Language. Domain Investors live all over the world and with that comes a ton of different languages. The language of choice tends to be English which fortunately for me is my native tongue. Unfortunately, many buyers and sellers don’t speak the same language and it leads to communication problems.
I’m certainly not a member of the grammar police and I always have been a hurried and error filled writer. I applaud the non English speaking domain investors that do their best to post on English forums and blog in English, despite not being fluent. I think Francois of Domaining.com would be the first to say that not speaking fluent English has made it difficult to regularly update and build his sites. I have many times sent him the proper wording for his sites because the words he chose didn’t quite translate the way he thought. The improper wording on sites doesn’t bother me because I know and trust Francois but what if I didn’t.
I don’t think I am going out on a limb when I say that when Internet users come to a site that is not in proper English they lose a little trust. Whether warranted or not, they feel there is a higher chance that this site or person may take their money. The lack of proper English makes the person or company appear farther away and lets the user know it’s being operated from a distant country is not regulated or operates under the same laws that we are used to in the US and offers no legal recourse if something goes wrong. And if it did, would you even be able to communicate your problem?
The same can be said of emails and communication. Right or wrong, I can tell within 5 words whether an email is foreign. I shouldn’t, but I immediately assume the rest of the email is going to be someone trying to sell me a junk domain or putting in a lowball offer on one of my domains.
So does this mean non English speaking people aren’t valuable domain investors? Absolutely not. It merely show that by not speaking the native language of the buyer, seller, or website users you are at a disadvantage. I am fortunate to live in a college town with access to a liason/interpreter for most languages. My best friends speaks 5 and helps me with my transactions. His services more than pay for themselves as I find transactions go quicker and the other side seems more comfortable. And as you know comfortable means better prices for me. It also means opening up new avenues for buying and selling that others may be afraid to tackle such as my recent Chinese number domain website adventures. So learn a language you’ll not only be able to make some money but you’ll learn a culture and meet new people which is even more valuable than money.
One of the biggest economic barriers to domaining is.. ourselves. That’s right, we support this language lack of interoperability. We really need English as the universal language and dotcom as the primary entension. Do domainers give us that? LOL.
The internet started as English-only. Do domainers support that or do they primarily want to make a buck? The Balkanization of the internet will certainly limit its full potential.
Domainers may actually be undermining this vision by pushing the IDNs and CC TLDs. IDNs and CC TLDs balkanize the internet and limit markets. Domainers found out there are pennies to be made speculating, supporting, and pushing CC TLDs and IDNs. Domainers helped to build the infrastructure which balkanized the internet.
Hardware and software companies made money selling keyboards and software that allowed people to communicate in their native language. IDNs and CC TLDs supported that. For end users, why bother with a universal medium when you have your own neighborhood on the net?
The same thing happened in adult. Adult webmasters gave away free content to attract visitors to their own websites. The free content movement started with Usenet, and then TGPs, and then MGPs. They gave away more and more and more and more. Pretty soon the proliferation of the torrents, file sharing services, and the tubes meant that virtually all adult content was free. How do you sell something that is free? The industry imploded.
The same principal applies to alot of things. This is the principal: loads of people seemingly acting in their own interest, often bring down the group.
Want another example? Take the tens of millions of people in the US on welfare, and look what that drain on man power and resources has done to our economy. It is the real reason we are in the economic mess we are in today.
אין לך מושג על מה אתה מדבר אבל אני סתם אכתוב כמה מילים, יכניס את השם שלך באמצע, Hal Meyerואולי זה יגרום לך לחשוב קצת, שיש עולם עם עוד אנשים שם בחוץ, רחוק מאיידהו, שלא מדברים אנגלית.
@nice article
@Hal Meyer
“The same principal applies to alot of things. This is the principal: loads of people seemingly acting in their own interest, often bring down the group.”
Pretty socialist statement for an anti socialist. I wonder how many foreign languages you happen to speak. My guess is ZERO.
I prove my point, here is how I read the comment from MS
You have no idea what you are talking about so I will write a few words, put your name in the middle, Hal Meyer, and maybe it will make you think that the world has many people, far from Idaho, that don’t speak English.
How did I do?
I agree with the post’s content. But amazingly, one of the most popular, well-educated and richest domain bloggers makes a ton of grammatical mistakes in his posts. And he is 100 percent American!
“loads of people seemingly acting in their own interest, often bring down the group.”
Wow, what a closed minded view. The statement above could apply to the current state of America. Make sure the gates on your fortress communities are taller and taller. Forcing people around the world to tow the “our way or the highway” attitude is unbelievable. The reason so many people are unemployed at the moment is because of the shill game bankers, real estate companies and appraisers have pushed. Everybody patting each other on the back to get their commission and ietting people buy houses that shouldn’t have been able to. Inflated prices and appraisals and then the icing on the cake, letting people take out equity loans against a false perceived value. How about a new bmw, we’ll just add it to your “fake” mortgage. The house of cards has fallen, and will continue for years. While China, India, South America are experiencing double digit growth, most people in North America just don’t get it. Thank goodness in Canada the bankers wouldn’t let people that can’t afford a home get one. Wait until the rates go back to reasonable rates, 5-10%. Even more chaos. With politicians still giving the have’s more and more tax breaks those gated communities better be secure.
@Michael
And that would be?
I only fit the “makes a ton of grammatical mistakes” portion so who are you talking about?
@Shane
I would rather not tell. But let’s just say it’s neither you, Elliot, Rick, Frank nor Domain Name Wire.
Great article. When there are language gaps to be bridged there is huge opportunity.
The biggest problem in domaining are domainers. They tend to sell domains to each other.