While discussing the potential of Chinese IDN.IDN domain names on Namepros, a domain investor pointed out a fact that I overlooked — that the first Chinese IDN .中国 (China) was launched in 2010 but has almost no impact on the domain market.
Because of this fact, some argue that Chinese IDNs don’t have much future and the popular Pinyin is the way to go.
Here’s a suggestion for you. Visit v.baidu.com and browse the list of videos available. Do you see any Pinyin words? I found none — except the word “baidu” in the address bar of my browser. This is because Pinyin words are not used in the daily lives of the Chinese people.
A little bit of history. According to Wikipedia, Chinese characters were first used in 1200 BC, which means we have been using Chinese characters for more than 3,000 years. In contrast, Pinyin was invented in 1949 when the communists took over China.
Chinese people learn Pinyin at school but they use Chinese characters in their daily lives. If Chinese characters cannot be used, then Pinyin is a workable compromise. This problem happened in the Internet addressing system at a time when only English letters and number could be used in domain names.
In China, Pinyin domain names started first, took root, and have become very popular. Today, major Chinese companies own Pinyin domain names and many use them as their corporate websites. But, the contents of the websites remain written in Chinese characters.
This observation forms the basis of my speculation that Chinese IDNs will catch up and become very popular in the long term.
I think Chinese IDN and Pinyin have different roles. Chinese IDN can be used within China to help consumers to easily remember a company’s name. Outside China, Pinyin will remain important because even non Chinese can enter a Pinyin name from their keyboard to visit a Chinese company’s website.
Still, short Pinyin names such as Le and Baidu will likely continue to be popular both inside and outside China.
Ron says
The headline should not be a question mark…
it should be:
Chinese IDN are Better Than Pinyin !!
Its a no brainer. Simple logic. Its just that numerics and pinyin have lots of hype.. Its the chicken and egg. Once some people will make some big sales..the crowds will follow.
Kassey Lee says
Thanks for your suggestion, Ron. I always try to just present the facts and let readers make their own judgement. That’s why I used the question mark. It seems you know Chinese well, and you understand the effect of crowd psychology. I try to follow Mark Twain’s maxim “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” As a matter of fact, I own no Pinyin domain name.
Zee Wilson says
I also agree that Chinese IDNs will “catch up” and become very popular in the long term, even more popular, and more valuable, than Chinese pinyins. As someone more familiar and knowledgeable with the Chinese domain market, Kassey Lee:
(1) Which Chinese IDN.IDN do you think will be most popular? (I myself favor .在线 in first place, and maybe .中文网 in second place.
(2) You quoted that the Chinese IDNs will “become very popular in the long term”; what do you consider “long Term” (within weeks? months? years? decades?) ?
(3) Have you invested in any Chinese IDN.IDNs? If so, which extension(s)?
Kassey Lee says
Hi Zee,
I share your viewpoint.
(1) My favorite is .公司 (company) but currently it has only 50k registrations. The reason I like it is because these two Chinese characters are already present in the legal names of many companies, and we actually use these two characters when referring to a Chinese company in our conversation. The other one is .世界 (world) which has two meanings: (1) everything about a company, (2) global operation. However, there’s no clear winner at this moment. To track the trend of Chinese domain names in general and IDN.IDN in particular, I’ve added a stats page on my site so that I can update the info as data comes in.
(2) To me, long term is 10 years or more.
(3) My perspective is always global, so I own no .cn, Pinyin, and IDN.IDN. To me, .com is the safest investment because it is managed in a country of democracy with the rule of law being above any government official. The price of .com will remain stable and it’s unlikely .com domain names will be confiscated by the government.
Kassey Lee says
(1) My favorite is .公司 (company) but currently it has only 50k registrations. The reason I like it is because these two Chinese characters are already present in the legal names of many companies, and we actually use these two characters when referring to a Chinese company in our conversation. The other one is .世界 (world) which has two meanings: (1) everything about a company, (2) global operation. However, there’s no clear winner at this moment. To track the trend of Chinese domain names in general and IDN.IDN in particular, I’ve added a stats page on my site so that I can update the info as data comes in.
(2) To me, long term is 10 years or more.
(3) My perspective is always global, so I own no .cn, Pinyin, and IDN.IDN. To me, .com is the safest investment because it is managed in a country of democracy with the rule of law being above any government official. The price of .com will remain stable and it’s unlikely .com domain names will be confiscated by the government.
Leila says
IDN domain name leave an imagine to the users more directly, but when they enter a domain name, they should still type the pinyin (most people use this typing method) on keyboards right? To me pinyin domain names are bullish, but the company better to have both pinyin and IDN domain names.