Wheel out the trash people - it's garbage day (The $50 shop)

[GranttheKiwi]

OK, time for a new concept which won't be for everyone - but hey it's worth a punt!

Unlike my esteemed colleagues here who were very smart and bought everything on the planet, I only have a few IDN.tv's to my name - good ones though!

Anyway after scheming of ways to remedy the situation I came up with:

(1) go nuts and spend a fortune.

(2) reg whatever is left!

As you can see I don't have a lot of imagination but then I hit upon an idea.

The gurus here have thousands of fantastic names but I bet some I bet they wish they had never regged. Why? Not because they're worthless but because, well quite frankly, they own Tokyo.com or some brilliant equivalent and LittleTokyo.com just doesn't cut it by comparison.

So...I have a budget of $200 for up to 4 IDN's at $50 each. Yes I can afford more but this is a trial concept! I will be looking for solid generics and will prefer .com/.nets.

Hopefully there are a 100 or so posts and one week from today I will announce my four takers. If not, well it was just an idea.

After my four (max) its a free for all on the balance - first post to claim after I have selected can claim any other domain on the list or bribe me to include it in my four for a markup :) lol - just kidding.

Why do I get dibs on the best four - I like to think of it as my reward for not taking out the patent on this brilliant (or not so brilliant) idea.

So hopefully I've sparked your interest enough to look at the other end of your lists.

Wheel out the trash people - it's garbage day.:eek: 7 DAYS UNTIL THREAD IS CLOSED FOR THE DECISION

[GranttheKiwi]

p.s what better way to show everyone how good your portfolio really is.;)

[gammascalper]

นนทบุร
อุดรธาน
ชลบุร
ชัยภูมิ

How about some Thai typos? There's a few more where that came from!

They're worth at least $60 a piece in my book :-p

[Rubber Duck]

นนทบุร
อุดรธาน
ชลบุร
ชัยภูมิ

How about some Thai typos? There's a few more where that came from!

They're worth at least $60 a piece in my book :-p

Just make sure they are Typos. I thought I had some of these but the mistake occurred after registration!

[gammascalper]

Just make sure they are Typos. I thought I had some of these but the mistake occurred after registration!

!!! that doesn't give me a good feeling.

Did it happen only with Thai?

[bwhhisc]

!!! that doesn't give me a good feeling.
Did it happen only with Thai?

Where the heck did you learn to type in Thai? lol

Heres a $7 (but $8 reg is better) one for you Grant...matches your request to a 'G':

廃物.com Garbage.com in Japanese....ovt 93 who knows, it might be 'garbage' gold someday!

Personally I would dig down and get 25 great .coms for your $200, good ones are still out there in all languages. Just look at Edwins examples this week.

[Rubber Duck]

!!! that doesn't give me a good feeling.

Did it happen only with Thai?

Yes, the way I compile my spread sheet is to copy the punycode from the Invoice at domainsite. I lift the lot in one go and paste into Domainsite. I now usually then use IDN tools to give the me Unicode before bunging the lot into Systrans.

However, previously and occassional I put the punycode back into the Converter to lift the Unicode. It was a this point I dropped some of the end character. Stacked scripts and right to left are a nightmare to copy and paste.

Best Regards
The Rubber Duck.

p.s what better way to show everyone how good your portfolio really is.;)

I understand where you are coming from, but I just either drop mine completely when I think they are below investment grade or throw them into the Auctions when I think they are worthwhile, but not worth my while.

[GranttheKiwi]

Thanks for the "entries" so far...

Note your comments re "lots of good names still available" but I am already in trouble about the time I spend on this at home on my non-core ventures - particularly given that I am getting married this year! Moreso, though I also see this as an interesting social experiment as to the state of the market!

I think as a rule of thumb that IDN's are worth (as a general rule) 10% of the price of an equivalent .com. There are exceptions. Tokyo.com in IDN is IMO is more valuable or at least comparable to Tokyo.com in English. But generally speaking...

Typo domains at $50. What does everyone else think...I think this is a big ask.

I can't see myself ever regging a typo in a foreign language. I would expect to have enough of those without knowing it merely by using babelfish! They would have to pay for themselves in traffic methinks and I would be surprised if too many IDN's (even non-typo's) manage to do at this early stage.

