Chinese Internationalized Domain Names (IDN)

[billinchina]

I have just registered some Chinese names on enom in the native character format which Chinese people use on a daily basis. There are some good names available. For instance, I picked up the equivalents of (lady/ladies).net and barbeque.com in Chinese character format. You need an iNav plugin to view them and I still can't view mine even with the plugin...

I also emailed some friends in China and have received bad news. They aren't popular! I wonder if they will be in 10 years?

Here are two emails I received from Chinese living in China:

1) I think pinyin is a better way for domain name and it's easy to remember as well.
To use Chinese character is good but i don't think it would be popular in the future.
this is my opinion.

2) by the way, I do hear people are using Chinese domain names through a software installed on your computer. Yeah I have no idea of how it works, maybe as a translator.
But it does not become popular here. some of my friend tried that but they didnt continue..

I do have a good pinyin domain which gets about 2 - 10 typeins a day (the equivalent of motorcycle.com), so maybe pinyin is the way to go! It's been mainstream for years now and maybe it's too late to switch the masses to character domains..

What are your thoughts?
Bill In China (not really)

 

[g0ldy]

billinchina, you really need to look at the german special domains and how well they are doing.

Not much resell value at all....

 

[billinchina]

How (not) well are they doing?

I can't even figure out how to get mine to work right now either. They're a bit trickier to use than normal domain names. I have the plugin and can view other IDNs but I can't see any parked pages for mine.

 

[g0ldy]

billinchina, just look at new.net names also lol. Not doing so great.

 

[jj2ii3344]

Hi Bill, I went to enom and I couldn't find where to register them, can you please provide me a pointer? Thanks!

 

[g0ldy]

i dont think u can reg them at enom, maybe a chiness registrar?

 

[Anthony]

These special character names seem almost as bad as new.net "domain names", except for their usefulness in limited, certain locales. But as far as worldwide usage, that they definitely lack...

 

[lind]

I think there is a BIG difference between latin-based writing systems and all the other ones. I can't see why wouldn't people get used to öäü etc in domain names in the future. In the same time e.g. Russian users should type the name in Russian, than switch to English and type the .ru using latin alphabet. Can't imagine that could be very comfortable.... Probably the same problem with Chinese. :? Limited local use is not so big problem - there are many big e-companies English-speaking community have never heard of.

 

[billinchina]

How to register IDN's at enom

First open an account with enom (or some other accredited IDN registrar).

Read here about how to register IDNs:
http://www.enom.com/help/faq_multilingual.asp

Then click on "list register" and enter your German name(s) in this format:

namä1.com
ssÖd.com
lsküee.net

You can learn how to type in German umlauts here:
http://www.mckinnonsc.vic.edu.au/la/lote/german/materials/umlauts.htm

To type in Chinese characters, you need to install Asian language support in Windows and use special tools. This is something that is a bit complex and I learned how to do it while in China. You might just install the Asian language support so you can see the characters. Then cut and paste them from Chinese dictionary sites.

Then proceed to checkout and they'll try to register them for you. You won't be charged unless they sucessfully register a name.

I have used this process to register Chinese Character domains. You cannot use enom to forward IDNs. However, you can still specify name servers (like ns1.afternic.com and ns2.afternic.com for example).

To view the domain, you will need FireFox (Mozilla's newest browser) or the i-Nav plugin for Internet Explorer.

You can download the i-Nav plugin here:
http://www.idnnow.com

 

[lind]

Umlauts work well with any Mozilla, Russian Cyrillic too, haven't tried hieroglyphs yet I own some "dotted" names, I never thaught they had much value undeveloped, however, they are something new and funny, here I see some perspective.

 

[Anthony]

Originally posted by lind
Limited local use is not so big problem - there are many big e-companies English-speaking community have never heard of.

Right, but my point is that since the majority of Internet users speak English and type with English language keyboards, these special characters domains have limited appeal and usefulness.

 

[lind]

Right, but my point is that since the majority of Internet users speak English and type with English language keyboards, these special characters domains have limited appeal and usefulness.

Correct me if I didn't understand, what you mean, Anthony, but are you saying, that to type in English I'd need to switch to English keyboard? Hmm, I do type in English with a non-English keyboard without any problems (I mean typing, not English :] ). I have all the English characters on my keyboard anyway, I just have some extra character on the right side, where English keyboard has :"{}. English alphabet simply has less characters than any other latin-based alphabet. So, since there has never been any need for Gemans, Norvegians, French etc to switch keybords to type texts in English, I can't understand, why it should be a problem now? Typing IDN characters is a problem for English-speaking community, not for those who actually type them every day (like me). BTW I think it's hard to buy a keybord without ÖÄÜ on it in Germany, you'll probably have to order it especially for you.

 

[jj2ii3344]

Thanks Bill!
I will use NJStar to enter my chinese characters. I will let you know!

 

[billinchina]

NJStar is a good program. Do you know some Chinese? Be careful when registering names because there are many definitions that Chinese dictionary sites return for each English word supplied, and often the commonly spoken ones are not at the top of the list.

Also, to those of you who keep talking about English keyboards, Chinese people use English keyboards. To enter Chinese characters, they start typing in the word in pinyin (Latin based form of the word like nihao or pengyou) and then a list of characters appears, and they click on the right character from the drop down list. They can also hit a number on the keyboard that corresponds to the correct character. So, keyboard compatability is no issue.

 

[Anthony]

Originally posted by lind
Correct me if I didn't understand, what you mean, Anthony, but are you saying, that to type in English I'd need to switch to English keyboard? Hmm, I do type in English with a non-English keyboard without any problems (I mean typing, not English :] ). I have all the English characters on my keyboard anyway, I just have some extra character on the right side, where English keyboard has :"{}. English alphabet simply has less characters than any other latin-based alphabet. So, since there has never been any need for Gemans, Norvegians, French etc to switch keybords to type texts in English, I can't understand, why it should be a problem now? Typing IDN characters is a problem for English-speaking community, not for those who actually type them every day (like me). BTW I think it's hard to buy a keybord without ÖÄÜ on it in Germany, you'll probably have to order it especially for you.

No, you misunderstood. I'm saying that the English speaking world can't easily access such special character sites because our keyboards aren't set up that way.

Since more people can easily type English, there is a problem with accessing these domains.

 

[lind]

Originally posted by Anthony
No, you misunderstood. I'm saying that the English speaking world can't easily access such special character sites because our keyboards aren't set up that way.

Since more people can easily type English, there is a problem with accessing these domains.

Sorry :red: . Yes, it's a local thing and remains local anyway...