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!

 

[james2002]

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.

He is experienced and his words are good and his website namebio is excellent. But you will also use your own judement and your knowledge as well.

 

[abid286]

.asia domains will be more popular than .eu

 

[chenzen]

.asia domains will be more popular than .eu

What about giving supporting arguments than just making an statement?

Anyways, I think premium generic domains should fetch good returns. Everything will depend on the end users though.

 

[ssamriga]

I think .eu will be more popular eventually than .asia, asia is just very long, people in Asia are even less thinking of them as Asians than Europeans identifying themselves with EU. Some great .asia names will be developed of course, but most good keywords will just be resold and resold between domainers. and many low quality names (lots of which have been reigstered in hurry) will not be worth anything...
I am kind of pessimistic about .asia, that's just my opinion of course

 

[james2002]

I think .eu will be more popular eventually than .asia, asia is just very long, people in Asia are even less thinking of them as Asians than Europeans identifying themselves with EU. Some great .asia names will be developed of course, but most good keywords will just be resold and resold between domainers. and many low quality names (lots of which have been reigstered in hurry) will not be worth anything...
I am kind of pessimistic about .asia, that's just my opinion of course

I agree that there will be people buying and selling .asia domains and I will also be among them.

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

I can see from the stats at the above link, internet users in Asia is 510 millions (December 2007, will be more now) and it is the highest among all continents. European users total is 348 millions and North America is around 238 millions.

1) It looks like Asian internet users total is just a bit less than combination of European users and North America users (348 + 238) millions.
2) Currently you will see that internet peneration rate in December 2007 showed 13.7 % for Asia , 43.4 % for Europe and 71.1 % for America (North).
It means Asia peneration (usage) will have massive room to improve and if it is around 25 % , internet users in Asia will be more than 1 billion. If it is around 50 % , then user total will be around 1.6 billions not counting growth of population in the Asia.

3) From 200-2007, internet usage growth in Asia is around twice Europe and the trend is still going on.

For above reasons, I believe that .asia will do well.

 

[dezinerite]

We can't really judge according to Asian internet users though. Most Asians users are from China - and they're more likely to type in .cn than .asia, even for simple reasons like .cn is faster & waaay easier to spell.

 

[cyf]

We can't really judge according to Asian internet users though. Most Asians users are from China - and they're more likely to type in .cn than .asia, even for simple reasons like .cn is faster & waaay easier to spell.

I think you make a point here. And the main reason behind this is also language. If we can argue than most europeans speak english, it's not the case in Asia. How many chinese speak english? A chinese will certainly choose to use a .cn over any other extension.

But this argument could also be reversed. To me, websites in ".asia" will attract westerners more than asian people.

Let's say you're an american planning to visit asia. Will you rather type in "visit.cn, visit.jp, visit.in", or rely on a nice "visit.asia" portal?

The same reasoning could apply to many business niches. IMHO, .asia will be used by asian people to target westerners, and not the contrary.

And that's why it could eventually succeed: if asian entrepreneurs understand that this extension could drive business and attract customers (especially B2B customers), we could see a bunch of english-written websites, produced in asia and aiming at selling goods and services to non-asian countries.

Just my 2 cents.

---

http://nanodomainnames.com

 

[james2002]

I think you make a point here. And the main reason behind this is also language. If we can argue than most europeans speak english, it's not the case in Asia. How many chinese speak english? A chinese will certainly choose to use a .cn over any other extension.

.....

It makes sense as you mention.

But Chinese people also like to choose more general domain names such as .com, .net. If they like to build a site but not restricted to just china, they might look for more general domain names like .com, .net etc... But .com, .net are getting very much expensive and then they might settle with .asia knowing that they cover around half of world population.

e.g. I got funnyphotos.asia , it does look better than funnyphotos.cn which will restrict just china. Obviously it is not as good as funnnyphotos.com or funnyphotos.net but one might settle with this name at much reduced price.

This is my opinion.

 

[oddjob]

My 2 cents is that .asia has potential because it is an extension that sounds good (imo) unlike.biz. It is a complete word, not an abbreviation unlike .eu. It isn't too long and is easy to type.

The size of the Asian population in regards to this though is a bit of hype. As others have said, people from Asia will prefer their own country specific domains for the most part.

Take Australia for example. Here .com.au has value because people know that the content is Australia specific. Here .com also has value because it is so well known and is World specific.

Why would businesses care about regging .asia? For example, coke.asia. Of course they'll get it, but coke.com or coke.in would have much more value as it will be what someone in india would type in.