[Edwin]

I think as a rule of thumb that IDN's are worth (as a general rule) 10% of the price of an equivalent .com. There are exceptions. Tokyo.com in IDN is IMO is more valuable or at least comparable to Tokyo.com in English. But generally speaking...

One thing puzzles me. Even if we accept your "10% of the price of an equivalent .com" premise, there is absolutely no way that you can get anything decent in .com for $500 (10x your stated budget) these days... so I doubt you're going to find anyone coming forward with $500-level-equivalent IDNs because we'd be talking REAL junk and there's just too much out there for anyone to need to resort to registering such low level IDNs right now.

[IDNCowboy]

Honestly with such great words out there you're going to have time getting someone to sell their least prized gems for $50.

[Edwin]

To demonstrate just how much is still out there, I rummaged around for 10 minutes and picked up the following domains (I've highlighted a few interesting numbers)...

ウェブ広告.com (web advertising) - OT bid Y139
転職営業.com (outplacement business) - highest OT bid is Y612 and OT score of 7,860!
メルマガ広告.com (newsletter advertising) - OT bid Y140
セールストーク.com (sales talk)
広告チラシ.com (advertising leaflet / leaflet advertising) - OT bid Y119
セールスレップ.com (sales rep)

Total expenditure: $47.94.

Another 30 minutes turned up...

ベッドルーム.com (bedroom)
エアコンクリーニング.com (airconditioner cleaning)
ドライフルーツ.com (dried fruit)
チラシデザイン.com (leaflet design)
ハウススタジオ.com (house studio)
ステーキハウス.com (steak house)
ミニログハウス.com (mini log house)
ユニットハウス.com (unit house)
プレハブハウス.com (prefab house)
ミニハウス.com (mini house)
ダンススタジオ.com (dance studio)
レンタルスタジオ.com (rental studio)
プレハブ.com (prefab)
プレハブ住宅.com (prefab house)
キャンピング.com (camping)
二世帯住宅.com (two family house)
ローコスト住宅.com (low cost house)

Some of those make more sense in Japanese - I've only provided a literal translation. Total cost $135.83.

So that's 23 domains for $200 - with enough cash left over for a pizza!

[bwhhisc]

I am already in trouble about the time I spend on this at home on my non-core ventures - particularly given that I am getting married this year!

Take a listen to what these guys are saying! Take your $200 and spend 15 or 20 minutes a day and reg 2 or 3 nice .coms. At the end of 7 days...you will be way better off than buying garbage!

Now get off the #@&% computer and go be sweet to your fiance for putting up with your IDNing ways!

[GranttheKiwi]

There are interesting points that you all make.

I wonder sometimes though whether people are putting enough scrutiny into IDN's and particulary chinese IDN's.

The OVT's are all but irrelevant given, chinese website sensoring/website blocking, browser issues etc and I guess for the most part we are all regging sites that mean something in English and we suspect have a meaning in the relevant language that is loosely the same backed up by our relevant searches and checking with friends re the translation.

Case in point (and no offence meant), take www.airconditionercleaning.com in Chinese IDN.

Two good keywords. No problem there.
Domain name says what the site is about: Good.
Commercial Potential: Average to Fair

So it doesn't look great but it looks ok (in English). But the English equivalent isn't even regged - so where does that leave us as to the value of the equivalent Chinese IDN. Perhaps there is more of a demand for that domain name in China - I don't know.

Now I picked that one out because it is easier for me to identify the chinese/japanese equivalent for the term for that one then say prefab (as pointed out by Edwin) and thus assess the equivalent value.

On the flip side, some of the others would obviously have the English equivalent regged so there is no point even checking them, say driedfruit.com as a good example. But how much value would you put on driedfruit.com to an end user?

Would an end user pay $500 when you can still pick up 4 letter .com's for reg fee-$30. Probably, but I don't know. Would they pay $10,000 - enough to get the seller a mention in the dnjournal? I have my doubts. After all that's what Tokyo.net is worth!

Anyway I am not trying to knock the domains being purchased (and particularly Edwin's) but the reality is that some are almost definitely $0 --> reg fee, particularly when - (and there are notable exceptions) the majority of us (myself included) - don't really know our end user mareket.

