It is a variant issue. If the domain is reg'd in either Traditional Chinese or Simplified Chinese, in most cases, the alternate form is "blocked" even though it shows as available. QUOTE]
This is absolutely correct. You will find all kinds of top Simplified Chinese words in showing "open" to reg- examples like- shopping.com and Beijing.com that will not register as the "Traditional" Chinese form is taken. Or the other way around, Simplified is taken, and Traditional will not register.
Note that some Japanese characters are the same as Chinese and there are many Japanese terms that will not register. The "blocking" of simplified and traditional was decided long ago with input from Japan, China and Korean representatives to ICANN. Still does not make sense to many as they are distinctly different symbols, but that is what was decided and the way it is for the time being.
The good news...once you have registerd a Chinese term in either simplified or traditional you (supposedly) will also get the rights to the other (simplified or traditional) term as well. Kind of a 2 for 1 deal I have read, anyone here please correct that if you have other information. Still not sure what this means in the long run as each has a unique punycode, and of course many of the technical details about IDN are still a bit up in the air at ICANN, but that isn't going to slow their implementation and use.
And the best news...idns are "within a few months" of coming into worldwide accessability with release of IE7 automatic update. Many believe this will be late August, but none the less it is in the next few months. From there it should be a pretty interesting next year or two as IDNs become mainstream in foreign language urls.
