Stephane Van Gelder - .ASIA

.ASIA makes more than US$7 million out of auctions

stephane.vangelder@indom.com (Stephane Van Gelder) — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 19:01:21 +0200

Yes, you've just read that right. According to the .ASIA registry's latest figures, total proceeds for the Sunrise and Landrush auctions were more than US$7.2 million!

That incredible number has DotAsia understandably waxing lyrical about an auction process that according to them "proved to be a vast improvement of the dispute ridden pure first-come-first-served approach, and has provided a strong foundation for growth for the .Asia domain."

Take that .EU!

DotAsia is obviously taking a swipe at the launch of the European domain with its talk of dispute-ridden prior approaches. But is their auction model any better. For them, the answer is a resounding yes. For the end-user fronting the extraordinary amount of cash these auctions have generated, I'm not so sure.

The actual auctions numbers are staggering. The top 10 names sold at auction averaged US$55,000. The most expensive name was discover.asia at US$112,111, followed by sex.asia at US$ 83,334 and buy.asia at US$73,000.

The strange case of the .ASIA auctions

stephane.vangelder@indom.com (Stephane Van Gelder) — Mon, 19 May 2008 12:12:55 +0200

Did Pool, auction operator for the .ASIA Sunrise, rig some of the auctions to secure valuable names for itself or its CEO Richard Schreier?

Both Pool and .ASIA registry DotAsia have had to go into major damage control after being accused of auction rigging by Thomas Rucker and his company Madunia. On his website, Rucker claims that Schreier built up a complex network of shadow companies (see photo) to preempt the .ASIA Sunrise auctions and secure valuable names like porn.asia, insurance.asia or girls.asia.

In an email sent to DomainNews.com, Schreier responded by revealing that Rucker may be not squeaky clean himself: "We believe the actions taken by Thomas Rucker and Madunia Modellbau GmbH are a retaliation by Reucker/Madunia as a result of their exclusion from certain DotAsia auctions (which Reucker/Madunia itself discloses on the "notes" section of the website). This exclusion was the result of the investigation by Pool.com and the DotAsia Organisation into possible bid rigging (…) This investigation is proper and warranted. We will resist all efforts to interfere in this investigation or otherwise undermine the integrity of the .ASIA auctions."

The plot thickens…

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.ASIA hits the half mil

stephane.vangelder@indom.com (Stephane Van Gelder) — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 14:03:23 +0100

DotAsia's launch process is now over, with only the go-live phase remaining (when the extension will be open to anyone on a first-come, first-served basis).

The stats show that so-called "sponsored" generic extensions (i.e. ones that are supposed to represent a community, be it business, geographical or other) can be a success… as long as their registrations requirements remain relatively open.

The registry's official numbers are 505,838 domain name applications. We are talking applications here, and not outright domains: for example, there were 45,697 names which were applied for more than once during the landrush (add to that the 1,051 names which had multiple sunrise requests) and which will now go to auction, where the highest bidding applicant will get the name. The total number of applications received during landrush was 473,633. The rest (up to that 505,838 number) were domains applied for during the previous phases (sunrise and pioneer).

Interesting to see that, although the word "sex" remained the most sought after during the .ASIA sunrise (14 prior-right claims), buy.asia became the most popular name during the landrush with over 400 applicants.

.ASIA country

stephane.vangelder@indom.com (Stephane Van Gelder) — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 16:30:05 +0100

DotAsia CEO Edmon Chung makes a show of .ASIA for the benefit of the Indian press during DotAsia's "Bollywood" event and press launch held on the Monday of the ICANN New Delhi meeting week.

The ICANN meeting held in the Indian Capital city of New Delhi has been an eye-opener for me as far as .ASIA is concerned. Seen from Europe, .ASIA has mainly been a protection exercise for western companies that are active in Asia. Especially during the domain's Sunrise phase which, by definition, is only open to prior rights holders and therefore is heavily biased towards commercial entities such as companies.

But the conversations I've had in India have made me re-evaluate that assumption. Registrars and domain professionals here are already sensing strong demand for .ASIA, and not just from companies. Individuals are interested in the domain as well and more surprisingly, they actually know it's coming!

This is surprising to me because in Europe, I don't think the general public generally knows about an imminent new domain launch until it's already happened. I suppose I really shouldn't be that surprised that there are a large number of domain-savvy people in India. The country is an IT powerhouse after all. But it certainly makes me wish our own media would take a leaf out of India's book and concentrate on new Internet developments a lot more.

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Where's the Asian in .ASIA

stephane.vangelder@indom.com (Stephane Van Gelder) — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 12:50:00 +0100

.ASIA is exclusively for legal entities within the Asia Pacific region as defined by ICANN, which encompasses 73 countries.

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.

Continue reading "Where's the Asian in .ASIA"