India: One country, many IDNs
If you’re interested in learning more about IDNs, UNESCO and EURid recently released a report on the evolution and challenges of IDNs. It’s a good read and it highlights some …
IDN (Intl. Domain Name)
Think outside .com: A map of the world’s IDNs
If you’ve been following this blog for awhile, you know I’m a fan of internationalized domain names (IDNs). Over the past year or so, ICANN has approved more than 20 …
Japanese IDNs are losing momentum
I am bullish on internationalized domain names (IDNs). I view them as a natural evolution of a multilingual Internet. But I also am well aware that there are those who …
The next Internet revolution will not be in English
This visual depicts about half of the currently approved internationalized domain names (IDNs), positioned over their respective regions. Notice the wide range of scripts over India and the wide range …
US opposes ICANN on gTLD rollout
Just as ICANN preps for the rollout of its much-hyped gTLD program, the US Dept. of Commerce comes along and makes a scene. I read the Dept. of Commerce letter and …
If Russians are wary of Cyrillic domains, who’s buying them?
About a year ago, the NY Times ran an article with the headline: Russians Wary of Cyrillic Web Domains. As someone who has long been bullish on the future of …
I’m huge in Japan
My last name happens to be a rather popular brand name in Japan. The Yunker product is a health tonic and has been around since the late 1960s — just …
IDN update: Korea and India join the party
To date, there have been 33 internationalized domain name (IDN) requests across 22 languages. Most recently, India and Korea passed the string evaluation stage with their IDNs. I’ve updated my IDN …
Gruber gives up on his ✪ IDN
Tech pundit John Gruber threw in the towel on his domain ✪df.ws. He writes: What I didn’t foresee was the tremendous amount of software out there that does not properly …
Apple iPhone 4 improves international support
The iPhone is a global success story. And one of the reasons for this success can be attributed to the device’s support for more than 30 languages. But with the …
Chinese IDNs have arrived
ICANN gave approval to Chinese IDNs — for China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. This is a significant development — particularly since China was one of the major forces pushing ICANN …
The dawn of a new URL
ICANN announced today that its first full-length IDN has gone live. Here it is: http://وزارة-الأتصالات.مصر Give it a test drive. I just did (on the Mac) and Firefox, Safari, and …
ICANN approves IDNs for China, Taiwan, Thailand, Sri Lanka…
A few weeks back I asked Where is China’s IDN? ICANN not only answered my question about China, but also about a host of additional countries (and territory) that had …
Where is China’s fast-track IDN?
In January of this year, ICANN announced that four fast-track IDNs had made it through linguistic approval — effectively clearing the way for commercialization. Oddly missing from that list was …
ICANN and the Internet ecosystem
Last month, Rod Beckstrom, President of ICANN, spoke at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Here’s the video. It’s a great introduction to how ICANN has evolved and where …