I have been relishing every piece of IDN news over the last few days…after years of waiting, this is our time.  Did you see the CNN/Money article: Quick, Go Register “Porn.com” In Cyrillic? Excellent article (other than calling domainers squatters) by another mainstream media outlet.  It has been a hell of a week and a hell of a lot of news.  I’ve been euphorically reading so much, that I neglected my blogging duties for a few days — sorry readers.

First, a recap of this past week. I co-authored a guest post on ElliotsBlog.com with Gary Males, Why IDNs Should Matter to Domain Investors. I attended T.R.A.F.F.I.C., and was very pleasantly surprised  to have several long chats with pillars of the domain industry who were highly interested in educating themselves in IDNs so that they don’t miss the next big thing.  A few years ago when one would broach the topic of IDNs, most mainstream domainers would dismissively say that they only invest in English .coms.   This new attitude is thanks to ICANN and forthcoming changes.  More on that next.

Later in the week ICANN officially voted to approved the ccTLD Fast Track Process, and it will officially begin accepting applications on November 16th.  If you want a more in-depth review of the ICANN/IDN media storm, check out this IDNForums thread (See link here).  Bottom line:  IDN.IDNs are going to be happening soon, and IDN.coms look to be soon aliased to IDN.IDNs.  From ICANN, known to sometime drag its feet, this was somewhat expected but was still tremendous news.

Personally, I have a finger on the pulse of the IDN market with our recently opened IDNNewsletter, and besides a larger than expected number of subscribers, asking prices have gone up tangibly in light of ICANNs progress.  Ultimately, the real test of the market will be actual sale prices — and I predict that we will be seeing IDNs listed in DNJournal’s top sales list a little more often .