.cn or .com -- which should invest in?

[redelephant]

Hello,

Looking to invest in Chinese IDN and would like to know which is better to invest in. .com or .cn?

Anyone care to give some advice?

Red

[K.I]

.com unless you're a chinese.

many foreigners will stay away from .cn.

[redelephant]

But if i'm buying chinese IDN wouldn't i want to cater towards Chinese website visitors?

Trying to understand your answer more.

Red

[K.I]

I mean foreign buyers, not visitors.

[redelephant]

I was thinking of buying the domain in hopes that one day it would get alot of traffic. With this mindset, would .com or .cn IDN be the best route.

I was looking on selling them.

Red

[Wot]

The predominant market will be Chinese buyers, that's where the big bucks will come from, they will likely favour .cn , non Chinese seem to favour .com.

There have been debates about .cn being taken back by cnnic but little proof of that- unless somebody wants to provide the list of those names that did not infringe on cnnic regs.?

[sbe18]

dot CN's have political risk . Period..
which is seizure risk.


Not likely to change either.

dot CN's are still 90% ASCII.
10 million were registered in 18 months for 13 cents a piece etc...

but that percentage is plummeting because garbage ASCII spam sites etc are not being renewed and not being picked up from drop lists either...

dot CN's as IDN's are expensive to reg at $37 to $39...
but you get 4 names often if the 2 character+ expression has traditional/simplified character calligraphy.

simplified dot cn , dot zhong guo/IDN
traditional dot cn, dot zong guo/IDN


In general ,IDN dot CN's are perceived as more formal or business entity focused. All major govt. bureaus have idn.idn's now.

Of course this will change with Business names as more firms get on board, since 90% of state enterprises/university sites are now IDN.IDNs etc.........

An analogy with a Latin ccTLD would be the change in perception to a nation's full name from the 2 letter ccTLD.


see a name.FR .........now perceived as fully spelled or expressed so
the new item would .........." name.France."

in the sense with Chinese having ideographs, IDN.IDN's are fully Chinese words on both sides of the dot each and every time.

similarly.....in Japan..... there is a sense that dot JP to dot nihon / dot 日本
it is visually always seeing the cctld as 'dot Japan' ...
not as a place holding abbrev.

so again.....visually it is seeing 2 word expressions on both sides of the dot.


so when Chinese now see an IDN .... with dot cn now as dot 中国

It is really a full word of course.

It is not an abbreviation at all. Yes .....2 characters.

But it means 'China' ...not 'China's chinese top level domain place holder expression" ccTLD.


So from a perception standpoint the new emphasis by the govt. is that these domains are dot CHINA .....and not some foreign ASCII 2 Latin letter assignments by the US dept of commerce etc......
It is very tied to national pride, and 21st Century economic policy for the PRC with the Internet.




dot com's have Great firewall blocking risk.
but not political risk of PRC govt seizure.


dot com's will be mapped to IDN.IDN by Verisign...
whether is called DNAME or not...who knows...




hoped that helps....


Steve

[redelephant]

Steve,

That was wonderfully helpful but it opens up a new can of questions. I thought that ICANN was still working on IDN.IDN. How is it so that China already has IDN.(CHINA-IDN) ? And if we reg those will they conflict with the new rollout of ICANN's IDN.IDN?

Red

[Wot]

Steve,

That was wonderfully helpful but it opens up a new can of questions. I thought that ICANN was still working on IDN.IDN. How is it so that China already has IDN.(CHINA-IDN) ? And if we reg those will they conflict with the new rollout of ICANN's IDN.IDN?

Red

China got fed up with waiting for "icann "fast track" :D

Looks like it will run relatively smoothly though.

[Rubber Duck]

Steve,

That was wonderfully helpful but it opens up a new can of questions. I thought that ICANN was still working on IDN.IDN. How is it so that China already has IDN.(CHINA-IDN) ? And if we reg those will they conflict with the new rollout of ICANN's IDN.IDN?

Red

If China had not moved first there would be no IDN.IDN .

Talk about volunteering at the point of a gun.

ICANN will almost certainly accept China's registery as the de facto fast track. Anything else would be suicide.

[bwhhisc]

Steve,That was wonderfully helpful but it opens up a new can of questions. I thought that ICANN was still working on IDN.IDN. How is it so that China already has IDN.(CHINA-IDN) ? And if we reg those will they conflict with the new rollout of ICANN's IDN.IDN? Red

Those viewing the internet from inside China are seeing .中国 where YOU see .cn.

IDN.IDN is indeed coming, however the best names and extensions have been taken since the testbed in 2000, and the rollout of .cn, and then .jp etc around 2003 or so. As Steve said, .cn, .jp etc will eventually be seen everywhere in native script, or maybe they will offer you a choice, or both.