I suspect the response to this post isn't going to be very positive and that this will probably be the end of the "wheel out the trash" sale but my point is (yes there is one) that the basics re buying IDN's are not that fundamentally different to buying ordinary domains.

Know your market -
Good keywords -
Would you develop it?

I have no doubt IDN's will be huge but not so huge that they are bigger than ordinary domains, though the best will be just as good, and in some cases maybe marginally better than the English equivalents.

So, I know you all have some rippers, but (and no offence intended) IMO (and I am often wrong) if the chosen words for your domains are no more popular in the relevant countries then they are in English you are going to burn a lot of money which will eat into the profits on your good ones.

Take the above list. I think three are worth regging - i.e I would pay more than $250 for the equivalent domain (in English) on Sedo.

I would be interested in your thoughts.

As to the 10 to 1 thing. It's just my general rule of thumb in a "developing" market. Naturally there are exceptions. But equally $500 will buy you a pretty good non-IDN.com.

[gammascalper]

Good points regarding knowing your end-market.

But show me a good generic non-IDN .com for $500. I haven't seen one in at least the last few years.

In contrast, you can bid on Bram's auction for Hirakata (枚方市.com currently in the $200s), and possibly take it home for under $500.

For that you get a major city in Osaka prefecture in .com with a population of 400,000 in the 2nd largest economy in the world.

The risk? Japanese insist on typing-in ASCII Hirakata.com, IDN don't take off and you're out a few hundo.

The reward? You pay a few hundred bucks for something that could possibly be worth a hundredfold in several years.

I'd say the expected value is pretty compelling.

If I were in your position I would forget about buying 4 IDN, and instead focus on buying 1 great one in a segment that is most likely to bear fruit if IDN take-off.

[Edwin]

"airconditioner cleaning" is Japanese, not Chinese (as are all the other names I posted). So none of your points about China, site blocking etc. apply. Also, I am finding wordlists by visiting JAPANESE sites and cutting and pasting terms, not by starting with English and a dictionary. Then I'm using the Japanese Overture keyword suggestion tool, Japanese Overture bid tool, and Japanese Google to check the expressions. Finally (and it is last) I look at the translation in English.

Just about every house in Japan (i.e. tens of millions of households) has 1+ air conditioners (a must since the temperatures can hit 36-38C in summer). We have 3 in our place, and I'd say we're pretty average. There's a huge professional business around cleaning these professionally, especially since the larger air conditioners have both the inside and outdoor sub-units. Of course, the really big deal is cleaning of industrial, office and commercial air conditioning units...

Overture for the term is 10,846. Max bid is Y182 i.e. approx. $1.50, with 33 advertisers.

Better do a bit more research, I think. Also please re-read the note at the bottom of my post with the domain list: Some of those make more sense in Japanese - I've only provided a literal translation.

[Lmg67]

here are my entries:

RUSSIAN

xn--e1ap.com (не.com) = not.com = 44.6M on google

xn--n1ab.net (по.net) - on.com = 60M on google

xn--80an.com (за.com) = after.com = 42M on google

JAPANESE

xn--21-qw2c662q.com (世纪21.com) = 21st century.com = 19.6M on google



HEBREW

xn--4dbkcnu8d.com (אזורים.com) = areas.com


-Lmg67

[Lmg67]

here are my entries:

RUSSIAN

xn--e1ap.com (не.com) = not.com = 44.6M on google

xn--n1ab.net (по.net) - on.com = 60M on google

xn--80an.com (за.com) = after.com = 42M on google

JAPANESE

xn--21-qw2c662q.com (世纪21.com) = 21st century.com = 19.6M on google



HEBREW

xn--4dbkcnu8d.com (אזורים.com) = areas.com


-Lmg67

[jose]

There's an easy rule to follow when picking domains that never fails.

Churchill once said: "Buy land, they just don't make it anymore!"

The rarer, the best.

How many 2 letter domains are there (LL)? How many 3 number domains? How many 4 letter word domains? How many cities are there with more than 1 million people? How many 1 char Chinese? You got the point.

[bwhhisc]

Three days have gone by...Grant show us your 'amazing' regs!