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bwhhisc
13th October 2008, 11:49 PM
http://www.inforum.in/

Just found this, a growing forum with 1700 members, 5000 posts...
Wonder what the concensus there is on Indian languge IDNs.

I don't see an IDN section or even an IDN mention anywhere. :???:

yanni
14th October 2008, 12:20 AM
Mostly people from NP and DNF, no?

bwhhisc
14th October 2008, 12:28 AM
Mostly people from NP and DNF, no?

Probably so, I saw on Alexa ratings that 15% of DNF traffic is from India. They are very keen domainers, also some very helpful members at DNF. I am curious to start an IDN thread and see what they think the future holds.

I had PM'd a few at DNF a year or 2 ago about IDNs and most were pretty keen that ascii.com and ascii.in was going to be the dominant internet addresses for India and they did not see IDN playing a big role. From my reading now, as well as posts by senior members here most feel the big use of Indian IDNs will hve their value found in addressing the mobile phone internet for the vast majority of the Indian population that does not speak English.

Wot
14th October 2008, 12:36 AM
Founded on the back of sales successes with .co.in /.in.
I am sure they will not be averse to putting in an Indian languages specific IDN section.

bwhhisc
15th October 2008, 02:02 AM
Founded on the back of sales successes with .co.in /.in.
I am sure they will not be averse to putting in an Indian languages specific IDN section.

Lots of money made with .in and .co.in. I have seen some nice sales of ascii and nice traffic stats too. Maybe we shouldn't get these guys too interested in IDNs yet...still some nice Hindi, Bengali, Marathi etc .com names to be had. Huge numbers of speakers in all the main languages, and the number of computers (think cell phones wth computer capability) is going to be second to only China.

Hindi 422 million speakers
Bengali 83 million speakers
Telugu 74 million speakers
Marathi 72 million speakers
Tamil 62 million speakers
Urdu 52 million speakers
Gujarati 46 million speakers

Rubber Duck
15th October 2008, 04:45 AM
Russian language forums got it completely wrong. I think we can assume that the opinions of the English Speaking Indian forums will be a little off base, as well. :p

Wot
15th October 2008, 07:04 AM
. Huge numbers of speakers in all the main languages, and the number of computers (think cell phones wth computer capability) is going to be second to only China.



IDN.mobi then :clap:

:lol:

dnnames
15th October 2008, 10:57 AM
Yes that is a new forum for .in names and it seems to be growing in popularity everyday. Most of the members are from NP and DNF though. I'm new to Indian IDNs, and because there are so many different languages, I really don't know where to start. There's probably still many good domains out there to be found, because a lot of poeple are probably like me, put off by all the confusion lol.

bwhhisc
15th October 2008, 11:06 AM
There's probably still many good domains out there to be found, because a lot of poeple are probably like me, put off by all the confusion lol.

Indian languages still have good opportunity for finding quality names right now.

Wot
15th October 2008, 11:31 AM
Yes that is a new forum for .in names and it seems to be growing in popularity everyday. Most of the members are from NP and DNF though. .

I think that is where most of the people that are here came from!

I have generally steered clear of Indian idn as I have a lot of exposure via .co.in/.in to that area. In addition the confusion of so many languages is a bit too difficult for someone of my great years. :)

Rubber Duck
15th October 2008, 12:20 PM
Indian languages still have good opportunity for finding quality names right now.

Hindi is roughly where Chinese was 3 years ago in terms of Unicode Web Content. The body of local language web content is expanding at an almost exponential rate.

Not only are you now getting images on Google but is noticeable that Geo's throw up Map content and that you now have searchable News content.

Those that don't think Hindi is going anywhere have little concept of where it and all the other languages have come from.

