google Anyone for .asia domain names? - Malaysia Star

[A D]

Anyone for '.asia' domain names?
Malaysia Star, Malaysia - Aug 6, 2007
Companies in this country that want Internet domain names with the extension ".asia" can start applying for them now. They should send their proposals to ...


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[payassso]

i pre-register those domains but i dont have money for register ...someon e likes this pre-register ??

hotel.asia
hotels.asia
nic.asia
girls.asia
xxx.asia
juegos.asia
domain.asia
download.asia
premium.asia
men.asia
women.asia
woman.asia
geisha.asia
mmm.asia
iii.asia
ooo.asia
jobs.asia
eee.asia
job.asia
aaa.asia
travel.asia
poker.asia

 

[Biggie]

certain domains are already "reserved"


just a few from registry.asia

nic
icann
whois
example
ripe
root-servers
internic
goegraphic and geopolital names
www
all single characters
all 2 characters initially reserved
all domains with hyphens in 3rd and 4th char. positions eg. ("bq--1k2n4h4b" or "xn--ndk061n".
aso
gnso


Looks like they are turning the screws on this one!

 

[jazzpetals]

where can you pre-reg them? I tried enom, godaddy and eurodns

 

[floyd777]

You can't pre-register .asia domain names yet. No registrar has opened them up so far. Please know that .asia is going to be very different than other tld launches in that names with greater than one bid (like hotels.asia types) will go through auction. It's not first come first serve anymore - yes - the registry wants to make some money.

I am working with some registrars (smaller ones) to develop their platform for SR and LR and we will start looking for people to place their orders with us towards the end of this year. LR is Feb 08 and GR is March 08 as of now.

Please PM me for details if you need some.

 

[Rubber Duck]

The demand for these names seems to be perceived rather than real.

The main targets of marketing seem to be companies and speculators that feel that they would like to get a slice of the Asian action but are just too lazy to do any spadework.

This is just not going to happen. Very few people from Asia feel an identity with their continent. They have their own individual languages, nationalities and culture. If somebody sees a dot Asia domain, they are going to expect content in English. Surfing of the Internet in English is already very small and it will become increasingly marginalised.

 

[floyd777]

I am not so sure I will agree with all that you say RubberDuck. Asians do have an identity and especially india and china with their rise are creating a pan-asian unity for themselves. I do think .asia is not on the same scale as .eu in terms of the internet or english penetration but remember, asia will be the fastest growing region in the world in this century, that has got to count for something? no?

 

[MobileDesigner]

Both "Rubber Duck" and "floyd777" both seem to make valid points. I have been living in Japan for almost 9 years and I see both perspectives clearly here. There seems to be an identity issue in asia. Once the reach back into their histories, the end up wanting to ignore it (history of WWII).
There are Koreans who were born in Japan but are discriminated against and do not have the same rights as Japanese. Then there is China and Japan who seem to want to join together, but with the issues in the past still walking around at age 80, its hard to figure out who was wrong or right.
Im American, caucasian, but being the 3rd person and working with Chinese, Koreans and Japanese, its easy to see, but yet not announced nor admitted.
oh i can go on about this, but i wont bore you with so much history (no one knows whose history is true - Japan or china or korea).

yet again, like .mobi, we are going into uncharted territories. And yet again, we have the conflicts. "Rubber Duck" is right when he says "If somebody sees a dot Asia domain, they are going to expect content in English". But the best way to fix this is having multi-ligual pages.

So I cant really agree with "floyd777" on this. But "floyd777" is right about asia being a fast growing region. I dont think there will be a huge demand on buying the names, but what the hell, there are nouns that dont exist in other countries but are the same in asia. Im going to buy a few but not as much as I bought with .mobi.:shy:

 

[Gerry]

The demand for these names seems to be perceived rather than real.

The main targets of marketing seem to be companies and speculators that feel that they would like to get a slice of the Asian action but are just too lazy to do any spadework.

This is just not going to happen. Very few people from Asia feel an identity with their continent. They have their own individual languages, nationalities and culture. If somebody sees a dot Asia domain, they are going to expect content in English. Surfing of the Internet in English is already very small and it will become increasingly marginalised.

Exceptionally good points to all your comments.

Not to mention the ever increasing push towards IDN acceptance.

