Question

[squirrel]

What's the general sentiment in domenforum and other places on IDN.org vs IDN.com ?

I tried to read through some of the threads on domenforum a while back and I felt most people felt strongly about cyrillic.org but were not really excited about .com ? Is every Russian domainer feeling that way, and is it a strong feeling or simply a temporary comfortable stance that they take because they missed on IDN.com ?

Thanks

[blackpower]

I can tell you how I feel about it.
.org will be popular for couple of reasons
1) it is being used more often on russian internet.
2) most .com sites in russian internet are used by foreign companies. I am not aware of any sizeable russian company using .com for main site( or there are a negligible number of them)- and this is a real issue.
.org has meaning in russian (organization) and russians don't have a dominant extention (like .com in USl)besides .ru, but .ru has limitations.
.rf I don't consider a competitor; this extention never really became an extention of choice (at least it failed so far in this sense)
So, com and .org, once go cyrillic, will be popular. Which one is better?
For big portals, like fashion, entertainment and the like, .com will be better but for company names and directories it will be .org imho.
I still prefer to put site on .com when I have a choice of both. .Com still have a clout of being a rich brand. But not everybody cares for this in russia, add to it strong anti western feelings in this country.
In my opinion, on russian market only domains that can be used for selling goods will have any value in forseable future.

[squirrel]

Ok, that's cool. And you feel that your view is shared by most russian domainers ?

[alpha]

just to be clear.. you're saying that just because you have a ton of Russian .orgs up for sale in another thread, and therefore are probably heavily invested in Russian .org. You also joined the race too late to reg coms, but you could get .orgs

I have no axe to grind with you, just saying what others are more than likely probably thinking

[IdnHost]

I bet he kept a few good ones nonetheless. But aside from that, sometimes its not what you think or dont think. Regardless if blackpower thinks that his lot of .orgs has potential to compete with .kom in the future or not, sometimes its simply about whats in your wallet, and whether or not you can afford renewals the following year on a lot of this size. Not trying to defend or challenge anyones opinion. Just sayin.

[alpha]

Not trying to defend or challenge anyones opinion. Just sayin.

me too.

but you know how it works, people assume people have an agenda, and if it isn't discussed, then people will just dismiss what could be important info, and dismiss it as BS

[squirrel]

I understand that some may think blackpower is biased. Legit

My question really is the result of all the chit chat on domenforum on how .org seems great and all. I admit I have little knowledge of the russian internet history and culture and I am struggling to understand what's happening there. I guess in the US-UK, .org is strongly associated to "not for profit", or at least "not commercially driven". I guess this view is not shared in Russia (?)

[squirrel]

but you know how it works, people assume people have an agenda, and if it isn't discussed, then people will just dismiss what could be important info, and dismiss it as BS

True

[IdnHost]

me too.

but you know how it works, people assume people have an agenda, and if it isn't discussed, then people will just dismiss what could be important info, and dismiss it as BS

valid point made

[alpha]

valid point made

i know, that's why i made it

[Avtal]

According to this list (http://www.mozilla.org/projects/security/tld-idn-policy-list.html), IDN.org domains, unlike IDN.com domains, should display as unicode in Firefox. Haven't tested this though.

Avtal

[blackpower]

just to be clear.. you're saying that just because you have a ton of Russian .orgs up for sale in another thread, and therefore are probably heavily invested in Russian .org. You also joined the race too late to reg coms, but you could get .orgs

I have no axe to grind with you, just saying what others are more than likely probably thinking

I did not miss any boat, btw. I have an excellent Portuguese portfolio and I think (and I am originally from Russia as you all know) that Brazil has better future much, much better future than Russia.
Russian domains still have value. This country has a lot of money but it has a domain market much different from other countries.

[blackpower]

I bet he kept a few good ones nonetheless.

In fact I did... These are all good names but renewals is a challenge. I have 1500 portuguese names and about 300 russians. I have to unload some as much as I wanted to keep them all.

[jose]

What's the general sentiment in domenforum and other places on IDN.org vs IDN.com ?

I tried to read through some of the threads on domenforum a while back and I felt most people felt strongly about cyrillic.org but were not really excited about .com ? Is every Russian domainer feeling that way, and is it a strong feeling or simply a temporary comfortable stance that they take because they missed on IDN.com ?