When I first got into this Google hadn't even indexed Russian and Arabic. But there again go back just over ten years and it hadn't even indexed English.

camarro
15th October 2008, 03:02 PM
they do have an idn subsection under the general discussion section.

kartik786
15th October 2008, 04:58 PM
I am a member at Inforum.in :)

The forum gets its members by targetted ads put up on NP and DNF through google adsense

And Jeff is the admin there, a very helpful guy.

bwhhisc
15th October 2008, 10:17 PM
I am a member at Inforum.in :)
The forum gets its members by targetted ads put up on NP and DNF through google adsense. And Jeff is the admin there, a very helpful guy.

So what do the majority of domainers think of Indian IDNs going mainstream. Most of the guys I talked to at DNF felt most internet users in India would rather use latin urls. After reading articles and posts by DrBioHealth and SteveEpstein, I am more convinced than ever that the mobile websites will be dominated by Hindi urls since most of the users do not speak English.

kartik786
17th October 2008, 01:22 PM
most of the users do not speak hindi either :) thought it is the national language, regional languages dominate the hetrogenity.

Also, users with cell phones use cell phones only for 2 reasons

a.) calls
b.) sms

Internet penetration on cellphones even in the elite audience is very poor.

Just yesterday i was a part of panel discussion on digital media and we discussed that mobile services / mcommerce is going to take half a decade or more atleast to take off in India.

bwhhisc
17th October 2008, 02:19 PM
most of the users do not speak hindi either :) thought it is the national language, regional languages dominate the hetrogenity.

Also, users with cell phones use cell phones only for 2 reasons

a.) calls
b.) sms

Internet penetration on cellphones even in the elite audience is very poor.

Just yesterday i was a part of panel discussion on digital media and we discussed that mobile services / mcommerce is going to take half a decade or more atleast to take off in India.

Most typical cellphones as used today do not resemble the cellphones that will be commonplace in the future. The phones of the future will have much stronger capabilities as computers and for online access to maps, resources, and information.

Rubber Duck
17th October 2008, 02:26 PM
I am lost! I am being told that M Commerce will be buzzing in about five years time, so we should forget about investing in Indian domain names now? Am I missing something here? Do you seriously think that you are going to be able to buy in then when India will have one of the highest concentrations of billionaires on the Planet? :rolleyes:

bwhhisc
17th October 2008, 10:58 PM
I am lost! I am being told that M Commerce will be buzzing in about five years time, so we should forget about investing in Indian domain names now? Am I missing something here? Do you seriously think that you are going to be able to buy in then when India will have one of the highest concentrations of billionaires on the Planet? :rolleyes:

Seems that most of the Namepro and DNF Indian domainers have convinced each other that the India will always be dominated by English URLs. I think they are partially right, but completely wrong for the 80% of the population does not speak English. That's could be about 400 million+ Hindi speakers (that don't speak English). Assuming 20% penetration with cell phones (computers of the future mind you)....that's 80 million people online who can input Hindi or other language IDNs. But then what do I know....

dnnames
17th October 2008, 11:47 PM
Is there any news of .co.in or .in adopting IDNs?

Rubber Duck
18th October 2008, 08:12 AM
Is there any news of .co.in or .in adopting IDNs?

They are definitely doing it. Not sure when.

Rubber Duck
18th October 2008, 08:15 AM
Seems that most of the Namepro and DNF Indian domainers have convinced each other that the India will always be dominated by English URLs. I think they are partially right, but completely wrong for the 80% of the population does not speak English. That's could be about 400 million+ Hindi speakers (that don't speak English). Assuming 20% penetration with cell phones (computers of the future mind you)....that's 80 million people online who can input Hindi or other language IDNs. But then what do I know....

There is a place for English in India but not in the B2C area. Hardly any Indians only speak English, therefore they can all be adequately served through local language sites. Where English comes in is B2B. This is a very valid area of commerce, but not one that will necessarily make your domain speculator very rich.

drbiohealth
18th October 2008, 04:46 PM
Actually, I wouldn't blame them because all this about 'local lingo web' is happening for the first time ever. And perhaps, they don't want to learn. They don't want to see how, over a period of time, the local lingo print and tv media overshadowed their English counterparts almost completely. Go anywhere in India and try finding a single English newspaper/tv channel that does better than its local language competitor.