I think in the short to medium term .asia will mainly have value for English speaking markets for topics which are Asia specific - eg holiday.asia, furniture.asia. Ie People in the West looking to go on holiday in Asia or buy furniture made in Asia. What is the relevance though of homeloans.asia? Of course it will have value since this example is a strong word. But how many Americans will use this extension? English speakers in Asia like people from Singapore would use their own country level domain when looking for Singapore specific products.

I don't know that besthomeloans.asia (for example) is worth regging for these reasons. Hopefully I'm wrong though and everyone from Asia will love .asia

 

[dezinerite]

I completely agree with you, cyf. I'm also guessing .asia targets those interested in Asia and not necessarily Asians. Domains like europetravel.asia will not really make any sense even if europetravel.com is a great domain...but hey, you never know! :D So when registering, people should really think about a domain that might somehow be related to asia.

James2002, you're saying people might rather settle for a .asia than a .com & .net combined is it, or...?

 

[james2002]

I completely agree with you, cyf. I'm also guessing .asia targets those interested in Asia and not necessarily Asians. Domains like europetravel.asia will not really make any sense even if europetravel.com is a great domain...but hey, you never know! :D So when registering, people should really think about a domain that might somehow be related to asia.

James2002, you're saying people might rather settle for a .asia than a .com & .net combined is it, or...?

No. I am giving example with my domain funnyphotos.asia . Another example is that images.com may be for sale at xxxxxx - xxxxxxx price range and not many people can afford it. Someone might settle with images.asia if they could get xxxx - xxxxx etc...

.asia domains are easily recognisable. Before I started domaining, I come across with some sites with country extensions e.g. .cn, .in, .de . etc.... when I was looking for certain keywords.

Example, Say I look for keyword "abcd" in search engine, I might come cross with abcd.cn , abcd.in , abcd.de etc... in first 10 results. They appeared quite dodgy to me and I just skip them to visit websites with more easily recognisable extensions like .com,.net,.info etc... I also skip sites with .biz extension which looked like "bizarre" to me.

But for .asia extension, because it is easily recognisable to anyone that it is something to do with asia or possibly the whole world, someone (without any knowledge of what .cn,.de,.in meant for) might be more tempted to visit abcd.asia than abcd.de or abcd.cn or abcd.in , psychologically speaking .

Just my opinion.

 

[htmlindex]

i think .asia is better than .eu

Why? :blink:

.asia domains will be more popular than .eu

Again.....Why, do you have a crystal ball? :blink:

 

[Jeff]

".ASIA" will be the next .EU (bust) ... caveat emptor, friends!

Just my two sense. :imho:
-Jeff

 

[james2002]

".ASIA" will be the next .EU (bust) ... caveat emptor, friends!

Just my two sense. :imho:
-Jeff

We will wait and see.

 

[Jeff]

We will wait and see.

Naturally, but there's really no need ... its outcome is entirely predictable! :imho:

-Jeff

 

[james2002]

Naturally, but there's really no need ... its outcome is entirely predictable! :imho:

-Jeff

It is not that simple.

You are saying bust? .Asia is only starting , there is no need to bust like .com few years back. You may say bust if .asia value gone up skyhigh and then dropped dramatically.

Otherwise there is no bust. If there is a bust like you said, many will be happy as they will resell .asia domains at high prices before busting.

 

[netfleet]

Originally Posted by Jeff".ASIA" will be the next .EU (bust) ... caveat emptor, friends!

Just my two sense.
-Jeff

There can't be a bust without a boom and .asia doesn't need to 'boom' to be a success. A gentle appreciation combined with some selective registrations at the outset would do very nicely, thank you!

 

[Jeff]

It is not that simple.

Actually, from experience, it is that simple ... it's a boon for the Registry, and a bust for those, by and large, investing in it IMHO.

Bottom line; be highly selective with one's .EU and .ASIA (and .MOBI) registrations and investments! :imho:
Caveat Emptor!
-Jeff

 

[james2002]

Actually, from experience, it is that simple ... it's a boon for the Registry, and a bust for those, by and large, investing in it IMHO.

Bottom line; be highly selective with one's .EU and .ASIA (and .MOBI) registrations and investments! :imho:
Caveat Emptor!
-Jeff

I agree with you. As long as we are highly selective, we might not lose any money. At the moments, there are some interest in my .asia domain names. But I will wait and see the auction results from land rush first.

 

[Jeff]

Best of Luck.