(Image courtesy of the Phoenician and Flickr)

Goal setting involves a combination of predicting the future and creating it.  Where will I be, and where will the world be in 5 years, if all continues along the same trajectory?  Given the predicted result, what changes should I make in the here and now?

All signs are pointing towards an internationalized Internet.  ICANN’s forthcoming release of IDN.IDNs is a game changer that will boost the visibility and value of all IDNs.  In 5 years, $800 IDNs may easily be worth $40,000.  For those seasoned veterans sitting on the sidelines and looking at your watches as you hold large IDN portfolios, remember that you can change and speed up the course of history.  Step out of the shadows, educate others, go to T.R.A.F.F.I.C. and you can be a catalyst for IDN awareness.  Ultimately, your actions can only expedite the increase in IDN values.  One last preachy point, there is plenty of opportunity in the IDN space so you should stop fearing that others will swarm in before you get yours.

With IDN.IDN releases just around the corner, now is also a good time to consider what you will hold out for, and to what extent you will liquidate part of your portfolio and diversify in both IDN.coms and new IDN.IDNs, which is the course of action I recommend.

Lastly, if you are like many IDN porfolio owners I know, your last question will be will you even want to retire or will you get bored?  When the time comes, I would recommend that you look into Arizona vacation homes like the above (the Phoenician is a personal favorite).  Premature?  Maybe.  But you need something to keep you going when sorting through IDNTools droplists.

How can you  register a great IDN:

1.  Come up with an English list of terms that you want to register in a different language. (Ex: Job.com)

2. Use Google translate (or a native translator) to translate your terms into the language you are targeting. (Ex: “Job” in Japanese is “仕事”)

3. Check that the foreign language term is accurate by doing a google images search for the translated term (Ex: 仕事) and see if it returns images that you expect.

4.  Also use the Google Adwords keyword tool to make sure that there is a large number of searches per month for your term.

5.  Next, you need to convert your foreign character domain into “punycode” which is a code recognized by the registrars.  A puny code converter (such as: http://www.idntools.com) can help you obtain the corresponding code (ex: xn--3kqvg.com).

6.  Lastly, go to your favorite registrar and type in the punycode. *Dynadot is a particularly IDN friendly registrar.

Happy hand-regging.