Thread: IDNs finally here?

I just saw this:
Eleven new ccTLDs coming next week | DomainIncite.com - Domain Name News & Opinion

On the January 25 consent agenda – which is typically rubber-stamped without discussion – is the approval of IDN ccTLDs for ... India ... India will be delegated its ccTLD in seven of its most-popular languages.

Exciting news, but I can't see anything about it on the IN Registry website.

Looks like ICANN passed this:

ICANN | Adopted Board Resolutions | 25 January 2011

Whereas, India is currently listed in the ISO 3166-1 standard;


Whereas, भारत ("Bharat"), encoded as "xn--h2brj9c"; بھارت "Bharat"), encoded as "xn--mgbbh1a71e"; భారత్ ("Bharat"), encoded as "xn--fpcrj9c3d"; ભારત ("Bharat"), encoded as "xn--gecrj9c"; ਭਾਰਤ ("Bharat"), encoded as "xn--s9brj9c"; இந்தியா ("Bharat"), encoded as "xn--xkc2dl3a5ee0h"; and ভারত ("Bharat"), encoded as "xn--45brj9c"; are seven strings that were deemed to appropriately represent India through the IDN Fast Track process;


Whereas, ICANN has received a request for delegation of the seven strings as top-level domains to the National Internet Exchange of India;


Whereas, ICANN has reviewed the request, and has determined that the proposed delegations would be in the interests of the local and global Internet communities.


RESOLVED (2011.01.25.19), the proposed delegation of the seven top-level domains to the National Internet Exchange of India is approved.

I think I will be sticking with Chinese & Russian, at least one language covers all and English is not widely used whereas India is long established using English and 7 new IDN extensions in the various languages only complicates matters.

Maybe useful in the long term but I really don't see them being worth the investment at the moment. But simply my opinion.

It's hard enough trying to sell good English .co.in/.in at the moment, imagine trying to move those various India IDN extensions!

I mostly agree with you wot. I'm sure a few top IDN names will be worth a lot, but those will probably go to insiders.

Originally Posted by Jeff

I mostly agree with you wot. I'm sure a few top IDN names will be worth a lot, but those will probably go to insiders.

Agreed - and true IDN names are far from "arriving" value wise ..

Hell, the chinese equivalent of island.net and it went @ auction for less than $30 ... imagine if island.net was at an aftermarket auction right now - what do you think it would fetch ?

They are greatly undervalued still and the IDN name space has tons of potential but it will be a while till you get the right pop for good names still.

Add in the fact, as it has already been pointed out, there are 7 more languages being introduced in India now and that just makes it crazy ... so there will be 8 forms of the word bombay.in now, let alone other ccTLD ....

Although the lower renewal prices should increase general domain investors interest in the .in extension - hopefully ... and where domainers go, a bunch of salesmen go ... some really good. They influence powerful people to make big decisions. they then influence other people both forcefully and vicariously.

Interesting times ahead but the 7 languages is no big deal ... and those with .com endings with value will be far and few between ... not to mention ending in .in

JMHO though

Originally Posted by ryanmlanane

Agreed - and true IDN names are far from "arriving" value wise ..

Can't agree there. There have been at least a couple of documented $xxx,xxx IDN sales and I believe quite a number of high value sales under the radar.

Yes, they are in their infancy but the word is now out there, slow but sure.

Originally Posted by ryanmlanane

Hell, the chinese equivalent of island.net and it went @ auction for less than $30 ... imagine if island.net was at an aftermarket auction right now - what do you think it would fetch ?

Look at forum auction sales in general whether ascii or IDN, they simply do not get any attention and all the potential "buyers" are domainers and even reasonably good names will sell for peanuts-great for buyers though!.

i will be staying away from IDNs- i don't know them well enough, and they will be another of 5000 distractions domainers face every year...

Originally Posted by warbux

i will be staying away from IDNs-

That could be said of domaining in general. As far as not knowing IDN, that's how 99.9% of IDN'ers started out and went through a learning process.

If you are suffering from insomnia:

https://community.icann.org/download...MESINHINDI.pdf