dollars. Now, some people may consider this an act of stupidity given the state of the world's reserve currency. However, in my view, by keeping this game going, the Chinese are simply "buying time". Quite simply, they are happy to accept payments in U.S. dollars because this allows them to strengthen their economy further. In my opinion, the Chinese are extremely smart when it comes to business and they know only too well that they must get rid of their huge dollar reserves which they have accumulated over the recent years. In fact, this process may have already begun. Recently, China announced that it plans to diversify between US$200-300 billion of its foreign exchange reserves and is considering an investment in "strategic assets crucial for its development". This development is negative for the U.S. dollar and will help underpin the prices of natural resources.

Lately, the United States has accused China of following unfair trade practices. According to the American establishment, China is guilty of artificially suppressing its currency; allegedly, a key factor behind its balance of trade problem. I find this rhetoric totally absurd on three levels.

Firstly, over the past few years, China's imports have grown immensely. Whilst it has imported a lot of natural resources from Latin America, Africa and Asia to feed its economy, it has not bought much from the United States. This is not because communist China has a hidden agenda against the "land of the free", but it has everything to do with the fact that the U.S. is not very competitive.

Secondly, if China was not keeping a lid on its currency and supporting the dollar by investing in U.S. Treasuries, long-term interest-rates in the U.S. would be significantly higher and this, in turn, would seriously hurt the housing boom. Finally, if China let its currency rise against the dollar, as being demanded by the U.S. establishment, imported Chinese goods would become extremely expensive for the average American, thereby hurting U.S. consumption and its economy. So, Americans should, in fact, be grateful to the Chinese for helping fund their deficits and overall consumption!

As sure as night follows the day, at some point in the future, when China feels that its economy is strong enough, U.S. dollars, in exchange for the goods China exports to the United States, will not be accepted. When that happens, you can be sure that the dollar will sink against the Chinese yuan and the American economy will slip into a serious recession. This is one of the reasons why I continue to avoid U.S. financial assets.

Whether you like it or not, China will provide economic leadership over the coming decades and investors should have a position in this exciting market. At the moment, the Chinese authorities are busy raising interest-rates and the bank's minimum reserve requirement in order to curtail the rampant speculation in Chinese stocks and real-estate. Despite the tightening efforts of its authorities, the Chinese economy continues to power ahead. In February, Chinese exports were up a phenomenal 52% when compared to a year ago, retail sales grew by 14.7% and industrial production surged by roughly 19%.

It is interesting to note that Chinese money-supply and bank-credit continue to expand at roughly 17% per annum, which is positive for asset-prices. Nobody knows if and when Chinese stocks will correct, but if we do get a meaningful correction, I suggest that long-term investors deploy a portion of their capital to this impressive economy.

Regards,

Puru Saxena
Email: puru@purusaxena.com
Website: www.purusaxena.com

Puru Saxena is the editor and publisher of Money Matters, an economic and financial publication NOW available at www.purusaxena.com

An investment adviser based in Hong Kong, he is a regular guest on CNBC, BBC World, Bloomberg TV & Radio, NDTV, RTHK Radio 3 and writes for several newspapers and financial journals.

Copyright © 2007 Puru Saxena Limited. All rights reserved

[Rubber Duck]

Amazing. This guy has completely nailed it.

Why therefore cannot the rest of the World and especially our expert economist see wtf is going on?

[touchring]

Amazing. This guy has completely nailed it.

Why therefore cannot the rest of the World and especially our expert economist see wtf is going on?


Yup, i found this article good, but not comprehensive enough. The expert economists know what is going on, but corporate greed controls western governments and so it is inevitable that they fall into the trap.

[burnsinternet]

I took a video of how common it's becoming

http://japansem.com/13/suggested-search-box-more-frequent-on-offline-ads/

As we all know the main reason why this is becoming popular is because Japanese can't remember the domains in English.

The Global thing I understand. Use an ASCII domain, but my company has clients spending $100,000 to advertise just in Japan & not a cent overseas.
IDN's are great initially as campaign domains...

Japanese companies are advertising search terms so that Japanese can search and find the URL instead of memorizing it, correct? Does this mean that JP Ovt stats will plunge when IDNs become mainstream? Also, how will this affect online ad budgets in Japan?

[blastfromthepast]

British influence on dress is even more widespread than that of the English language - for the lounge suit is worn even in parts of the world where English is not spoken. Indeed, it is true that, sartorially speaking, the whole world is still a British colony. To see the English turn their back on English dress and English language domains is like watching some beautiful old English heritage buildings being demolished as part of some 'urban improvement' programme.

[Olney]

Overture stats might change in the future because of less searches. Some big companies have the worst domains you can imagine, even I have a hard time remember some of the clients corporate URLs.

It's certainly not Franks investment we need in IDNs, that's short term success for a few. It's having Club Ai in Shinjuku's owner suddenly say he needs to have Host Club dot com because it's the easiest to remember. That's an investment.

[rhys]

Overture stats might change in the future because of less searches. Some big companies have the worst domains you can imagine, even I have a hard time remember some of the clients corporate URLs.

It's certainly not Franks investment we need in IDNs, that's short term success for a few. It's having Club Ai in Shinjuku's owner suddenly say he needs to have Host Club dot com because it's the easiest to remember. That's an investment.

Good example Olney! Thinking along those lines - enter this search term キャバクラ into yahoo japan and see the top 2 results.

[Olney]

Good example Olney! Thinking along those lines - enter this search term キャバクラ into yahoo japan and see the top 2 results.

Trying to tell me I'm late developing キャバクラ.com right?:)

[rhys]

Trying to tell me I'm late developing キャバクラ.com right?:)

I'm just saying, the level of competition is rising, we'd all better hop to it. :)

[markits]

Trying to tell me I'm late developing キャバクラ.com right?:)
Easy. You will get benefit from other's promotion work. Type-in to キャバクラ.com is soon to come.

I predict that value of premium keyword domain will soon be appreciated dramatically.

[burnsinternet]

As soon as I saw that Nissan site, I regged about 50 of my top "to reg" domains. I feel it. I had my best month last month in revenue and I am almost at that same full-month-record-breaking amount now on May 12. I think it's gonna be a hot summer. If the ND site would only come back up....