I don’t reg too many domains lately, but I do browse a lot. I’m noticing a big increase in the number of Japanese registering IDN domains in the jp extension since December.

This chart shows the amounts of domains registered

http://jpinfo.jp/stats/domains.html 

One of the differences that I’m also noticing is Japanese are buying & developing. I credit this to Yahoo! Japan, & seeing IDN domains in the SERPs (Search Engine Results). Before people were registering them but almost all of them went on the shelf.

Basically right now we are entering the buy & develop mode for Japanese.

Let’s see who comes up with the first major IDN site, will it come by this year? If it does I can guess which companies will follow next year with new IDN based sites.

The reality is IDNs mean nothing, no matter how good the technology is if the average person doesn’t know it’s available.