 

[floyd777]

So what do you guys think about the aftermarket values of .asia as compared to .eu? If you look at the top 1500 domain name sales for .eu, they fetched about $2,500 per domain name. Will .asia be on the same scale in terms of these kinds of sales?

When you talk about aftermarket sales, even if the negative points of .asia are taken into consideration, we will still have to take into account the hype and the marketing surrounding a tld launch.

Any comments?

 

[MobileDesigner]

So what do you guys think about the aftermarket values of .asia as compared to .eu? If you look at the top 1500 domain name sales for .eu, they fetched about $2,500 per domain name. Will .asia be on the same scale in terms of these kinds of sales?

When you talk about aftermarket sales, even if the negative points of .asia are taken into consideration, we will still have to take into account the hype and the marketing surrounding a tld launch.

Any comments?

(I maybe shot for writing this....)
I think .asia will be more successful cause I live in asia. I suppose .eu is more successful than .asia if you live in the European area. Since the languages here in asia are quite difficult to learn, i speculate that English-speakers will turn towards Europe.

(why .asia wasnt launched before the cctld?)
I think the aftermarket will be much better than .eu. company owners tend to squirrel away money and spend all of it to take control of it.

in any situation, .com owners will always gripe about how "any" other extension than .com are useless. But who cares. you are in the business so you should go with your gut feeling.

So Elvis (.com) is the king of rock and roll, but there are many other artists like madonna (.md) and moby (.mobi). Just whatever you like and if it benefits you, go with it!

Im still getting .asia regardless of what other people think. This is where i live and thats what i like. listening to some arrogant person saying .com is the only domain to buy is useless. We dont have time to listen to their complaining :asleep: . We are movers, not talkers! :yes:

 

[Rubber Duck]

I am not so sure I will agree with all that you say RubberDuck. Asians do have an identity and especially india and china with their rise are creating a pan-asian unity for themselves. I do think .asia is not on the same scale as .eu in terms of the internet or english penetration but remember, asia will be the fastest growing region in the world in this century, that has got to count for something? no?

No, I don't think so. The Chinese are creating an Internet of their own. It is largely compatible with our and they do seem to wish to stay within the ICANN naming system, but it is 99% chinese characters where content is concerned. It is a political priority to have have Chinese Character domains, and the expansion on the dot CN registry is exceeding anything witnessed elsewhere. It is already the second largest TLD and will probably overhaul dot DE by Christmas.

The Indian market is long way behind because it is largely restricted to the English Speaking Elite at the moment. The Indian government recognises that for real expansion access needs to be in regional Indian languages. There a lot of big initiatives working to make this happen. Hindi domains will eventually be a lot more important than English Ones, and we are not talking transliteration into Latin Characters either.

Of course there is also Japanese, Arabic, Thai, the list is actually very long. Markets are segmented by language and culture. Dot Asia attempts to be something to all people, but will end up meaning very little to very few outside perhaps the US.

(I maybe shot for writing this....)
I think .asia will be more successful cause I live in asia. I suppose .eu is more successful than .asia if you live in the European area. Since the languages here in asia are quite difficult to learn, i speculate that English-speakers will turn towards Europe.

(why .asia wasnt launched before the cctld?)
I think the aftermarket will be much better than .eu. company owners tend to squirrel away money and spend all of it to take control of it.

in any situation, .com owners will always gripe about how "any" other extension than .com are useless. But who cares. you are in the business so you should go with your gut feeling.

So Elvis (.com) is the king of rock and roll, but there are many other artists like madonna (.md) and moby (.mobi). Just whatever you like and if it benefits you, go with it!

Im still getting .asia regardless of what other people think. This is where i live and thats what i like. listening to some arrogant person saying .com is the only domain to buy is useless. We dont have time to listen to their complaining :asleep: . We are movers, not talkers! :yes:

You have also totally lost the plot!

 

[mulligan]

I think .asia will be more successful cause I live in asia. I suppose .eu is more successful than .asia if you live in the European area. Since the languages here in asia are quite difficult to learn, i speculate that English-speakers will turn towards Europe.

Your scientific and well thought out reasoning is simply astounding and I for one will be saving my pennies in the vain hope I can get myself a multi-character-double-hyphen.asia and maybe ... Oh, nevermind ... lost my train of thought

 

[MobileDesigner]

You have also totally lost the plot!

ok. If you say so.

