IDN Future Speculation

[Simsi]

Hi guys

I like many others here i guess, have been monitoring IDN for some time, unsure as to whether to take the plunge. It wasn't til i recently discovered that by holding down "Alt Gr" and pressing "e" that you got é which is way easier than i thought it would be.

I can see real benefits for foreign words etc, but IMO there are a couple of things that need to happen to make this a high-investment market. I'd be interested if anyone knows:

1) From what i can make out, the non-foreign versions of Google etc dont index IDN domains (ie: I searched for " passé ") so although on-page content containing IDN characters get stored, the actual IDN domain names dont. Is that right and is it likely to change?

2) Do Spanish, French, Portuguese keyboards automatically type an "e" (for example) as an é - silly question, what i mean is, is there a key for é by way of example

3) When you visit an IDN domain, you get the Verisign install routine on the first occasion. Are there plans for Internet Explorer to have this built in in future versions?

I know IDN itself is a mixed debate with proponents and detractors, but the above could make a huge difference IMO...i'd be interested in opinions.

Oh and finally, is there room in the market for an IDN search engine do you think?

Cheers

Simsi

 

[diddie]

in france, spain, belgium, germany ... we have a unique keyboard with our national letters mapped, they are placed down the letters, with the caps off you type them directly

here is a uselful link for keyboard mappings:
http://www.terena.nl/library/multiling/ml-mua/test/kbd-all.html

 

[Olney]

My personal expertise is IDN Domain use in Japan.

1. Yahoo Japan & Google Japan both already show search results in Japanese with Japanese IDN Domains. I have one ranking for a sort of popular term.
2. IDN Domains are actually easier to use & remember for asians (those living in Asia)
3. The new version of IE7 will allow people to type in IDN domains...

 

[ilcesco]

Yes, IDN domains, i guess, will be much more used in asian/arabic countries rather then europeans, where the people is well used to type flat letters instead of accented characters (nobody in italy would type partirò.com instead of partiro.com in the address bar, even if the first is the correct one). Anyway At the moment only firefox support IDN without problems, and IE will do in the next version without downloading any verisign software..

 

[Simsi]

Great feedback guys. Thank you. This is all very interesting. So i wonder if Google.com will follow its .jp counterpart then. Hmmm...


PS. Olney: Great forum btw!

 

[Bramiozo]

Yes, IDN domains, i guess, will be much more used in asian/arabic countries rather then europeans, where the people is well used to type flat letters instead of accented characters (nobody in italy would type partirò.com instead of partiro.com in the address bar, even if the first is the correct one). Anyway At the moment only firefox support IDN without problems, and IE will do in the next version without downloading any verisign software..

Whether they are well used to it or not, if the correct term is promoted people are likely to switch to this more correct term in time because it is more logical, more intuitive to type in the real term. People are just used to roman characters, that doesn't mean they wouldn't be more inclined to type in the correct characters if they had the option.

Partirò is correct italian, partiro is not, that will make a difference but I agree that the popularity will probably increase much slower then for the asian market, it will increase nonetheless.

In the long term, the dnmarket will imho be linguistically divided.

 

[Simsi]

In the long term, the dnmarket will imho be linguistically divided.

Interesting observation. Am i right in thinking that the punycode for say "wídgéts.com" in Spanish is different to the punycode for "wídgéts.com" in French (for example), even if the spelling of the actual word was the same in each language?

 

[Kate]

Hi guys

I like many others here i guess, have been monitoring IDN for some time, unsure as to whether to take the plunge. It wasn't til i recently discovered that by holding down "Alt Gr" and pressing "e" that you got é which is way easier than i thought it would be.

...

On certain European keyboard layouts holding down ALT-Gr + e will produce the euro symbol: €

Yes, IDN domains, i guess, will be much more used in asian/arabic countries rather then europeans, where the people is well used to type flat letters instead of accented characters (nobody in italy would type partirò.com instead of partiro.com in the address bar, even if the first is the correct one). Anyway At the moment only firefox support IDN without problems, and IE will do in the next version without downloading any verisign software..

Many browsers already support IDNs. Opera, Netscape, Mozilla etc
Only micro$oft is still lagging behind actually.

 

[Bramiozo]

Interesting observation. Am i right in thinking that the punycode for say "wídgéts.com" in Spanish is different to the punycode for "wídgéts.com" in French (for example), even if the spelling of the actual word was the same in each language?

wídgéts.com=wídgéts.com, the puny-conversion is based purely on the characters, not on the location (for that being the only way to discriminate a possible french from a spanish term if they are the same) of the dns request.

French and Spanish make us of the same latin character set.

 

[Simsi]

On certain European keyboard layouts holding down ALT-Gr + e will produce the euro symbol: €

LOl....so much for standardisation then I wonder then if/when the UK goes Euro whether our keyboard layouts will change over time also then.

wídgéts.com=wídgéts.com, the puny-conversion is based purely on the characters, not on the location (for that being the only way to discriminate a possible french from a spanish term if they are the same) of the dns request.

Well thats a relief. Logical too. Thanks