are you ready for the “biggest technological change on the internet”?

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November 21, 2009NON LATIN DOMAIN NAMES

Examples of Country Names in their Native Languages

Босна и Херцеговина Bosnia & Herzegovina

Druk Yul/Bhutan Brunei

Κύπρος Kypros/Cyprus Ελλάς Elias/Greece

한국 Hanguk/South Korea

Россия Rossiya/Russia 臺灣 Taiwan Mueang

Thai/Thailand

中国 Zhong Guo/China Masr/Egypt

“A Different Language is a Different Vision of

Life”Federico Fellini

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Are you ready for the “biggest technological change

on the Internet”?

A Prognostication on Key Trends &

A Discussion on Implications and Opportunities

Kien M Lee

Managing Director | SENATUS.net

October 30, 2009 “The first Internet addresses containing non-

Latin characters from start to finish will soon be online thanks to

today's approval of the new Internationalized Domain Name Fast

Track Process by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names

and Numbers board.”

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Overview

Examples

4 Key Trends

Discussion: What Does It Mean For You?

Conclusion

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" This is only the first step, but it is an incredibly big one and an

historic move toward the internationalization of the Internet ," said

Rod Beckstrom, ICANN's President and CEO. "The first countries

that participate will not only be providing valuable information of

the operation of IDNs in the domain name system, they are also

going to help to bring the first of billions more people online –

people who never use Roman characters in their daily lives."

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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“ICANN Bringing the Languages of the Worldto the Global Internet”

ICANN chairman Peter Dengate Thrush

"The coming introduction of non-Latin characters represents the biggest technical

change to the Internet since it was created four decades ago,"

"Right now Internet address endings are limited to Latin characters – A to Z. But the

Fast Track Process is the first step in bringing the 100,000 characters of the

languages of the world online for domain names.”

ICANN's Fast Track Process launches on 16 November 2009

It will allow nations and territories to apply for Internet extensions reflecting their

name – and made up of characters from their national language. If the applications

meet criteria that includes government and community support and a stability

evaluation, the applicants will be approved to start accepting registrations.

OVERVIEW

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China Internet Network Information

Center (CNNIC) will apply for the top-

level Chinese domain name “Zhong

Guo” (written in hanyu pinyin)

“China has a huge number of netizens

– 388 million as of the end of June

[2009]. Their surfing on the Net will be

facilitated under the Chinese domains

but they can continue to use English

domains as well,” said Qilin, assistant

director of CNNIC.

Egypt will apply for the first Internet

domain written in Arabic, its information

technology minister said at a

conference where Yahoo's co-founder

Jerry Yang and others met to discuss

boosting online access in emerging

nations

Pronounced ".masr" but written in the

Arabic alphabet, meaning “.egypt”

“While there are over 300 million Arabic

speakers in the world, less than 1

percent of the content online is in

Arabic” Jerry Yang

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中国

EXAMPLES

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Branding of Domains

Corporations and individuals will look to have “vanity” domains that are

in specific languages for branding purposes in local markets, e.g.

http://baidu.com will likely be mapped to

http://百度.中国

Land grab, cyber-squatting will likely occur but intellectual property rights

will be more easily enforced by local registrars

The “localization of domain names” by native languages represents,

+ A liberalization and opening up of the domain business *trend #2

- A protectionist measure allowing local web businesses to thrive

unharassed by the “world wide web” *trend #3

Local Domain Name Registrars Will Hit Paydirt

High value domain names will be up for grabs, some registrars will employ pricing schemes

and sales mechanisms (e.g. auctions) to maximize profits.

5TREND #1

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Growth in Overall Online Traffic to Non-Latin Domain Names

Typing in non-Latin characters is not intuitive or simplistic for English

speakers

Non-Latin languages vary from being Phonetic-based to Pictograms

But for native speakers who are using their native languages on their

desktop/laptop and mobile operating systems, access is easy, direct

and convenient

Convenience wasn’t and isn’t the issue: It’s not Latin characters that

these consumers have a problem with. It’s just that they don’t think,

remember, write in Latin characters!

Remember, “A Different Language is a Different Vision of Life”

Growth potential is significant in developing countries’ online markets

Internet Penetration Across Countries Will Rise

Marketing campaigns that have domain names branded in local languages will be more

effective.

6TREND #2

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“Search” will go local; web businesses will go local

Some new businesses/websites will be built only to cater to specific

language market

The Internet will truly have “gated” communities

Note: Google Translate can ONLY do so much

“Search” will change

As more content is poured into these specific language domains & as

URL paths contain more non-Latin characters, weight ranking principles

will have to be adjusted

Semantic implications? Does searching for “China” the same as

searching for “中国”? Should it be similar?

Local territories will be drawn up

There will be URLs that you will have seen before that you won’t even know how to get to

again because you can’t read/write/type in the particular language.

The World Becomes… Bigger

7TREND #3

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Need to implement multiple language-named domain strategies

As search goes “local” (English search for English domains, Chinese

search for Chinese domains, etc)

Your Latin-named domain will be increasingly be accessed mostly

by English speakers/readers

You are forced to consider which non-Latin named domains to have, to

better market and position your web product globally, and strategically in

certain local markets

Glocal: Be Global and Local

e.g. Where once http://google.com or http://google.com.cn was enough for Google, it will

probably have a presence at http://谷歌.中国 as well.

8TREND #4

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Act, Don’t React. Forecast, Don’t Follow.

What adjustments and positioning re-alignments do you have to make?

Corporation/Brand

Blogger/Social Media Journalist

Brand/Media Consultancy

Web Developer

Web Entrepreneur

Examples for discussion

“天气” vs. “Weather”

“电话簿” vs. “YellowPages”

You’ll either be paid more, paying more or just working more…

9DISCUSSION

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If you would like to brainstorm more on this topic, I’m happy to coordinate future

discussions, email me at [email protected]

10CONCLUSION

are you ready for the “biggest technological change on the internet”?

Technology