Ponder:

- why the oldest English newspaper in India has now started the Hindi edition of its business daily?

- if not necessary, why the Indian government is feeling the need to initiate Indian language IDNs?

- Why Google has converted almost all of its critical applications (gmail, search, chat, orkut, blogger, translation....) in local Indian languages?

I think there is no better way of 'natural branding' your business than doing it through IDNs, if you want to do a B2C kind of an operation there.


Seems that most of the Namepro and DNF Indian domainers have convinced each other that the India will always be dominated by English URLs. I think they are partially right, but completely wrong for the 80% of the population does not speak English. That's could be about 400 million+ Hindi speakers (that don't speak English). Assuming 20% penetration with cell phones (computers of the future mind you)....that's 80 million people online who can input Hindi or other language IDNs. But then what do I know....


Well said.

There is a place for English in India but not in the B2C area. Hardly any Indians only speak English, therefore they can all be adequately served through local language sites. Where English comes in is B2B. This is a very valid area of commerce, but not one that will necessarily make your domain speculator very rich.

kartik786
19th October 2008, 05:19 PM
Actually, I wouldn't blame them because all this about 'local lingo web' is happening for the first time ever. And perhaps, they don't want to learn. They don't want to see how, over a period of time, the local lingo print and tv media overshadowed their English counterparts almost completely. Go anywhere in India and try finding a single English newspaper/tv channel that does better than its local language competitor.

Ponder:

- why the oldest English newspaper in India has now started the Hindi edition of its business daily?

Because newspapers cost rs 120 a year/

- if not necessary, why the Indian government is feeling the need to initiate Indian language IDNs?

Indian government ? Even if you ask all political parties combined if they knew how to use the internet, the unanimous answer would be a "NO". Uneducated thug politicians get fancied by an ambitious IAS to create fuss about nothing.

- Why Google has converted almost all of its critical applications (gmail, search, chat, orkut, blogger, translation....) in local Indian languages?

And while doing all of that, why did it leave google.com in hindi unregistered?
Why has wikipedia not registered its name in hindi idn/:bored:

I think there is no better way of 'natural branding' your business than doing it through IDNs, if you want to do a B2C kind of an operation there.

kartik786
19th October 2008, 05:25 PM
I think they are partially right, but completely wrong for the 80% of the population does not speak English. That's could be about 400 million+ Hindi speakers (that don't speak English). Assuming 20% penetration with cell phones (computers of the future mind you)....that's 80 million people online who can input Hindi or other language IDNs. But then what do I know....

While its good to fancy that mobile penetration in India is the highest, it'd be good to reasearch on the type of mobiles sold. Most are reliance or cheap nokia cell phones.

and with the global crisis, people who were shifting from middle class to upper middle class with their bpo jobs are suddenly rendered jobless.

The internet peneteration is pathetic and unless someone invests in a huge way in infrastructure, i am not soo sure our fancies will turn into realities.

kartik786
19th October 2008, 05:27 PM
I think they are partially right, but completely wrong for the 80% of the population does not speak English. That's could be about 400 million+ Hindi speakers (that don't speak English). Assuming 20% penetration with cell phones (computers of the future mind you)....that's 80 million people online who can input Hindi or other language IDNs. But then what do I know....

While its good to fancy that mobile penetration in India is the highest, it'd be good to reasearch on the type of mobiles sold. Most are reliance or cheap nokia cell phones.

and with the global crisis, people who were shifting from middle class to upper middle class with their bpo jobs are suddenly rendered jobless.

The internet peneteration is pathetic and unless someone invests in a huge way in infrastructure, i am not soo sure our fancies will turn into realities.

