Dot EU - What happened?

[netfleet]

In the .asia thread, there are a few people comparing the hype for .asia regos with what happened with .eu

Can someone please give me a brief summary of how this extension went and why it seems to have been classed a bit of a failure from a domainers POV.

I believe there have been 2.7m .eu regos which sounds pretty good to me.

I'd be tempted to look at the regos going on in the .asia showcase thread and estimate that by and large, they'd be in the 'top 500K' of all possible domain names (for any given extension). So, does it follow if .asia ends up getting 2,3 or 5m, these domains being registered now will be considered th cream? Or is that too simplistic?

Anyway would love to hear a summary of .eu, whether people actually lost money from free reg's etc?

Thanks very much!

 

[Damion]

Here is an excellent summary on the roll out of the .eu domain extension, due to Eurid's incompetence and ineptitude dealing with the new European extension, the extension has been stagnated in it's usage.

Eventually it will straighten itself out, but it will take a little while. because of Eurid the .eu extension hasn't had a good start and actually started out with a few steps back.

 

[Steven]

For any speculative TLD with reasonable awareness and registration price, buying great names (casino, poker, gambling, hotels, travel) for the lowest price (registration fee) is good.
IMO, this landrush auction was a huge mistake.
I mean, people buying great keyword .asia from the auction (let's say $5,000) will/may not accept offers for $1000, $2000, $5,100 to sell. Imagine going to namebio or dnsaleprice and seeing no .asia sell (resell after the auction)... I think it will tremendously affect the value of this tld.

I'm seeing people registering .asia names that are available in .net, .org and many other extensions (I guess it's okay as long as it is for development and not for resell). Try to do a bit of research on the names available and invest/register wisely. Good luck guys.

 

[Spade]

The main problem is simple. Over speculation, with no development. What happens when all the good domains are gone in .asia and someone who really wants to build a site on this TLD cant? No consumers ever hear of .asia and thus no businesses want to build on it. Overspeculation can kill a TLD (see .eu and .mobi)

The other issue happens to be a cultural one. Many of the larger countries in Europe would prefer using their own ccTLD versus a "Continental" TLD. For instance, .de is the 2nd largest TLD, right behind .com and above .net and .org.

Expect .asia to run into similar if not more of the same problems.

Justin

 

[RicoShay]

The main problem is simple. Over speculation, with no development. What happens when all the good domains are gone in .asia and someone who really wants to build a site on this TLD cant? No consumers ever hear of .asia and thus no businesses want to build on it. Overspeculation can kill a TLD (see .eu and .mobi)

The other issue happens to be a cultural one. Many of the larger countries in Europe would prefer using their own ccTLD versus a "Continental" TLD. For instance, .de is the 2nd largest TLD, right behind .com and above .net and .org.

Expect .asia to run into similar if not more of the same problems.

Justin

Good points.

Especially about registering and parking domains rather than building on them. Unfortunately I don't see this stopping anytime soon, I see it happening with all new tld's. Domainers / large companies buy up all the half decent names...

I only have 9 .asia domains and will make it 10 at somepoint. I've already started developing one and will do the same with at least 3 or 4 more. But its time consuming - and I know a lot of people are buying in the hope that someone will come along and buy it back off them for a higher price - so they will park them instead.

Maybe more domainers should be encouraged to build sites? Maybe domainers should buy less? Sell cheaper? Search for more end-users actively? I don't know whats best for this really.

Good luck to everyone though. Hope it does a lot better than the .eu

 

[Spade]

In order to launch a successful TLD now a days, I would think that applying part of the .tv model and .mobi model would suffice nicely.

Require larger registration fees for premium names (making it too expensive just to sit on) and require some kind of development on those premium domains within a given amount of time. (Then of course, you need to enforce this rule).

But, in those conditions a fair market wouldn't exist, and domainers couldn't really operate - but it would make for a useful TLD!

 

[james2002]

For european countries, there are not a lot of people in one country. But in Asia, China and India alone will make up more than 1/3 of the whole world's population.

China and India have been registering lots of domains. Many of them will be hopefully developed and by that way, .asia will prosper.

Above is my opinion.

 

[homebuyer]

Translation

Never mind.

 

[Malaysia]

i think .asia is better than .eu

 

[dezinerite]

I also think .asia will eventually be more popular than .eu for several reasons like Asia's population (net surfers), asia's rapid economic growth, the fact that .asia is very specific to asia and .eu could be Europe or any domain hack, etc.

 

[james2002]

I agree with you.

.asia domains will be more popular than .eu, IMO as asia population is more than half of world population not counting asian-europeans or asian-americans.

 

[Spade]

I suppose only time will tell in this debate, but my fear is you guys are using your hearts more than your heads. Yes, the population of Asia the continent is huge, but of that population how many have access to computers and the internet? Compare that to the access of Europeans.

Yes, India is clearly a developing country especially in the IT sector, but what about their ccTLDs? .in .co.in? - and china .cn? You guys want this to be the next "it" so bad, your willing to look beyond some major issues.

 

[james2002]

I am using my head, Spade.

According to the stats,

Asia internet usage is nearly 40 % of world total which reflects the population of Asia.

http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm

It is said that China surpasses internet usage over US in 2006.

http://www.forbes.com/2006/03/31/china-internet-usage-cx_nwp_0403china.html

 

[Spade]

I am using my head, Spade.

According to the stats,

Asia internet usage is nearly 40 % of world total which reflects the population of Asia.

http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm

It is said that China surpasses internet usage over US in 2006.

http://www.forbes.com/2006/03/31/china-internet-usage-cx_nwp_0403china.html

Fair enough. Good luck.

 

[james2002]

Fair enough. Good luck.

Thanks. I need it.

 

[HuntingMoon]

it's just a matter of time. sit on your premium domains with foreign extensions for several years.

 

[james2002]

it's just a matter of time. sit on your premium domains with foreign extensions for several years.

Yes, I am afraid it might be several years.

 

[HuntingMoon]

Yes, I am afraid it might be several years.

let's face it, we take a risk with all these new extensions. there is no way to launch a new extension and expect publishers to throw up new sites overnight.

 

[james2002]

let's face it, we take a risk with all these new extensions. there is no way to launch a new extension and expect publishers to throw up new sites overnight.

You are right. I think it might take 1 to 2 years to start seeing .asia domains to be sold at high prices.

But after next few days (from auctions) or after about 2 months (due to dotasia locking new domains for 2 months) domains might get sold from resellers.

 

[Steven]

I suppose only time will tell in this debate, but my fear is you guys are using your hearts more than your heads. Yes, the population of Asia the continent is huge, but of that population how many have access to computers and the internet? Compare that to the access of Europeans.

Yes, India is clearly a developing country especially in the IT sector, but what about their ccTLDs? .in .co.in? - and china .cn? You guys want this to be the next "it" so bad, your willing to look beyond some major issues.

For any new domainers here, I would seriously listen and act accordingly to Spade's input.
He's an expert domainer, and I trust his judgement.