The IDN Domain is not so transparent to westerners (non Japanese). I think it really reflects how Japan is as a whole society. It’s actually pretty hidden right now (from westerners). I have my reasons for saying that.
I remember when I first came to Tokyo 12 years ago & heard about this area of Tokyo that was just great to hang out in. I only had 3 weeks so my assumption was a great place to hang out obviously would be great during the day, & quite obvious. I went there during the day on my first week, & it was completely dead. Streets were empty, nothing that a young 21 year old black American would be remotely interested in.
The first experience was the first week of my trip. The third week I ran into a guy I saw on TV there & he took me to the same area at nite, even better than that. What I saw on the street at nite wasn’t really interesting to me. He took me to a club inside of the 6th floor of a building, let’s just say it was one the best places I’ve been (at that age).
Japan in whole is just like this. From coming from Boston I would never assume to see the most luxurious places in Japan hidden inside of the 6th floor building. For Japanese it’s normal to not be transparent.
I’ve seen people use the same tactics as they would use for domaining for the Japanese market. Not in the context of what might be good to buy but seeing if the market is there.
Some may try to look at the very few Japanese domain forums to see if there is a domain market here.
Some may see that there are no reported domain sales going in DN Journal from Japan.
Some may think that they are seeing advertisements yet for IDN Domains..
Don’t expect to find Japanese on an open forum. There are other places where they are freely communicating about domains, it’s just not easy to see for nonJapanese.
Reported sales just look unnecessary at this time, also most of the companies selling domains here in Japan simply don’t care about the Western Market. There are two mid XX,XXX B2B transactions that I heard about this year.
Marketing people who run campaigns need data & guarantees before pitching things to clients. One thing that nonJapanese don’t do is search in Japanese. Currently Japanese who search for their company’s vital keywords are noticing other people are buying the IDNs for those keywords & ranking as well or even better than them. This is probably the biggest key factor to people doing research on IDNs right now. In my company I have team members who grasp this fully & are already telling clients about it, & unfortunately I have one coworker also who’s client’s competitor bought all the brand IDNs & is ranking in the top 6 spots because they bought the IDNs in different extensions.
The search value alone is high enough to make companies look for solutions to this. I expect 3 years from now half the URLs on the first pages on the search engines might be IDN Domains. We western IDNers have nothing to do with this either. We were just lucky enough to get in & buy some good premiums before natives opened their eyes. That gap for the Japanese market is now currently closed. They are aware.
The battle of the competing keywords, IDNs in the dot jp extensions being cheaper than buying dot coms for Japanese, & other changes remind me of those hidden places that a non Japanese wouldn’t expect. People telling me that dot jp cost $100 each, so they aren’t worth it really cracks me up, when I know registries in Japan only charge less than $7 for IDN dot jp…. & a campaign just ended where they were less than $4 each (and yes that is $4 USD).
oh a I have to say at the age of 21 the place went was so great because it was free, & clubs in Tokyo cost $30 entrance fee.
