Stephane Van Gelder - .ASIA

.ASIA hits the half mil

stephane.vangelder@indom.com (Stephane Van Gelder) — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 14:03:23 +0100

DotAsia's launch process is now over, with only the go-live phase remaining (when the extension will be open to anyone on a first-come, first-served basis).

The stats show that so-called "sponsored" generic extensions (i.e. ones that are supposed to represent a community, be it business, geographical or other) can be a success… as long as their registrations requirements remain relatively open.

The registry's official numbers are 505,838 domain name applications. We are talking applications here, and not outright domains: for example, there were 45,697 names which were applied for more than once during the landrush (add to that the 1,051 names which had multiple sunrise requests) and which will now go to auction, where the highest bidding applicant will get the name. The total number of applications received during landrush was 473,633. The rest (up to that 505,838 number) were domains applied for during the previous phases (sunrise and pioneer).

Interesting to see that, although the word "sex" remained the most sought after during the .ASIA sunrise (14 prior-right claims), buy.asia became the most popular name during the landrush with over 400 applicants.

.ASIA country

stephane.vangelder@indom.com (Stephane Van Gelder) — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 16:30:05 +0100

DotAsia CEO Edmon Chung makes a show of .ASIA for the benefit of the Indian press during DotAsia's "Bollywood" event and press launch held on the Monday of the ICANN New Delhi meeting week.

The ICANN meeting held in the Indian Capital city of New Delhi has been an eye-opener for me as far as .ASIA is concerned. Seen from Europe, .ASIA has mainly been a protection exercise for western companies that are active in Asia. Especially during the domain's Sunrise phase which, by definition, is only open to prior rights holders and therefore is heavily biased towards commercial entities such as companies.

But the conversations I've had in India have made me re-evaluate that assumption. Registrars and domain professionals here are already sensing strong demand for .ASIA, and not just from companies. Individuals are interested in the domain as well and more surprisingly, they actually know it's coming!

This is surprising to me because in Europe, I don't think the general public generally knows about an imminent new domain launch until it's already happened. I suppose I really shouldn't be that surprised that there are a large number of domain-savvy people in India. The country is an IT powerhouse after all. But it certainly makes me wish our own media would take a leaf out of India's book and concentrate on new Internet developments a lot more.

Continue reading ".ASIA country"

Where's the Asian in .ASIA

stephane.vangelder@indom.com (Stephane Van Gelder) — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 12:50:00 +0100

.ASIA is exclusively for legal entities within the Asia Pacific region as defined by ICANN, which encompasses 73 countries.

I've just seen DotAsia's overall Sunrise stats. Once again, I'm left wondering why it's only the usual suspects (i.e. us Europeans and the yanks) going for this new domain.

The last time I wandered down this train of thought, DotAsia's CEO Edmon Chung chastised my comparison of .EU's and .ASIA's Sunrise periods which he considered unfair. We discussed this over lunch a few days after my article was published in Domaines.Info and I hate to admit it, but in some ways I think he was right.

Edmon argued that as the success rate (what some might call the "transformation rate", i.e. the number of applications that actually lead to the requested domain being registered) was much higher for .ASIA (above 90% for the first Sunrise, compared to around 50% for .EU's), it was misleading to only mention outright registration numbers (which are vastly in .EU's favour).

Edmon's main point: the .ASIA Sunrise process gave everyone involved a smoother ride.

Continue reading "Where's the Asian in .ASIA"