2007 may be a breakout year for Indian domains

2007 is likely to be the last year when the Internet in India remains relatively small business. Now is a great time to consider getting involved and making sure that your company has your .in and .co.in names!

The Indian government is getting ready to expand free wireless broadband across the whole country. Currently figures estimate that the number of Indians online will increase from 45 million in 2006, to reach 67 million in 2007 and 147 million by 2010. The possibility exists for even more rapid growth

Are Indian domain names valuable?

Absolutely.  So far there have been around 100 sales of Indian domain names for 1000 USD or more.

So far in 2007, we’ve already seen several large sales, with Linkshare.in selling for 19,755 USD, Blackjack.in for 5,255 USD, Mobilephones.in for $3,320, MWV.in for $2000. All of these sales were handled by Sedo.com, a leading online marketplace for domains.

Increasingly, major companies see building a website for the Indian market as very important. Having a domain name that makes it clear the company operates in India is an important part of that strategy.

Which extension should I choose? .co.in / .in / .com ?

The Indian government is currently promoting the Indian domain name extension by the slogan:

“Wake up to the power of the official Indian web address. Switch to www.yourcompanyname.co.in”. To get www.yourcompanyname.co,in, log on to www.registry.in”

Even the Indian government is using .in although it is advertising .co.in!

Companies such as Goggle and Yahoo prefer the .co.in extension, whereas some Indian  companies such as Rediff still use .com. Rediff use its .in and .co.in to advertise overseas, particularly to Indians living in the United States.

In the long term, there is little doubt that .in and .co.in will win out in India. With the exception of the United States, almost every country in the world embraces its own extension. British people love .co.uk, Germans love .de, Australians love .com.au and so on.

What about Indian language domains?

Is it possible to visit Indian language domain names? Yes, in .com and .net currently.

The Indian government is getting ready to launch .in domain names in Indian languages. Tamil and Malayam are planned for 2007 with other languages to follow soon afterwards.

Now is the time to make sure your company has your .in and .co.in names!

To find out more, please visit www.inforum.in.

Yahoo releases new tools in India (maps, local search and more)

http://www.bigmouthmedia.com/live/articles/yahoo-india-launches-new-services-.asp/3707/

[QUOTE]While Google may be dominating the global search market on the whole, it is Yahoo! who is at the forefront of the online market in India. India is behind many European countries in terms of its online advertising revenue, currently spending only around $60 million per year. About 85 per cent of the country’s internet users visit the Yahoo! search engine and the company has long been noted for its innovation in India.[/QUOTE]

Interesting to see a current figure for advertising spending. Anyone care to guess how far and fast that will increase in years to come? Online usage is predicted to triple in the next 3/4 years:

According to an estimate by Kaufman Brothers, the number of internet users in India, which stood at around 45 million in 2006, is set to reach 67 million in 2007 and 147 million by 2010.

Valuable NNN.in domains for auction

Interesting activity over on Sedo Auctions:

Key NNN.in domains are being auctioned off. 200.in, 300.in and 400.in have already been sold for $106, $60 and $60 respectively. 700.in is currently up for sale.

These are valuable-looking domains and probably underpriced.

India to Connect the Whole Country Wirelessly

Over on the forums, a member pointed out some great news for technology and the interenet in India. The India Times is reporting that:

The government proposes to offer all citizens of India free, high-speed broadband connectivity by 2009, through the state-owned telecom service providers BSNL and MTNL.

For an underdeveloped country hoping to make its people more wealthy, building a internet infrastructure is like building railroads 200 years ago.

The idea is to boost economic activity in general. The government of India plans to achieve free broadband connectivity at a speed of 2 MB per second across the country

Indian Domains Popular for Web 2.0 Sites

It seems as it the need to get sensible, easy to remember domain names is really helping out the Indian domain space.

Instead of making up a nonsense word or dropping all the vowels in order to get into the .com space (Squeeeedadle.com, Phtgrphy.com etc.) some companies are turning to .in domains.

• Zoom.in (purchased for $3000)
• Outside.in
• Cyn.in

It makes sense as there are so many domain hacks possible with the .in ending, plus .in can mean internet of course.

A Complete List of all Indian domain name sales

For those of you who haven’t been over to the forum yet, we have a list of the biggest Indian domain name sales so far:

http://www.inforum.in/

The current top ten are:

1) Mails.in $24,000 (Sedo. 2005)
2) Searching.in $22,000 (Private Sale. Unknown, 2006)
3) Linkshare.in 10,000 GBP ($19,755) (Sedo. 10th Jan. 2007)
4) Hollywood.co.in $7000 (Sedo. 6th June, 2006)
5) Blackjack.in – 4,000 = $5,255 (Sedo. 25th Jan, 2007)
6) Lotto.in $5000 (Sedo. 20th Sep. 2006)
7) Mobilephones.in – 2,550.00 = $3,320 (Sedo. 13th Feb. 2007)
8 ) Commodities.in $3200 (Private Sale. 30th May 2006)
9 ) Zoom.in $3000 (Sedo. 4th Nov. 2006)
10 ) Poker.in $2650