Thanks

You are right, cyrillic.org rock!

Btw, check my отель.org ;)

[blackpower]

According to this list (http://www.mozilla.org/projects/security/tld-idn-policy-list.html), IDN.org domains, unlike IDN.com domains, should display as unicode in Firefox. Haven't tested this though.

Avtal

Avtal,
indeed they are! This is great

[squirrel]

You are right, cyrillic.org rock!


I didn't really say that .. :-p

[squirrel]

.. but it has a domain market much different from other countries.

That's the interesting part we all want to know about

[blackpower]

That's the interesting part we all want to know about

I'll try to explain as much as I can.
In fact I have, but nobody listened.
The better off a country, better the domain market, true or not?
So it all boils down to any given country prospects, imho.
Does Russia have good prospects?
The simple answer to this question is NO.
This does not mean that russia is not good for business. It may sound controvercial but some industries are doing very well here so there are plenty of rich people.
At the same time, this country does not have and will not have soon a normal online market in the western sense. People may be fascinated with russian billionaires, crazy riches and all but the fact is that Russia is very unstable country. It has almost no foreign investment coming in. Nobody wants to invest in Russia, it is as simple as that.
To understand what kind of domains are valuable in Russia, analyse sales of .rf last year.
The most expensive domain was russian name for bricks, over 200.000US, I think, a name of construction material, from which most of russian buildings are made. A brick business bought it.
The second most expensive was cement.rf
Domains as names of products that can be sold NOW- this is what can be valuable in Russia because Russia herself does not know what will be in 5 years here. Putin have created mafia style burocratic dictatorship.
it's russian business after all and let it be it but the problem is that nothing develops here, nothing advances. Business climate is horrendous.
All these reaches you see are coming from sale of natural resources and pure stealing. No country can exist like that for a long time, folks.
So, long term, no
Short term, yes

[alpha]

I can't speak about Russias economy, but I can about the extns, so for the benefit of others, I'll call it as I see it.

disclaimer: I own just 90 Russian dot coms (a small fraction of my whole portfolio) I have a minority interest in a couple of top tier Russian .coms and own a few Top Tier Russian .orgs too
I even own a fairly big .net

so I can speak fairly neutrally on the com/org/net position

first the facts


I was late to the game, and I've been playing for nearly 7 years now. Why have I only got 90ish Russian dot coms? not out of choice I can assure you - fact is, people have long been registering Russian .coms

I used to have hundreds of Russian dot coms, then I paid to have them properly appraised by a native. As a result I dropped 75% of them as they were typos falling foul of the Russian language nuances. I'm no idiot, and I gave it the same due diligence as other languages, but the fact is, and unless you're a native speaker and spent a long time in the whois.. fact is you own junk typos and don't yet know it. Why make this point? Because good Russian coms were wiped out a long time ago. So unless you are happy to settle for less than good, or have deep pockets, then com is not an option.

Org is popular amongst those who don't have coms, and there is always a bias - it is human nature, just look at the comment they make and their forum join date.
The answer is to follow the numbers, why are so many .orgs open for registration still? That question, answers itself.

Yes .org doesn't do the punycode firefox crap - for me that doesn't close the gap between reg fee <-> 6 figs.



So I lean towards .com as you can see above for all the reasons mentioned, and a ton of reasons you will know if you've been here a while or read enough.

But i outright own moscow.net and hotels.org in Russian - so you can decide for yourself if I speak with any bias

at the end of the day, people will believe what they want to, and with a sleepy market such as ours, there is scope for those with bias to manipulate (intentionally or not)


--- back to Squirrels question. I don't think you'll get a non-biased answer about the Domenforum people, they rubbished Russian IDN for 10 years, and only recently started regging Russian .orgs

[blackpower]

I used to have hundreds of Russian dot coms, then I paid to have them properly appraised by a native. As a result I dropped 75% of them as they were typos falling foul of the Russian language nuances. I'm no idiot, and I gave it the same due diligence as other languages, but the fact is, and unless you're a native speaker and spent a long time in the whois.. fact is you own junk typos and don't yet know it.

Many here register .com without regard for unique character of a given country market, after what sells in US market. Most of those .coms are junk that will never be sold or used.

