Chef Patrick asked me if I would join him tonight on the Domain Masters radio show to discuss IDNs. Given the recent high-profile IDN sales such РФ.com, and the continued progress towards internationalized .COM names, there should be a lot to talk about.

You can tune in live online at webmasterradio.fm. Also, we will be taking your questions if you submit them using the “chat” feature.

I’m looking forward to tonight at 7 pm eastern, and would appreciate it if both the IDN newbies and the old pros tune in here.

Symantec officially completed its acquisition of VeriSign’s web authentication business yesterday. Symantec is home to the famous Norton anti-virus product line, but the company doesn’t plan on getting into the domain business anytime soon.

Instead, VeriSign is now free to squarely focus on its role in managing the .COM and .ORG .NET registries. Investors have cautiously welcomed the move as VeriSign’s (VRSN) stock price has increased marginally since the Symantec arrangement was first mentioned in May.

For those who enviously think of VeriSign as a cash printing machine with no competition in sight for the forseeable future, now is truly the time to put your money where your mouth is and go ahead and invest in VRSN, which is now a pure domain play.

Interestingly, VeriSign had a Second Quarter earnings call last week and when asked about areas for future growth, IDNs were mentioned. In particular, Mark McLaughlin, VeriSign’s President, referred to “growth opportunities [such as] both the new gTLDs themselves plus the internationalized version of the TLDs we run today.” Hearing McLaughlin himself speak of internationalizing gTLDs (aka aliasing/unlocking .COM and .NET in IDN form) as a significant growth opportunity reaffirms VeriSign’s commitment to advancing the state of IDNs today.

Perhaps not coincidentally, Andrew at DomainNameWire first reported today that VeriSign has also filed a patent related to the registration and usage of IDNs. The investment in such a patent coupled with the earnings call discussion above leads one to the conclusion that the internationalization of .COM is not only a necessity for non-English speakers, but it will also be big business.

As an update to the auction reported here, テレビ.com (“TV” in Japanese) was in the final day of a back-and-forth Snapnames drop auction today.

The winner purchased the name for $7,700.00. Congratulations to all bidders and to the winner of this fantastic name.

As proof that top IDNs are still available to dropcatch, テレビ.com (“TV” in Japanese) has just gone to auction at Snapnames. In using the IDN Droplist (screenshot above), this has been a name that I’ve been tracking and I’ve been eagerly looking forward to the drop. To see why, look at the stats below.

The Google Adwords Keyword Tool stats breakdown is as follows:

• 11,000,000+ Broad Global Monthly Searches
• 200,000+ Exact Global Monthly Searches
• $.74 CPC

テレビ.com is already at $3,000 as of the time of this post. I am an interested bidder, and in looking at the other Snapnames bidders, it looks like a number of industry stalwarts are poised to bid up this auction. Regardless of who wins this prize name, a high final auction price would benefit all IDN owners in bringing attention to the industry and adding to the value of IDNs.

Can you name the top* 10 most commonly used languages without looking below? Here they are:

1. Mandarin Chinese (1.12 billion)
2. English (480 million)
3. Spanish (320 million)
4. Russian (285 million)
5. French (265 million)
6. Hindi/Urdu (250 million)
7. Arabic (221 million)
8. Portuguese (188 million)
9. Bengali (185 million)
10. Japanese (133 million)
*Total number of native and secondary speakers of top languages.

Many are so obsessed with domain statistics such as the Google Adword Keyword Tool (“GAKT”), that they are blinded to other opportunities.

Superpremium keywords are still available to be handregged in high-usage languages such as Bengali and Tamil. When these 100 million plus speakers begin using the Internet en masse it will be worth tens of thousands to own a premium name.

The Google Adword Keyword stats will eventually catch up in these future years and you will once again have to look in the mirror and ask, did I follow everyone else in only buying Japanese, Russian and Chinese IDNs or did I monopolize my own corner of the market and plant a seed in a place where others weren’t even looking.

In rereading the Dave Wrixon interview, his contrarian approach should be instructive. Wrixon cast a wide net, and explained: “We maintain significant holdings in Chinese (Simplied and Traditional), Japanese, Russian, Arabic, Farsi, Urdu, Hindi, Thai, Bengali, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Punjabi, Gujarati, and Azeri.”

Tria Beauty was described as one of the hottest brands of the year by the publication, Advertising Age. Tria has marketed itself exceptionally well, having been featured in top magazines including Elle, O, InStyle, People, Good Housekeeping, Allure, Maire Claire and WWD.

