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Drupal user Group in Tokyo sponsored by WIXI wPix

November 24, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I had a chance to hang out with some of the WIXI team on Tuesday night in Takadanobaba. WIXI sponsored an informal meetup for Drupal developers which I found to be a very good move. Even though WIXI owns the current largest parking service in Japan Darshaun & Steve hasn’t forgotten what domains are for: developing into useful sites for users.

A good 30 or so people came out in the Bar Lamp in Takadanobaba. The crowd was a bit of a good mix between non Japanese & Japanese developers. I don’t think it had the purpose of sparking any serious business just a casual fun get-together drinking beer & all you can eat Tacos.

As always me & Darshaun always speak frankly on what’s going on in domaining in Japan. We both see it as “domains” not IDN, dot even just dot jp. Domains that can be used by Japanese companies.  Good to hear about some of the new & up& coming things WIXI has. Even beforehand the event I contact them for about a few expanding the market surprises they had going on. All in All WIXI is a great team that is adding value to the domain market of Japan. There’s quite a lot still coming from them I can’t even hint to what they are.

Thank You Lamp for extending the all you can eat & drink by 40 minutes. I’m sure everyone will return to have a drink or two in Baba.

WIXI: Japan’s first domain parking service

LAMP Takadanobaba

Filed Under: Domain Parking, Events Tagged With: , ,

.jp Sales November 2011 Emoji.jp sells for 500,100 yen

November 7, 2011 By Leave a Comment

It seems there’s always a few good names going at some high prices. This month & actually just a few hours ago Emoji.jp sold for 500,100 yen. In dollars that’s about $6,400. I would guess that the buyer had to be the Emoji app creator this time.

I can’t wait till WIXI makes their auction system available so users can sell their domains there too.

Filed Under: Domain Names

Great of example of the answer to “What about if they want to view the domain overseas?”

November 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment

While being involved in international domains, I sometimes get someone who says something like “What if the person is overseas & wants to view an IDN on another computer in a foreign country?”

The answer to that is for Japan is it really necessary to set up your business to cater to this?
People are realizing that Japanese companies can do VERY WELL within the Japanese ecosystem. It’s currently companies that are relying on export sales that are hurting.

http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/31/dena-gree-japan/

Do you need to set up your business to cater to that one single occasion that somebody on a company trip forgot their laptop? Sounds like a good question to those who ask it, but in reality only way to go to an important meeting without your computer is if it’s stolen or lost in transit. In those situations you either postpone or get another one & have someone send you files.

Think Reality…

PS there seems to be quite a few more companies snatching up dot jp domains lately.

Filed Under: Development

So what happened with .日本???

October 11, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I met with a few people I have ties with and discussed the .jp extension going to .日本.

I can clearly tell you everyone right now is wondering what is JPRS doing? Truthfully even people that are in the domain industry in Japan have no clue what they are up to.

Things like this diminish your plans. Also this is one of the reasons why from the begining I adviced people to invest within your budget. I own as many .coms as I do .jps. I even have non IDNs of coms & JP.

I’ve been pulling back from domaining & truthfully I have more to do other things.

Don’t become a domain addict where you believe because you bought it, you have to sell it to someone. You can always drop if you are carrying too many domains. I’m not trying to put anyone’s financial status down.

Filed Under: Domain Names

WIXI next domain auction October 1st (Japan time)

September 29, 2011 By Leave a Comment

WIXI’s second monthly domain auction will begin on October 1st 2011 Japan time. There are actually a few monthly auctions in Japan but WIXI’s platform has domains coming from 3 auctions. You can bid on domains from WIXI, Humeai, & Rat.

These three services usually catch the top dot jp domains IDN and non IDN. It seems like powerhouse GMO might be dropping domains that it can’t monetize so last month I was able to get a great domain like Boston.jp which I lost out to them 2 or 3 years ago. WIXI caught the domain & I won it in the first auction for only 21,000 yen (about $250)

If you have any features you think would improve the system let them know.

The auction will be at this location in a few days.
http://wixi.jp/auction

Filed Under: Wixi Tagged With:

Your Japanese IDN Parking revenue just increased

September 27, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I have to give this tidbit to those who read this blog.
Your Japanese dot com parking revenue has just increased. I’d even go to say that by this time next year it should be at least 40% higher each month than what it currently is (if the exchange rates stay the same).

I’m not one to believe in Magic traffic or people just randomly typing in keywords & adding dot com to it.
I can correctly account for almost most of my traffic on my IDN domains.