Rubber Duck
19th October 2008, 07:01 PM
OK, you may have a point. There are not going to be a billion people online purchasing next week. But by the same token they are not all going to be reading and writing English next week either. It will take time, but the longer it takes the less likely it will ever happen in English. Clive of India has been dead over 200 years, and how many Indians do we have that consider English their first language. Well any credible statistics suggest less than 5%. When it happens and it will happen, then the languages will be local with Hindi the 500lb Gorilla. Within 20 years the Indian economy will be bigger than the US, and indeed if McCann is elected that could be as little as 5 years.:p

kartik786
19th October 2008, 07:53 PM
OK, you may have a point. There are not going to be a billion people online purchasing next week. But by the same token they are not all going to be reading and writing English next week either. It will take time, but the longer it takes the less likely it will ever happen in English. Clive of India has been dead over 200 years, and how many Indians do we have that consider English their first language. Well any credible statistics suggest less than 5%. When it happens and it will happen, then the languages will be local with Hindi the 500lb Gorilla. Within 20 years the Indian economy will be bigger than the US, and indeed if McCann is elected that could be as little as 5 years.

Have a look at this link here.
http://www.inforum.in/indian-idns/795-com-com-com-com.html .

The point being, if you are banking only on HINDI, then you are absolutely wrong as every person who can write his name in one language is called a literate in India. He may not be able to write or read anything else.

India is a multi culture diverse and vast country with 100's of languages and dialects. If you speak hindi in kerela, its as good as chinese or any other language. No one's going to understand it.

Marathi, Hindi, Gujrati, Punjabi, Bengali, Kashmiri, Tamil, Malyalam and many many more... how many languages variants do you plan to buy ?

Rubber Duck
19th October 2008, 09:36 PM
Have a look at this link here.
http://www.inforum.in/indian-idns/795-com-com-com-com.html .

The point being, if you are banking only on HINDI, then you are absolutely wrong as every person who can write his name in one language is called a literate in India. He may not be able to write or read anything else.

India is a multi culture diverse and vast country with 100's of languages and dialects. If you speak hindi in kerela, its as good as chinese or any other language. No one's going to understand it.

Marathi, Hindi, Gujrati, Punjabi, Bengali, Kashmiri, Tamil, Malyalam and many many more... how many languages variants do you plan to buy ?

Well it is not planning but did a long time ago. All those and more. :rolleyes:

drbiohealth
19th October 2008, 11:49 PM
Because newspapers cost rs 120 a year/

And it took Times of India (an English daily behemoth) 150 years to realize your GOLDEN words...:). By the way, you seem to have missed a zero at then end of the rate you have quoted. The rate you have quoted does not buy today even the ink newspapers are written with.



And while doing all of that, why did it leave google.com in hindi unregistered?


So that you can have ample chance to squat on their trademark in Hindi (गूगल.com - xn--31ba5fwc.com) and perhaps try selling it on Sedo as and when opportunity arises.


Domain Name: xn--31ba5fwc.com
Registrar: Spot Domain LLC
Expiration Date: 2009-09-29 00:00:00
Creation Date: 2008-09-29 11:21:46
Name Servers:
ns1.domainsite.com
ns2.domainsite.com
ns3.domainsite.com
ns4.domainsite.com
REGISTRANT CONTACT INFO
Kartik Raichura
Kartik Raichura
A/3, sky chs, carter road , borivli
mumbai
maharastra
400099
IN
Phone: +91.9820241024



If you really mean what you say (i.e. pessimistic about Indian IDNs) then care to share what motivates you to buy Indian IDNs in the first place? It not bad to have an opinion, but your actions seem to contradict what you say.

Indian IDNs are in an uncharted territory today so you could form an opinion whichever way you like...;).

blastfromthepast
20th October 2008, 12:43 AM
Marathi, Hindi, Gujrati, Punjabi, Bengali, Kashmiri, Tamil, Malyalam and many many more... how many languages variants do you plan to buy ?