Your scientific and well thought out reasoning is simply astounding and I for one will be saving my pennies in the vain hope I can get myself a multi-character-double-hyphen.asia and maybe ... Oh, nevermind ... lost my train of thought

actually, companies in asia do like hyphens. Its an asian company thing. If you dont want to buy, dont. if you do, then buy. Just stay out of this market if you dont understand anything about it. you "will" lose your money on this extension.

Im only going to get a couple. Would like to see IDNs for this extension since China and Japan have almost the same writing.

 

[floyd777]

I think rubber duck, mulligan - you guys are quite off the mark here. Sitting here in the US or Europe (which I assume you guys are) and speculating on what indian markets for domain names are going to be from a cultural and linguistic point of view does not give an accurate picture. I may not know about chinese push (although if you ever visit china, you will know that china is going crazy over learning english - knowing english is the new way to success over there - and the political party is pushing it). I do know about India and rest assured, English is the only language that binds India together. The north is hindi, the south is tamil and so on and so forth and the only way they communicate is through english - which is why - india has the largest number of english speakers in the world after the US.

In any case, I really think .asia has something going for it. I think this will be a speculative name but there has to be opportunities for .asia - many people said the same about .eu and .mobi and I wrote the scripts for one of the largest registrars in the world to get thousands of .eu and .mobi names for our clients and believe me..the registrar I worked for made millions - and I am not even going to the aftermarket situation - where people made still more.

 

[Rubber Duck]

Dream on.

If you think we living in a box, then it might interest you to know that Mulligan lives and works in Singapore. I don't travel much these days but I worked abroad for years. Don't get past Czech Republic these days.

The point is you do not have to. On the IDN Forums most of the members are actually from the countries where IDN will be used. I also visit Chinese language forums, although I have to rely on translation and Chinese English speakers. Everything you need to know is actually out there on the Internet, but most of it won't be in English and that which is has been repackaged for Western consumption.

The concept of business being done in English and English being a common language in India is meaningless. Yes, it is used as medium, but it very rarely used in the home. It is currently used on the Internet, but only because local language support is still very new.

What we are really arguing about is whether people want domain names in the same language as their web content. 99% of Web Content in China is English. It is not much lower anywhere except India, but the Indian Government realises that the main impediment to the expansion of the Internet there is the fact that it is all in English, but that is changing rapidly.

All I can suggest is you take the trouble to install the necessary language fonts and go and take a look for yourself. Most people in the West do not see the non-Latin Internet, but that doesn't mean it is not there. The overall portion of English content on the Internet is actually shrinking quite rapidly. I believe it is now only about 20%.

Anyway, enjoy your Auction. Hope you end up with some "top domains".

ok. If you say so.



actually, companies in asia do like hyphens. Its an asian company thing. If you dont want to buy, dont. if you do, then buy. Just stay out of this market if you dont understand anything about it. you "will" lose your money on this extension.

Im only going to get a couple. Would like to see IDNs for this extension since China and Japan have almost the same writing.

Sorry, might have misunderstood your position a little.

It is the lack of IDN in dot Asia that is going to be the death blow, and underlines their their cynicism. They are targeting a naive Western audience rather than Asian Companies.

Yes, Japanese and Chinese do use the same characters to a large degree, but the overlap with Japanese is much greater in the traditional characters. You will be struggling to find many domains in dot Com that actually mean the same in both Japanese and Simplified Chinese and are also of commercial value.

 

[mulligan]

... I wrote the scripts for one of the largest registrars in the world to get thousands of .eu and .mobi names for our clients and believe me..the registrar I worked for made millions - and I am not even going to the aftermarket situation - where people made still more.

This should read "I made millions" rather than the registrar. Figure out a way to do it yourself this time round, get accredited and cut out the middle man. It wasn't the guys digging for gold in the Klondike that made all the money, it was the guy selling shovels to those prospectors.