I’m using WIXI which has the NameDrive backend but my payout might be a bit higher because I’m making more than I made with Namedrive. Long story short your results & mine as far as clicks should be the same.

Direct traffic IS NOT DIRECT TRAFFIC as you think. It’s really users coming from iPhone. The dot com is adding automatically by the Safari browser & NameDrive sees this as direct traffic. I have Google Analytics also only my high traffic domains this is FACT.

In Japan KDDI has announced to be the second carrier for iPhone in Japan come October. KDDI has a bigger market share compared to Softbank. This equals more Japanese putting in the keywords in Safari & increase in traffic. This is especially true for younger users.

Now if Apple changes the settings on Safari which is a possibility, then everyone will see a huge decrease in what thay think is this so called Type-in traffic. If things stay the way it is correctly more advertisers will spend on iPhone mobile ads, and the iPhone user base will be increased which equals at least a 40% increase in parking revenue. I truly believe I’m being conservative with that figure.

Filed Under: Domain Parking

Finally completed a great set of IDN pairing

September 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment

As readers of my blog know even though I have dropped a lot of domains in general I love GEO dot jps.

I especially love the fact that there is a possibility I can pair the domains. In dot com I can’t imagine being able to get both Kyoto.com & the IDN for it. I have been able to pair up & get both romaji (Western spelling) & Japanese for a few great global locations.

This month using WIXI my ultimate dream came true. I haven’t been registering or buying almost any IDNs but I did win Boston.jp in an auction this month. I already owned the IDN version. It only cost me 21,000 yen  (about $270). This was the second time I tried to get this domain since I started pairing cities. So now I have really good complete st of major cities I have personal interest in.

New York City
Los Angeles
Rome
Boston
Atlanta

Now if Edwin would trade me his IDN version of Vegas for my IDN version of Roulette that would be great.

Next month at the beginning of the month there should be another Auction by WIXI. I’ve gotten what I really wanted so I’m not worried about competition. The auction has a few hickups but with feedback they fixed the errors & streamlined.

Filed Under: Wixi

Domains sales IN Japan

September 7, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I realize many do not know that there are domain sales going on IN Japan by Japanese.  There has been sales on going for years now. Most people just don’t know where.

Even though this blog is IDN Talk I do not only have interest in promoting IDNs. I am heavily involved in ways of making domain marketing useful for the Japanese market. This includes dot com, dot jp IDN or romaji.

This month WIXI started their new auction platform which I tested out. I’ll write a review about it later. If you used it & have feedback or concerns please do email the team at WIXI they appreciate the feedback.

They have been documenting sales by their system so far.
Out.jp – 300,000 yen ($3,870)
NiceFuture.JP – 35,100 ($452)
YAMAGATA-NET.JP – ￥41,100 – $530

These are only example
More are here

http://wixi.jp/sold

These are not the only sales either. These are sales by WIXI.
Other platforms in Japan currently do not list their sales outside of their systems.
Non IDN .jps are actually selling in Japan.

Filed Under: Domain Names, Wixi Tagged With: ,

Adwords Editor now supports IDN Domains

August 29, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Adwords Editor the tool that most Adwords advertisers use to upload campaigns was recently updated to be IDN friendly. The new version allows for native IDN domains as the display URL. You still have to upload punicode for the destination URL.

This is really good progress to see technology giants become more & more IDN friendly.

Here’s the release update

http://www.google.com/support/adwordseditor/bin/answer.py?answer=1409692

Filed Under: Google

Linkedin for Domainers

August 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I’ll be honest & admit I was totally against putting my profile on linkedin. Recently I’ve had a change of heart.

As being owner of a few sites that were created with user generated content since 1999 there is one thing that I would have loved to have from the beginning. User transparency. For the web user of course I understand they want privacy. For the webmaster they would love if their was a bit of transparency for the user.

Linkedin changes that. It really proves credibility. For the domain world if someone talks about SEM/advertising/ marketing & they work as a security guard, it makes you realize should you be taking this guys advice on how advertising works? As far as bloggers, there are some that are good & do self marketing & I do give them credit.

But realize someone who owns domains, & has no experience in marketing isn’t instantly a digital marketing expert. Sorry just as you should I only connect with people I’ve actually met & work with.

Linkedin is a very good way to show your status.

I would love to make a professional site where each user logs in with their Linkedin profile. Even if it was a private site. Imagine how real the members would be if you can see their experiences in life.

Filed Under: Social Media
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