Why is Tria Beauty such a marketing star? Because it thinks outside the box and leads the industry in trends – such as registering IDNs.

Yes, トリア.com (“Tria” in Japanese) is live, has exclusively Japanese content and has helped the company make inroads into the Japanese beauty products market. In particular, Tria’s bestselling product, an innovative at-home laser hair remover, has now inspired satisfied customer reviews across Japan.

Tria Beauty will surely have many competitors and followers trying to imitate its international marketing savvy. I’d suggest that those aspiring to have a similar global internet presence should start by learning how to register an IDN.

**Update: A comment from a reliable source below suggests that the site トリア.com appears to have been made through a Tria Beauty affiliate program rather than through the company directly. Either way, kudos to Tria’s marketing efforts, which led to such a solid Japanese website.

You missed your opportunity.  That is the vibe most readers were getting if they didn’t snag a premium .CO yet.  The message was — ok, it might be excusable if you weren’t exposed to domaining in the 1990s and so missing the .COM landgrab wasn’t your fault.  But if .CO becomes the next big thing and you didn’t speculate/invest in it at all, then you really messed up.

To rub salt in your wounds of lost opportunity just read the following:

• Rick Schwartz’s blog, where he referred to the promise of the .CO general registration in no uncertain terms “I think all these bozos are about to be schooled. Yesterday EVERY domainer had the EXACT opportunity to speculate and win or lose.”
• Elliot Silver revealed that he was awarded the drool-inducing Bahamas.co
• Andrew Allemann dug up a report that .CO may not be treated any differently than .COM in the search engine results pages.

Fueled by the above .CO excitement, it seems as if no premium .CO’s are left to handreg.  So if you have money to spend, where should you put it?

A shrewd observation by IDNForums posters is that .CO allows certain IDN characters such as “ü” which are used in popular domaining languages such as  German.  In case you forgot how lucrative German IDNs can be, remember Gartenmöbel.de (“Garden Furniture” in German) was sold for over $200,000 recently.  Given that Germany has an active domain aftermarket and it seems that only a handful of people are aware that some German .CO IDNs can be registered, this is a nice opportunity.

I bought a number of German and French premiums like parfüm.co  (“Perfume” in German), which is well worth the $29.00 risk.

Also, for forward looking domainers, the following is the .CO registry’s official stance on IDNs:

Currently, only Spanish IDNs are accepted in the .CO name space, however we are in the process of reviewing additional IDN languages to offer.  Please continue to check back with the registry as we will keep our site updated when we plan to launch new languages.

I knew that general availability for .CO was beginning yesterday at 2 p.m., and at 1:58 p.m. I finally decided to register some. First, I typed in city names, top generic product names, even top adjectives. All gone. Then, I looked at directory categories, starting with doctors.co and dentists.co and moving down the ranks. I was pleasantly surprised, and found one premium .CO professional domain that was available, which I ordered and is now processing. Next, using what I thought to be my competitive advantage, I typed in the top 100 IDNs. I was truly shocked, the entire IDN set was taken. I did manage to represent the IDN niche by registering IDNs.co, which given my interest in IDNs and the $29. registration fee seems like a bargain.

How Much Are .CO Domains Worth?

PROS:

• There has been strong demand for .CO domains so far. Over 215,000 .CO domains are registered already, and Ron Jackson wrote that over 100,000 .CO domains were registered 30 minutes after general registration began.
• .CO is familiar. Internationally “Co” is recognized as an abbreviation for company or corporation. As it is only one letter off from .COM it is visually familiar as well.
• .CO is IDN-friendly.
• The .CO registry is being managed exceptionally well. Take a look at the impressive team working on the launch here and the executive team.
• Lori Anne Wardi, the Director of Marketing, has done a stupendous job of marketing .CO, and it has already leapfrogged many other extensions and deserves to be considered among the top four TLDs (.com, .net, .org, .co).

CONS:

• Will .CO be at a disadvantage in comparison to other gTLDs in terms of SEO?
• .CO may not be able to sustain this pace of growth once the marketing blitz dies down.
• Though excitement has been high among domainers, it is unclear how long it will take for the general public to understand and ultimately embrace .CO.

**Update: As noted in the comments below it appears as if only Spanish IDNs are and will be available.   I am awaiting official confirmation.

Recently, Chuck Gomes of VeriSign was quoted as stating, “VeriSign will be submitting proposals for multiple IDN versions of .COM and .NET . . .”

