Quicksearch
Calendar
|
September '10 |
|
||||
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | ||
| 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 |
| 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
| 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | |||
Where's the Asian in .ASIA
Wednesday, February 6. 2008
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.
One of the main reasons for that is DotAsia's decision not to use a first-come, first-served model but instead to organise auctions for names applied for by more than one party. The result: whereas .EU applicants had to rely heavily on the quality of their chosen registrar to get their requests in at the top of the queue, .ASIA applicants only have to have deep pockets...
Both systems have they good and bad sides. While INDOM found .EU to be a very well orchestrated launch, mainly because we provide our customers with a very high level of added service, a lot of other registrars hated it. By comparison, .ASIA's Sunrise procedures and validation requirements are much simpler to deal with, in part as a response to what happened with .EU, where only the most experienced registrars were able to handle the complexities of the launch.
.ASIA is therefore much more accessible. Which is why after reading in DotAsia's latest press release the country-by-country breakdown of the 30,780 total Sunrise applications, I'm back to my initial point: why is it that only Americans and Europeans seem to be interested?
DotAsia's stats show that the highest number of applications came from the US, then Germany, the UK, France, Australia, Japan, Holland, Switzerland, Korea and India. That's right, of the top ten applicant countries, only 4 are in the Asia Pacific region that forms .ASIA's exclusion zone.
DotAsia does have an answer: "The distribution and response for the .ASIA Sunrise is largely consistent with our expectation, and a reflection of the maturity of the intellectual property rights community in the respective localities," Edmon is quoted as saying in the registry's official release. "The US and Europe was clearly more responsive overall."
Very true. And I guess the real test of .ASIA's potential will be the general launch (they call it "go live") when it won't be just prior rights holders who can register. That's when we'll see if the domain appeals to its local audience just as .EU seems to have found favour with Europeans… So a promise to Edmon: I'll refrain from drawing any hasty conclusions until that time 