All of them.

mulligan
20th October 2008, 01:38 AM
So that you can have ample chance to squat on their trademark in Hindi (गूगल.com - xn--31ba5fwc.com) and perhaps try selling it on Sedo as and when opportunity arises.

..

Ouch .. That could be very painful in the 'morning'

kartik786
20th October 2008, 03:53 AM
And it took Times of India (an English daily behemoth) 150 years to realize your GOLDEN words.... By the way, you seem to have missed a zero at then end of the rate you have quoted. The rate you have quoted does not buy today even the ink newspapers are written with.
There are newspapers except TOI you know :rolleyes: . Their business model allows them to sell it at 120 rs, increase subscription rates and mint money on advertisements.
That's why I keep telling you guys to research !

So that you can have ample chance to squat on their trademark in Hindi (गूगल.com - xn--31ba5fwc.com) and perhaps try selling it on Sedo as and when opportunity arises.

Dream on !

If you really mean what you say (i.e. pessimistic about Indian IDNs) then care to share what motivates you to buy Indian IDNs in the first place? It not bad to have an opinion, but your actions seem to contradict what you say

You are missing the whole point here. I never said IDN's wont work at all. I am saying when you make judgements on mobile penetration and fancy Hindi IDN's as the next big thing, then some level of research needs to go in it. The reason I am replying to these threads is not to tear dreams of IDNers, or to be labelled as a squat by someone whom i have never interacted with but to give them a picture of some realities they are not aware of. If its too hard to handle, I call quits.

mulligan
20th October 2008, 04:36 AM
I'm just curious here ... but how is drbiohealth wrong when you say 'Dream On'
I know little or nothing about domains so it's just a friendly question (I'm always keen to learn)

Rubber Duck
20th October 2008, 04:50 AM
Man, I am dreaming. We consider Hindi to be perhaps our most valuable portfolio. This is where I intend to do my development, because getting things done in English is going to be easier.

One of the biggest problems to date, has been a lack of local language content.

Not anymore!

You have not seen us trying to sell Hindi in a very long time, and you probably never will.

dnnames
20th October 2008, 05:17 AM
Has the situation with content gotten better already? When I put any sort of hindi character in I get around 100k results on google. I guess it is still very much an investment for further down the line.

Rubber Duck
20th October 2008, 05:21 AM
Has the situation with content gotten better already? When I put any sort of hindi character in I get around 100k results on google. I guess it is still very much an investment for further down the line.

Some of our better keywords get over 10 Million Google results. Most terms are getting around a million now.

For our portfolio below 100K means this needs to be reviewed before renewal - borderline drop territory. Although, actually I just banged everything through this year.

dnnames
20th October 2008, 11:42 AM
RD, would you remember how the google results around 1 year ago compare to now? Definitely still huge potential for growth of content.

mulligan
20th October 2008, 01:31 PM
I'm just curious here ... but how is drbiohealth wrong when you say 'Dream On'
I know little or nothing about domains so it's just a friendly question (I'm always keen to learn)
I'm still very keen to earn ....sorry ... I meant 'learn''

Dammit .. I meant learn

Oh.. BTW ....You think you have lost any credibility around here or at any other forums?

Rubber Duck
20th October 2008, 04:13 PM
RD, would you remember how the google results around 1 year ago compare to now? Definitely still huge potential for growth of content.

I would say that the number of pages indexed by Google has increase about 10x in a year but that it is has been growing more rapidly recently.

kartik786
20th October 2008, 05:14 PM
I'm just curious here ... but how is drbiohealth wrong when you say 'Dream On'
I know little or nothing about domains so it's just a friendly question (I'm always keen to learn)

The first thing he must've done is see if they were available, then he did a whois to see if google owned it and he goes further on to say I may sell it on sedo. He wasted all this time just to say I am a Squat ! and a Squat who will sell it on sedo where he will be the first one to bid..