[has2hands]

Blackpower....Traffic Question.

Can you or anyone talk about traffic to their Russian domains.....com vs. org.??

Is there a discernible difference?

[bumblebee man]

The answer is to follow the numbers, why are so many .orgs open for registration still? That question, answers itself.


This is the point.

I don't doubt that Cyrillic.org can become popular. And I wouldn't mind either because I got some nice .orgs. But more popular than .com?

Would anyone take the .org when the .com is available?

Nuff said.

[alpha]

Many here register .com without regard for unique character of a given country market, after what sells in US market. Most of those .coms are junk that will never be sold or used.

That statement if true just wiped off zillions of $'s of future (expected) value of people portfolios.

Please give an example

[Rubber Duck]

To be honest, it is probably irrelevant.

Many dot com owners will soon be making so much dosh they won't will just renew everything, because they won't have the time or motivation to sort out and drop the rubbish.

[Avtal]

Most of those .coms are junk that will never be sold or used.

Paraphrasing John Wanamaker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wanamaker):

Half my Russian .coms are junk; the trouble is I don't know which half.

In general, I'm in favor of a diversified portfolio. We don't know for sure whether .ком and .орг will both make it past the string-similarity review, and we don't know for sure whether Verisign and PIR will both implement aliasing of existing Russian .com and .org domains. And we can't be sure which one the end users will prefer.

But it's fun to guess.

Avtal

[Rubber Duck]

Paraphrasing John Wanamaker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wanamaker):

Half my Russian .coms are junk; the trouble is I don't know which half.

In general, I'm in favor of a diversified portfolio. We don't know for sure whether .ком and .орг will both make it past the string-similarity review, and we don't know for sure whether Verisign and PIR will both implement aliasing of existing Russian .com and .org domains. And we can't be sure which one the end users will prefer.

But it's fun to guess.

Avtal

Maybe, but at yet, I have not been compelled to invest a single dot Org.

[555]

Half my Russian .coms are junk; the trouble is I don't know which half.
Avtal
Any theories explaining how would one word generic product or service may be categorized as junk?




We don't know for sure whether .ком and .орг will both make it past the string-similarity review
Avtal
What strings are you suspecting them to be confusing with?


and we don't know for sure whether Verisign and PIR will both implement aliasing of existing Russian .com and .org domains.

Avtal
Do you feel the numerous explanations we heard in various formats over several years from the highest level of a publicly traded company may change in a manner that will completely change all previous reflected intent? If the answer is yes i would be very interested to hear what other options may be available to e.g verisign or PIR?


And we can't be sure which one the end users will prefer.
Avtal
Really? With .com global dominance and the natural limitations a TLD like org holds, In addition to current native registrations as an indication, it will be very interesting to hear where the uncertainty is coming from?

[IdnHost]

i know, that's why i made it

Thanks for clearing that up lol.

[Avtal]

Haven't we had this discussion before? :)

Anyway, here goes.

Half my Russian .coms are junk; the trouble is I don't know which half.
Any theories explaining how would one word generic product or service may be categorized as junk?
I didn't say half of your Russian .coms are junk; I only said that half of mine are (and that's optimistic). Not all of my Russian .coms are generic products or services; some are pretty random.

We don't know for sure whether .ком and .орг will both make it past the string-similarity review
What strings are you suspecting them to be confusing with?

It is possible that .КОМ (Cyrillic) could be considered too visually similar to .COM. Yes, they both belong to Verisign, but the string-similarity test doesn't take this into account. I think the risk for .орг is much lower, since no one applied for the nonsense latin string ".opr".

and we don't know for sure whether Verisign and PIR will both implement aliasing of existing Russian .com and .org domains.
Do you feel the numerous explanations we heard in various formats over several years from the highest level of a publicly traded company may change in a manner that will completely change all previous reflected intent? If the answer is yes i would be very interested to hear what other options may be available to e.g verisign or PIR?

Most of these statements were made before ICANN added the Trademark Sunrise provisions to the Applicant Guidebook. Neither PIR nor Verisign, as far as I know, has said how they plan to reconcile the conflicting demands of aliasing and trademark protection (keep in mind that even generic words can be trademarked, if used for a specific non-generic purpose: "apple" for instance). Not to mention the Applicant Guidebook prohibition on Russian country names in second-level domains, which PIR and Verisign, in their gTLD applications, promised to honor.

