Internationalized Domain Names (IDN's)

[Rubber Duck]

I think at the moment as the plug in support is not that spread, it is a waste of investment. Stick with the COM and other popular extensions.

So, would you say that I have been hasty in registering single Arabic Alphabet dot coms? The point is that whilst we need a lot of gimmicks to get them work on our PCs, if you have an Arabic Keyboard, it is just the touch of a button away! I am sure that even in secular Turkey, people are as comfortable with Arabic Characters as they are with the twentieth Romanisation of the Language.

Anyone have an opinion or advice on these? Will they work, are they just more marketing hype from Verisign, are they worth anything, great investment, waste of money, will/won't work with email servers, etc.

I have a few and I'm wondering if it's a great investment, or great waste.

http://www.idnnow.com/index.jsp

It all depends what they are used for. If they are adopted by huge non-european language users, from emergind mega economies like China, where the only Romanised text on the page is the URL then they will be worth a fortune. If on the other hand they are just the indulgence of speculators trying to emulate previous success stories by adding Umblatts then I think the outcome is clear.

For the moment even enterprise like Sedo and Microsoft seem to be mired in confusion as to where thier priorities lie, but the march of history is unrelenting. China will soon be the worlds largest economy and that is where the big money is being invested even now to the extent it is distorting world commodity prices. It is the Chinese that are making you car more expensive to run, not the Arabs. They have never been conquored by a European Power and are unlikely to accept a foriegn language being imposed upon them. Yes of course many middle class Chinese and Indians speak English, but how many speak it when they go home?

The IDN domain is like no other internet project in terms of the investment time and money. That investment by definition has largely been made by parties with a vested interest. It will happen! The question is when, and who will be fleet enough to benefit!