Hence the "Dream On" !

bwhhisc
21st October 2008, 12:06 AM
Saw this in reading on inforum.in. Still hard to believe that Indian domainers don't know how many people there are in India that don't speak English. Anyone know what percentage of the 500 million Hindi speakers also speak English?

QUOTE FROM INFORUM.IN: "I would say that they (IDNs) have got only a limited value. See with in India, many do not know hindi when you come down south. So the site name may go unnoticed by this. If you can buy that in english, the reach would have been much better".
END QUOTE.

drbiohealth
21st October 2008, 12:40 AM
This is a very interesting question, Bill. Some hints can be drawn possibly from:


Significantly, The Times of India, with a readership of 7,287,000, is tenth ? the only English language newspaper in the top ten bracket.

http://oldcontent.newswatch.in/news-analyses/circulation-audience/1691.html


Added to this, it should be noted that English speakers in India are primarily concentrated in the south of India. Hindi is spoken largely in the north. If you normalize this skewness, the difference between E and H in the quote would be further enhanced.

To answer your question, my 'wild' guess is that if more than 1% of all Hindi speakers can read one small English paragraph correctly I would be REALLY dazed.


Saw this in reading on inforum.in. Still hard to believe that Indian domainers don't know how many people there are in India that don't speak English. Anyone know what percentage of the 500 million Hindi speakers also speak English?

QUOTE FROM INFORUM.IN: "I would say that they (IDNs) have got only a limited value. See with in India, many do not know hindi when you come down south. So the site name may go unnoticed by this. If you can buy that in english, the reach would have been much better".
END QUOTE.

bwhhisc
21st October 2008, 12:47 AM
Could be that the best strategy for some domainers will go for BOTH English and Hindi (idn) versions of various names.

drbiohealth
21st October 2008, 12:57 AM
Right strategy probably would be to get names in all major languages possible. That way one could go really local for those terms. I have tried to follow this strategy, however, I tend to get hamstrung by the translations in south indian languages.

bwhhisc
21st October 2008, 01:23 AM
Right strategy probably would be to get names in all major languages possible. That way one could go really local for those terms. I have tried to follow this strategy, however, I tend to get hamstrung by the translations in south indian languages.

That is what I intended to convey. But I am still liking Hindi as the king of Indian IDNs with 500 million speakers.

Rubber Duck
21st October 2008, 05:04 AM
Could be that the best strategy for some domainers will go for BOTH English and Hindi (idn) versions of various names.

If you are thinking about dot coms then you really are dreaming. Even FS would struggle to afford the English equivalents of most of my portfolio.

mulligan
21st October 2008, 06:34 AM
The first thing he must've done is see if they were available, then he did a whois to see if google owned it and he goes further on to say I may sell it on sedo. He wasted all this time just to say I am a Squat ! and a Squat who will sell it on sedo where he will be the first one to bid..

Hence the "Dream On" !
Thanks for the replies .. I'll just leave it there then

sramuk
12th November 2008, 03:38 PM
Could be that the best strategy for some domainers will go for BOTH English and Hindi (idn) versions of various names.
If you are thinking about dot coms then you really are dreaming. Even FS would struggle to afford the English equivalents of most of my portfolio.

The strategy for the content creator/website marketer will obviously include an ascii domain name with the same theme (.com,.in) for co-marketing along with idns targeting in each region. Early adopters will be able to register/acquire appropriate/keyword idn names and they will also be enthusiastic to advertise it prominently and downplay the ascii name as for only ascii fanatics. Not sure if this is how idns gained popularity in other countries where ascii was prevalent before idn came along.

Rubber Duck
12th November 2008, 05:53 PM
Frankly that is about as likely as Tesco running Tecko.co.uk as a Polish site to make our immigrant workers feel at home. :)

bwhhisc
12th November 2008, 08:14 PM
If you are thinking about dot coms then you really are dreaming. Even FS would struggle to afford the English equivalents of most of my portfolio.

That optomism is certainly nice to hear.
Certainly looking forward to those days arriving in the next few years. :)