It won't fly in the long term for the simple reason people from Asian countries do not identify themselves as Asian. They are Vietnamese or Thai or Chinese etc. Using an English word extension for Asia doesn't make sense in a region where the majority of people don't know what the English word Asia means. .アジア or .亚洲 (.亚) or .آسي or .এিসযা or .એશીઆ or .ಏಷ್ಯಾ or .ഏഷ്യ or .亞洲 or .아시아 might fly in their respective countries but .asia, that has no meaning or 'connection' to the majority of countries it is meant to service is not going to catch on ....

Sure, people will make money and many millions will be spent, businesses will snatch up their brand names and speculators will buy up all the keywords but as a long term prospect it simply isn't viable. Companies are not going to build out their brand on a .asia and companies that do business only in their respective regions certainly won't build anything on .asia as their target customers won't know what it is or means.

For those who are running this extension, a number of registrars and a few speculators there is money to be made but in the long run it will fail.
But if short term gains are all you are concerned about and are not bothered about building it into a 'must have' brand then you have nothing to worry about. you will make your money ... just don't expect it to be the golden goose that keeps laying the golden egg

 

[floyd777]

Great replies from all of you. It's funny that I've been working for a big registrar here in the US and (at least technically) I know the ins and outs of the business but I never took the time to understand what moves this business until after I made the money for the company - that's what woke me up - the registrar making the money while I just took home a pay check. This time I am determined to make some of that myself - I guess I wisened up - and all of you have some very good points - I myself think that dotAsia does not have long term prospects but I opened this thread to see if there are short term gains for dotAsia names. I think there are and it seems that most of you agree.

Anyways, stay tuned, I will reach out to all you guys in this thread if and when my plan to get in on the landrush becomes a reality - you are always welcome in joining me at that point

 

[Rubber Duck]

Great replies from all of you. It's funny that I've been working for a big registrar here in the US and (at least technically) I know the ins and outs of the business but I never took the time to understand what moves this business until after I made the money for the company - that's what woke me up - the registrar making the money while I just took home a pay check. This time I am determined to make some of that myself - I guess I wisened up - and all of you have some very good points - I myself think that dotAsia does not have long term prospects but I opened this thread to see if there are short term gains for dotAsia names. I think there are and it seems that most of you agree.

Anyways, stay tuned, I will reach out to all you guys in this thread if and when my plan to get in on the landrush becomes a reality - you are always welcome in joining me at that point

If everyone knows there are no long-term prospects then why would it have short-term prospects. I think dot Mobi has changed the way an awful lot of people are going to look at new landrushes. I think for many, it will be once bitten twice shy.

 

[Gerry]

All I can suggest is you take the trouble to install the necessary language fonts and go and take a look for yourself. Most people in the West do not see the non-Latin Internet, but that doesn't mean it is not there. The overall portion of English content on the Internet is actually shrinking quite rapidly. I believe it is now only about 20%.
-------------------------------------
It is the lack of IDN in dot Asia that is going to be the death blow, and underlines their their cynicism. They are targeting a naive Western audience rather than Asian Companies.

Is anyone else reading this thread???

There are some superb comments and commentary here.

With the Chinese government practically giving away the .cn and publically announcing that they want the .cn to be the number one registered domain in the world along with ordering all government offices and agencies to use the .cn...

then add their push to IDN format for native characters...

Then add India's push for native script and character along with a surge in the .in...

and we are talking the two most populated nations in the world.

.cn, .jp, .tw, .in are just a few of the successess of the Asian nations. (India may not be considered Asia but the extension was used to illustrate the previous points in the thread along with their desire to be nationalized with native language URL's)

The proposed .asia extension does absolutely nothing to unify anything except in people's minds that all asian culture and nations are one in the same. A region or a continent called "Asia" does not define the language, culture, heritage, markets, or trends of its entire continent. So how does some extension supposed to fit in or tie all of this together? It doesn't.

I am glad to see comments by those living in this region and how absurd the domain must seem to those that it supposedly "applies to".

It is apparent that this is not just about an extension but of a lack of understanding by the west on many fronts when it comes to the Asian markets and nations.

I am far from an expert on Asia but I am constantly monitoring markets, technology, and trends in several facets including art, history, medical news, latest gadgets, etc. Having worked with international clients in marketing and advertising in a previous career has sharpened my wanting to learn more about culture and cultural diversity and cultural anthropology.

Sorry to say, alot of people just don't get it when it comes to the internet NOT being for the English speakers, writers, and thinkers anymore.