And we can't be sure which one the end users will prefer.
Really? With .com global dominance and the natural limitations a TLD like org holds, In addition to current native registrations as an indication, it will be very interesting to hear where the uncertainty is coming from?

Well, I'm guessing .com will dominate. But at least one person in this thread seems to be predicting that .org will dominate. Thus the uncertainty.

Avtal

[alpha]

While we seem to be having a "say it as you see it" moment... let me just say that..

@avtal over the last 3 years almost every post of yours on this topic has been a doomsday prophecy for IDN .com holders. But what has been interesting to observe is you adapt your doomsday prophecy as the story has unravelled. For example, pre gTLD application, your doomsday prophecy was something like "verisign might not apply for .kom, or there might be multiple applications for .kom".. and when this didn't play out that way, your doomsday prophecy changed direction and focused on another peril, i.e. trademarks.

Maybe you're anti IDN.com, maybe you deal with the frustratingly slow process by playing out your worst fears as doomsday prophecys, maybe you're a troll, maybe you're on the ball and the rest of us are delusional, but as an observer for the past 3 years and as having a personal interest in psychology, thought I'd at last call it out.

Just sayin.

[squirrel]

he's a glass half empty guy, that's all

[squirrel]

Are we bored or what

[alpha]

Are we bored or what

Yep. Cabin fever.
I want to know how the guys that made a life changing investment on day 1 (Nov 2000) - 12 years later deal with it - and some of them are regulars here... the mind boggles.

[squirrel]

Yep. Cabin fever.
I want to know how the guys that made a life changing investment on day 1 (Nov 2000) - 12 years later deal with it - and some of them are regulars here... the mind boggles.

Giant and all ... hard to believe it's been that long for them. It's been an Odyssey and change ... (When did you started by the way ?).

It would probably make for great scientific study material.

[Avtal]

While we seem to be having a "say it as you see it" moment... let me just say that..

@avtal over the last 3 years almost every post of yours on this topic has been a doomsday prophecy for IDN .com holders. But what has been interesting to observe is you adapt your doomsday prophecy as the story has unravelled. For example, pre gTLD application, your doomsday prophecy was something like "verisign might not apply for .kom, or there might be multiple applications for .kom".. and when this didn't play out that way, your doomsday prophecy changed direction and focused on another peril, i.e. trademarks.

Maybe you're anti IDN.com, maybe you deal with the frustratingly slow process by playing out your worst fears as doomsday prophecys, maybe you're a troll, maybe you're on the ball and the rest of us are delusional, but as an observer for the past 3 years and as having a personal interest in psychology, thought I'd at last call it out.

Just sayin.

An amateur psychologist might also suggest that I'm seeking reassurance: I lay out these doomsday scenarios in the hope that someone will be able to prove me wrong. I'm not in a position to say which of these hypotheses is correct; humans are notoriously poor at self analysis.

he's a glass half empty guy, that's all

Not quite. For instance, in a recent thread (http://www.idnforums.com/forums/32314-war-anybody.html), I suggested that the US would not be forced to disengage from the world, that Japan and China would not go to war, and that the member states of the European Union would not descend into civil war. That makes me a cock-eyed optimist in some circles.

But let's run with the glass-half-empty analogy. If I see that the glass is 50% full, and you try to tell me it's 100% full, I'll disagree with you. Likewise, if you try to tell me it's completely empty, I'll disagree. But people who believe that the IDN glass is empty don't tend to hang around this forum, so I haven't had the opportunity to argue with them.

I also like to acknowledge uncertainty. If you tell me that the glass is 52.5% full, I might point out that the room is dark and it's hard to see that well.