Verisign will alias .com and .net to the various foreign scripts where feasable, or possibly have a plan where you can buy one, the other or both versions. Either way the current nameholders are in positon to have these idn versions. This is what most domainers are just starting to realize, there will be no idn.idn rollout for .com or .net. The only "new" idn.idn that is in the near future with great value is the Russian the new idn for Russian Federation idn.рф. They are restricting them to Russian citizens and of course many names will be "reserved" by government, and starting bids for the others are 1 million rubles ($31,000) see link below.

http://www.idnforums.com/forums/22046-russian-idns-1-million-rubles-for-top-tier-%D1%80%D1%84-a.html?highlight=sunrise

There are still many good idn names to be found, but rarely the primary words in the top 10 languages. There are MANY great .nets as fortunately most domainers are allergic to them so many great names to be found still. Best bet is the aftermarket, still some good names being sold at good prices. The serious money is still on the sidelines for the most part, but should start to emerge when IDNs start pushing traffic and are able to be monetized. Fortunatly most systems are in place, parking etc. and even ads in most countries although payments are low (usually less than .05 average) except for Japan. Many here are most bullish on Japan IDNs due to the stable government, no firewalls, good economy, huge internet population and good paying ads.

[555]

With the prices some sellers sell today you should hold both as each holds benefits the other does not.

I thought that ICANN was still working on IDN.IDN. How is it so that China already has IDN.(CHINA-IDN) ? And if we reg those will they conflict with the new rollout of ICANN's IDN.IDN?
Red

If you own a specific idn.cn or idn.com , you are the only one that will own any other equivilant (just check whois for idn.cn , you sometimes see up to 7 variations appear on whois results for that same domain/registrant).

What China did is not on the root level, icann is working on adding all the tld's to the root level which will allow them to work globally in the idn.idn proper format.


They are restricting them to Russian citizens and of course many names will be "reserved" by government, and starting bids for the others are 1 million rubles ($31,000) see link below.

10 Million ($310,000) :) But that is for the first 24 hours, the remainders will then cost 31k usd and then less and less (Dutch auction format).

[gammascalper]

When it comes to IDN and especially the various cctld vs gtld debates, nothing is really certain.

So with that in mind, I invested in a little of both, and I leaned towards the extension I favored. It helps me sleep well at night and ride out the roller coaster news reports.

Regardless of what you pick, it's a great time to be a buyer.

[Rubber Duck]

Absolutely right. Evidence that others are buying is a poor way to make investment decisions. I made most of mine acquisitions when I wasn't aware that anyone else was buying and even if I were to fire sale everything tomorrow, I would still come out miles out in front. Following the crowd is a very poor investment strategy. As it turns out, a few other were getting involved at the same time as I was, but not across the board. They had the courage, but were blinkered by their own inherent knowledge and consequently only invested in languages familiar to them. I actually ignored the one language I understood on the assumption it had already been played out. If anything that was my one mistake.

When it comes to IDN and especially the various cctld vs gtld debates, nothing is really certain.

So with that in mind, I invested in a little of both, and I leaned towards the extension I favored. It helps me sleep well at night and ride out the roller coaster news reports.

Regardless of what you pick, it's a great time to be a buyer.

[Wot]

I actually ignored the one language I understood on the assumption it had already been played out. If anything that was my one mistake.


IDN.english ? Sorry, could not resist- you know me. :D

I think we are all on the brink of something really big, you can feel the spring about to be sprung. :eek:

[gammascalper]

I think we are all on the brink of something really big, you can feel the spring about to be sprung. :eek:

It does feel like it, doesn't it. Almost the same feeling as when the forum first got off the ground. Can't believe it's been 4 years.

[Rubber Duck]

It does feel like it, doesn't it. Almost the same feeling as when the forum first got off the ground. Can't believe it's been 4 years.

The Americans will always do the right thing... after they have exhausted all the alternatives - Sir Winston Churchill

[K.I]

The Americans will always do the right thing... after they have exhausted all the alternatives - Sir Winston Churchill

And the Brits will follow them all the way.

[Rubber Duck]

And the Brits will follow them all the way.

I think that era has come to an end. The Government went to war against the wishes of the people. The repercussions of that are still playing out. Many Brits still want Blair on trial in The Hague.

[K.I]

I hope so.

[mkellerman]

I think both .cn and .com are good. Both are familiar to Chinese people.

Non-Chinese domainers might prefer .com, but I see that as an opportunity, rather than a reason not to register .cn. It is the quality of the domain that counts in the end.

I live in China and own about 200 IDN.cn and also some IDN.com and IDN.net.

I've attended domain auctions in China, but what people are interested in today are:
short domains (3 number, 3 letter); .com, .cn, .com.cn
pinyin domains (as in yuming.com etc) in .com, .cn, .com.cn

The market for IDNs is yet to take off as I see it. Few end users are familair with IDNs as yet. But the Chinese Govt is pushing IDNs, and the Chinese Govt usually gets what it wants....

[Drewbert]

>Few end users are familair with IDNs as yet.

Maybe the next time you go to an auction, you should be wearing a t-shirt with an idn domain on it? :)

[Wot]

>Few end users are familair with IDNs as yet.

Maybe the next time you go to an auction, you should be wearing a t-shirt with an idn domain on it? :)


Great idea- might I suggest 搞笑.cn :p