For the IDN investor who has bought IDN.com, this means that the value of your domains has just gone up significantly given that you will likely have an opportunity to own the translated version of the .COM TLD. A pleasant surprise was that VeriSign also clearly stated that .NET will be similarly aliased/unlocked in a .NET-in-IDN version.

Many have stayed away from IDN.net with the following rationalization, “isn’t it risky enough for me to be investing in IDNs, do I have to add to that risk with an IDN.net?” However, IDN.net names look rock solid right now given forthcoming aliasing of the TLD. Those who are bullish on .NET even suggest that in some languages a translated .NET will resonate more with locals than a translated .COM. Whether true or not, .NET deserves some long overdue attention in the IDN world.



Lastly, we come to .ORG. When domainers think of gTLDs, they often think of the big three, .COM, .NET and .ORG. The first two should be unlockable in IDN form, how about .ORG? Unfortunately, VeriSign did not include .ORG in its statement since VeriSign does not manage the .ORG registry. Instead, starting in January 2003, the Public Interest Registry (“PIR”) assumed responsibility for operating .ORG and no statements have been made yet regarding unlocking .ORG-in-IDN. Though this possibility remains open, if you are an IDN.ORG investor it might make sense to buckle up for an extended wait.

The biggest domaining news in the last year broke today.

The Generic Names Supporting Organization Council (GNSO), which deals with policy making on generic top-level domains (gTLDs) passed a motion to send the below letter to ICANN.

Moreover, VeriSign stated in connection with the letter, “VeriSign will be submitting proposals for multiple IDN versions of .com and .net . . .”

The letter expressed the need for a registrar to be able to apply for and “unlock” the IDN version of a gTLD, for example “.museum could enter into an agreement with a new gTLD applicant to offer an IDN version of .museum for a specific language community.” This would also finally allow for the internationalization and democratization of .com, which would be translated into many languages.

The impact would be a profoundly unifying international extension and IDN.com owners would be able to “unlock” or “alias” (IDN).com to (IDN).(com-as-IDN). Since Chuck Gomes was interviewed here, this has been the most public expression the intent to translate .com.

From an investor’s point of view, the value of IDN.com names has just skyrocketed. The opportunity to buy top quality IDNs for bargain basement prices may now be gone or close to it. But a true gold rush with tens of thousands of people raking through the IDN droplist and competing on Snapnames for IDNs may be just around the corner.

A world in which the owner of a .com will also own both the Hebrew version קום. — and the Russian version .ком will be one where domain registrants are encouraged to design multilingual sites on several branches of the same extension. It will lead to more multilingual content on the web. And it will surely result in greater Internet usage by non-English speakers.

I am looking forward to the reception of the letter below:

PROPOSED LETTER:

To: Kurt Pritz and members of the ICANN New GTLD Implementation Team,
CC: ICANN Board

The GNSO Council requests a change to Module 2 of the Draft Applicant Guidebook. Specifically, we request that the section on “Outcomes of the String Similarity Review” be amended to allow applicants to request an Extended Review under applicable terms similar to those provided for other issues such as “DNS Stability: String Review Procedure”. We further request that a section be added on “String Similarity – Extended Review” that parallels other such sections in Module 2.

This request is seen as urgent because there are conditions under which it may be justified for applicants for a string which has been denied further processing based on confusing similarity by the Initial Evaluation to request an extended evaluation. This Extended Review would evaluate extenuating circumstances in the application which may be such that the similarity is not actually detrimental. This may occur, inter alia, in cases such as:

• The same Registry Operator (for an existing gTLD or a proposed new gTLD) could apply for a string that is similar to an existing or applied for string in a manner that is not detrimentally similar from a user point of view. For example, it is possible that an applicant could apply for both a gTLD with a conventional ASCII label and a corresponding internationalized gTLD (IDN gTLD) that could be deemed to be similar but not cause the detrimental confusion that the GNSO recommendation was trying to avoid.

• A situation where there is an agreement between a new applicant Registry Operator and the Registry Operator of an existing gTLD that allows for better service for the users in the geographical area where the new gTLD will be offered. For example, MuseDoma, the Registry Operator for .museum could enter into an agreement with a new gTLD applicant to offer an IDN version of .museum for a specific language community. The two strings might be judged to be similar but their delegation would not cause detrimental confusion.

We thank you for your prompt attention to this GNSO Council request.