Anyway, here is what I wrote on a thread (http://www.idnforums.com/forums/29290-final-agb-approval-will-happen-on-june-20-a.html) on May 22, 2011:

-------

Encouraged by this announcement, I will make the following predictions:

The Applicant Guidebook, and corresponding timeline, will be approved on June 24 (a few days later than currently scheduled).
The timeline will involve a lot of waiting (four month communication period, two month application period, one month quiet period, etc).
Verisign will apply for the IDN versions of .com and .net, in most scripts, but not all (I think Armenian is at risk of being left out, for instance).
Verisign will not receive any subsidies for under-represented scripts.
Once the applications are made public (about December 2011), but not before, Verisign will announce (or re-announce, if you count Chuck Gomes' statements in 2010) plans to alias IDN.com to IDN.com-in-IDN, but they will include a lot of disclaimers in case of unpleasant surprises.
One unpleasant surprise is that some scripts will be eliminated due to visual similarity (Greek .com is most at risk here, because it is so similar to Russian .com).
Another unpleasant surprise is that some second-level names that currently exist as IDN.com will be blocked in IDN.com-in-IDN, because of trademark or country-name concerns.
Despite the unpleasant surprises, more than 90% of existing IDN.com domains will be allowed alias to IDN.com-in-IDN, starting in the 3rd quarter of 2012.

OK, those are my predictions. Come back to this thread in 18 months and let me know how I did.

Avtal

P.S. Disclaimer: these are my not-very-informed opinions. Talk to people with more informed opinions before investing any money.

------------

Rereading these predictions now (September 2012), I think if anything I was a bit optimistic. What do you think?

Avtal

[domainguru]

Yep. Cabin fever.
I want to know how the guys that made a life changing investment on day 1 (Nov 2000) - 12 years later deal with it - and some of them are regulars here... the mind boggles.

You deal with it by getting on with other things and ditching the "waiting around" mindset. Anyone who has put their life on hold for IDNs is .... probably a regular at IDNF :-p

Disclaimer: only been waiting since April 19 2001, I'm a latecomer.

[blackpower]

This is the point.

I don't doubt that Cyrillic.org can become popular. And I wouldn't mind either because I got some nice .orgs. But more popular than .com?

Would anyone take the .org when the .com is available?

Nuff said.

I never said "more popular". I said perhaps for some it would not matter which one to chose. I also said that russian .com is not being used by russians unlike .org
And I said that Russia as a country has an uncertain future.
All this is true
I still think that best commercial russian terms will do wery well. Perhaps some city names (very few, like Moscow) will be excellent for investors.
Moscow is a top for russian-speaking world, so it will be always with money.
one word names for things, like table or bed-can be valuable if the country herself become normal but there is little hope for that.
But I don't think that for russians in most idustries and environments it would be so importand (like for Americans) if the site is on .com or .org

[123]

1) it is being used more often on russian internet.

where do you get these stats from?

when i use google advanced search for websites in russian language the .com returns far more than the .org.

org:
75.600.000

.com:
2.140.000.000

http://www.google.ca/advanced_search

[DktoInc]

But I don't think

.

[yanni]

where do you get these stats from?

when i use google advanced search for websites in russian language the .com returns far more than the .org.

org:
75.600.000

.com:
2.140.000.000

http://www.google.ca/advanced_search

I think he meant "it is used more often than before", not "more often than com".

[Rubber Duck]

Clearly, waiting to see what happens is going to be a much more efficient use of my time than reading all this nonsense.

[blackpower]

Clearly, waiting to see what happens is going to be a much more efficient use of my time than reading all this nonsense.

You have a great portfolio, RD, no doubt.
Only one language you've missed, Portuguese:-o
We'll see what happens.
Right now, all I am saying is that instead of keeping crap russian names or buying crap russian names (like fuck.com, no offence)
it's better to get some good one word commercial .orgs.
I do have some great .orgs and I think they will be doing very fine.
The quality also matters.
When in english .coms, fuck would be a great investment, in russian i'd keep only commercial names, com and org.

[Rubber Duck]

You have a great portfolio, RD, no doubt.
Only one language you've missed, Portuguese:-o
We'll see what happens.
Right now, all I am saying is that instead of keeping crap russian names or buying crap russian names (like fuck.com, no offence)
it's better to get some good one word commercial .orgs.
I do have some great .orgs and I think they will be doing very fine.
The quality also matters.
When in english .coms, fuck would be a great investment, in russian i'd keep only commercial names, com and org.

We have a policy of generally avoiding Adult domains, although google seems to think that we have two or three.

Not saying that there is not money to be made in this area, but at the end of the day you don't see Selfridges or Harrods pimping.

[Drewbert]

Traffic stats are telling me .com beats .org in Russia.