NameDrive and WIXI launch parking program dedicated to the Japanese market

[Drewbert]

From http://blog.namedrive.com/japanese-domain-parking/

NameDrive and WIXI announce the launch of the world’s first domain parking program dedicated to the Japanese market.

NameDrive will combine its unparalleled technical and industry knowledge with WIXI’s local Japanese industry expertise to provide a parking platform tailored for the Japanese market. Owners of unused domain names in Japan or using the Japanese language can use this technology to provide text advertisements, links and search results from a wide variety of advertisers. Visitors to undeveloped domains can find relevant information rather than encountering empty pages or “page not found errors,” providing added value to the visitor, advertiser, and domain owner alike.

NameDrive, launched in 2005, is now one of the largest domain parking companies, hosting over one million domain names and was the first parking company to provide full support for IDNs (Internationalized Domain Names). IDN support and the ability to host the Japanese language will play a vital role in providing services to the Japanese market.

WIXI is an ICANN-accredited and .JP-accredited registrar, founded by domain pioneers in the Japanese market with over 10 years of domain industry experience, local business knowledge and professional relationships. WIXI has collaborated with NameDrive to develop an enhanced domain parking solution for the Japanese market and will provide qualified Japanese support and peerless domain optimization services.

Japan has a population of about 127 million people and is the world’s second-largest national economy behind the US with an estimated 2010 GDP of $4.6 trillion. Japan has higher internet penetration than most other advanced countries but domain proliferation remains some way behind most of these countries. Judged by the number of domains registered, Japan’s .JP TLD is ranked 17th in the world behind many smaller countries including Switzerland and Canada, with 1.14 million domains registered. Due to a lack of “Domainer Culture” in Japan, domain monetization options have been scarce. However, this is all about to change.

Going forward, all current NameDrive customers in Japan and customers around the world who wish to manage their domain name parking in the Japanese language can now use this enhanced service by simply selecting the Japanese language option on our homepage or directly visiting https://park.wixi.jp.

For any further questions and enquiries, please contact parking@wixi.jp.

[Drewbert]

Hopefully we can tag domains in the existing ND system and that automatically sets them up in the Wixi system for Japanese traffic only. I have a lot of domains that have different meanings in Japanese and Chinese and get traffic from both - would be a bummer to lose the ability to set different terms for different regions.

[bwhhisc]

Interesting statistics...

QUOTE:
Japan has a population of about 127 million people and is the world’s second-largest national economy behind the US with an estimated 2010 GDP of $4.6 trillion. Japan has higher internet penetration than most other advanced countries but domain proliferation remains some way behind most of these countries.

Judged by the number of domains registered, Japan’s .JP TLD is ranked 17th in the world behind many smaller countries including Switzerland and Canada, with 1.14 million domains registered. Due to a lack of “Domainer Culture” in Japan, domain monetization options have been scarce. However, this is all about to change.

[NameDrive]

Hi guys,

Just to clarify here. For existing ND customers, this doesn't really represent any change - unless you happen to be a Japanese speaker, that is.

The differences for a current ND user represent the ability to access the homepage in Japanese. Wixi represents a great opportunity for us to explore the Japanese market with experts on the ground over there, but it doesn't offer current ND clients any functionality you don't currently have.

You can already set up a domain for different countries as shown in this little video I just knocked together:
http://bit.ly/bAqTD4

One thing that I think you will see coming as a result of Wixi is a few more templates tailored more towards Asian portfolios to complement our predominantly Western templates.

I hope this clears up any uncertainties and I look forward to welcoming some new Japanese IDN holders soon :)

Ed

[bwhhisc]

Ed, lots of top Japanese city.com/net domain holders here, . Any opportunities to do something with templates formated to Japanese city geo domains?

[seamo]

Ed, lots of top Japanese city.com/net domain holders here, . Any opportunities to do something with templates formated to Japanese city geo domains?

Hear, hear! :yes:

[bramiozo]

Hear, hear! :yes:

..and get a share of the hotel/ticket affiliates.

[kwidn]

And new templates/banners with Japanese scenery will be great!

I'd like to update my 富士山.org (Mount Fuji) domain parking page to be more of Japanese feels. :yes:


.

[rhys]

I'd hope that instead of google or yahoo ads, we get to have new ads from a variety of providers including ones for adult etc. That would be a substantial improvment for Japanese domains. Is this the case?

Hi guys,

Just to clarify here. For existing ND customers, this doesn't really represent any change - unless you happen to be a Japanese speaker, that is.

The differences for a current ND user represent the ability to access the homepage in Japanese. Wixi represents a great opportunity for us to explore the Japanese market with experts on the ground over there, but it doesn't offer current ND clients any functionality you don't currently have.

You can already set up a domain for different countries as shown in this little video I just knocked together:
http://bit.ly/bAqTD4

One thing that I think you will see coming as a result of Wixi is a few more templates tailored more towards Asian portfolios to complement our predominantly Western templates.

I hope this clears up any uncertainties and I look forward to welcoming some new Japanese IDN holders soon :)

Ed

[NameDrive]

Hi guys,

Thanks for the feedback. On the ad feed, we will be using various feeds as time goes by and opportunity arises, but will start with our usual feed.

On the templates, we are currently working with WIXI to get some JP-specific templates, but they will start with generic ones. I'd love to get some with specific cities, but we don't have them even for ND proper yet, so I can't guarantee anything will happen shortly on that front.

Hope this answers your questions on the WIXI front.

Ed