Frank Schilling on IDNs: “A Beautiful Mess with a lot of Opportunities”

Before I make significant IDN investments, I continue to reflect on an insightful quote from Frank Schilling about the IDN market. Frank wrote:

“IDN’s will certainly bring an epoch-like sh[i]ft in regional markets .. But there will be the splinterization effect as CCTLD’s in local languages compete with GTLDs in local languages which compete with IDN domains in possible ASCII character extensions (in both GTLD and CCTLD variants) .. it’s a mess.. A beautiful mess with a lot of opportunities for savvy domainers to make money.. but a mess I’m steering clear of for the time being.”

This was in 2007. At a time when many current IDNers including me steered clear of IDNs. But much of it still holds true. The IDN market will be a splintered one, with uncertainty as to whether ccTLD or .com will come on top, and whether foreign languages or English domains will reign supreme in various regions.

As any investor can tell you, volatility, uncertainty, and market inefficiencies can all be opportunities to capitalize on. If you hedge your bets, invest in all kinds of IDNs and ccTLDs, your bucket of names will certainly have some gold in it in 5 years. Prices of IDNs are still artificially low because as a result of the above uncertainty domainers tend to shy away from all IDNs.

So I think that you should embrace this fickle fractured market, as it is certain that foreign languages will be used in domains in some capacities and will be valued handsomely. How that will play out? I have my suspicions, but it is best to buy up stock in both the IDN .com and ccTLD markets.

Frank Schilling (and what is with his right hand?)