Domagon said:
IDNs are not absolute whereas traditional "ascii" domains are; see my posts in the threads I linked to above for more explaination of how IDNs resolve verses non-IDNs.
From a marketing viewpoint, IDNs have potential value for being better suited for websites targeted at various non-english speaking populations ...
However, much marketing today is a combination of "local" and "global" ... so if a company has an IDN(s) for "widget", they will likely want to have a traditional "ascii" domain equivalent(s) so as to be able to market their brand globally; prevent someone else from encroaching on their business / brand, etc.
Again, please see my posts at the links above - hope this helps.
Ron
I see your point in this and where you are going with it; however, I would contend that the global brands who want to take advantage of this will most likely already have the ASCII version of the domain (if they wanted it in the first place). The advantage of IDNs is that it fills a (large) "gap" for the companies who want to (or need to, by design) do business with native speakers of a language other than English - a huge market.
Companies again have the power to own a prime generic domain that encompasses their market, and in the language they are trying to target. It is along the lines of Enterprise owning rentalcar.com, for one example.
One of the major arguments I hear a lot is "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." This applies especially to Spanish, French, German, etc. ASCII domains missing the proper accents and umlauts that are used in the correct spelling of words. The argument is that this is the way it is and has been, and people won't care to change their browsing habits. I happen to disagree. I don't think it will be a magic-bullet, or that it will happen overnight, but I do think that these types of IDNs will vulture traffic from the ASCII domains.
I also think that it will come down to content. To take a broad example, let's look at cafe.com vs café.com (I have not visited either of these sites, I am using them as a hypothetical demonstration only). If a French user goes to cafe.com and finds a parking page, they may click on an ad. If the same user goes to café.com and finds a fully developed site of café listings, I contend they will be more likely to use and revisit the IDN, because it is developed. I believe the same holds true in reverse.
