After six years of planning, the essential new Chinese TLDs Dot Chinese Online (.在线) and Dot Chinese Website (.中文网) are now in fully-open, worldwide availability! Today at 13:00 UTC, the final milestone -- General Availability, or "GA" for short -- was reached and the top level domains went fully online. within 50 minutes of General Availability, Dot Chinese Online rocketed to the global number 4 position for New gTLDs, and Dot Chinese Website shot to global number 9 for New gTLDs.  This ranking is calculated by the number of Domains Under Management (DUMs). Much has been written about the journey to today's milestone. Howevert we want this post to focus on the present, rather than the past. As of the last minute before GA, the total number of domains in Dot Chinese Online (.在线) totalled 9,803, and the total number of domains in Dot Chinese Website (.中文网) totalled 8,623. According to the global leaderboard, this ranks Dot Chinese Online (.在线) at number 19 globally, and Dot Chinese Website (.中文网) at number 21 globally. Pre-GA, these positions were significant: no other non-ASCII TLD was in the global top-50.  Pre-GA, the next ranked non-ASCII TLD (known in the domain industry as an "IDN", or Internationalized Domain Name) was Google's own Japanese TLD, "Dot Minna" (.みんな) -- it means "everyone", and was at the time of writing ranked at global number 52, with 3,455 domains under management. The first IDN TLD to go live, the Arabic "Dot Shabaka" (.شبكة ) was ranked at number 70, with 1,885 domains, and the next two IDN TLDs on the global rankings were .ОНЛАЙН (.online in Russian) with 1,246 domains, with and .САЙТ (.site in Russian) with 619 domains. The first Chinese IDN TLD after Dot Chinese Online and Dot Chinese Website was the recently-entered-Sunrise .移动 (.mobile in Chinese), with a total of 293 domains. Our admittedly immodest analysis is that Dot Chinese Online and Dot Chinese Website were gratifyingly successful in their lead-up to GA. The results one hour after Dot Chinese Online and Dot Chinese Website entered General Availability were much, much better: IDN TLD （国际顶级域） Global Rank （全球排名） Number of Domains （域名注册量） IDN TLD （国际顶级域） Global Rank （全球排名） Number of Domains （域名注册量） .在线 Dot Chinese Online ("online" in Chinese) 4 33,012 .中文网 Dot Chinese Website ("Chinese website" in Chinese) 9 17,537 .みんな ("everyone" in Japanese) （日文“大家”） 52 3,455 .شبكة ("internet" in Arabic)（阿拉伯文“英特网”） 70 1,885 .ОНЛАЙН ("online" in Russian) （俄文“在线”） 72 1,246 .САЙТ ("site" in Russian) （俄文“网站”） 79 619 .移动 ("mobile" in Chinese) 87 293 News about our launch from around the web was incorrectly reported in the first hour of GA. Due to a calculation error, registry-reserved domain names were included in the total domains under management. While some New gTLD registries have done this in the past, TLD Registry does...

After six years of planning, the essential new Chinese TLDs Dot Chinese Online (.在线) and Dot Chinese Website (.中文网) are now in fully-open, worldwide availability! General Availability (GA) of the two TLDs occured at exactly 13:00 UTC today. We will be reporting in detail at the "GA + 1 hour" mark... check back here soon for analysis of the number of domains in each TLD.

At our inaugural premium domain name auction in Macau on March 21, 2014, we hosted an interesting lunchtime experts panel. The subject we asked our panelists and moderator (DomainIncite's Kevin Murphy) was "The Future of Chinese Domain Names". We invite you to enjoy this discussion! [youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1Dg8wprADI&rel=0&w=500] Thank you to our expert panelists, Director Li Qinfeng of the Service Development Center of SCOPSR, Pinky Brand of TLD Registry, Walter Wu of NameRich.cn and Monte Cahn of Right of the Dot. Thanks also, very much, to our moderator Kevin...

Premium Chinese Character Domain Names Sell for Between US$2,000 and $25,388 to Buyers Worldwide MACAU – March 24, 2014 – TLD Registry Ltd and Sedo, the world’s largest domain marketplace and monetization provider, today announced that the first premium domain name auction of new Chinese character gTLDs has raised US$182,000 from 33 auction lot sales. Bidders in the room and around the world paid between US$2,000 and US$25,388 for valuable Chinese character domain names in the Dot Chinese Online (.在线) and Dot Chinese Website (.中文网) TLDs. The hybrid live and online auction was staged in the Galaxy Macau’s “China Rouge” private member’s club and was simultaneously held live on Sedo’s online auction platform. Veteran and first-time domain name investors participated in and won auctions for domain names as diverse as “games.online” (游戏.在线) for $25,388, “casino.online” (赌场.在线) for $25,000, “realestate.online” (房地产.在线) for $16,000, “rent.online” (租赁.在线) for $15,500 and “bitcoin.online” (比特币.在线) for $14,388. “The inaugural landrush auction for Dot Chinese Online and Dot Chinese Website was a complete success,” said Arto Isokoski, TLD Registry’s CEO. “We achieved everything that we said we would do. Our innovative hybrid auction was delivered fully and with great satisfaction for our 50 guests. We are very happy with the value which investors have placed on our TLDs.” TLD Registry's Vice President of Strategy & Partner Relations, industry veteran Pinky Brand said, "We have unambiguously launched the premium domain name auction environment for ICANN's New gTLD program. No other New gTLD domain name registry has performed so strongly in its premium domain name sales since new domain extensions were introduced to the internet in November last year." In addition to the domain names sold at the live auction, many investors requested access to additional premium domain names, with some requesting portfolios of hundreds of premium domains in the Dot Chinese Online and Dot Chinese Website registries. China's central government is also backing the adoption of the new TLDs, introducing a new national policy on March 3, 2014 which mandates the use of Chinese domain names for all Chinese government websites. “The interest we’ve seen in these new Chinese TLDs is reminiscent of the rush for dot com names in the 90s,” said Tobias Flaitz, Sedo’s CEO. “This auction has shown how strong the market is for Chinese character domains, and we look forward to seeing how their values will evolve as the market matures.” The 30-day Landrush period of Dot Chinese Online and Dot Chinese Website concludes on April 24, 2014, with the TLDs’ General Availability beginning on April 28, 2014. Domain names in Dot Chinese Online and Dot Chinese Website are unrestricted and available from a worldwide registrar network. The auction event was sponsored by .CLUB...

TLD Registry Ltd, the home of the essential new Chinese TLDs Dot Chinese Online (.在线) & Dot Chinese Website (.中文网) confirmed today that its first major live auction event will be staged in China's Macau on March 21, 2014. TLD Registry's CEO, Arto Isokoski said, "As the first new Chinese gTLDs to come to market, it's only fitting that we celebrate our Landrush period in China. I can think of no better place for our celebration than Macau." The innovative live auction will be held in China Rouge, one of the world's top-10 private members' clubs, at the US$1.9 billion Galaxy Macau entertainment complex. The auction event will draw a who's who of Chinese and international domain name registrars and investors, and will be simultaneously held over the internet, utilizing the Sedo domain name auction platform. TLD Registry's Chairman, Taneli Tikka said, "China Rouge is a stunning combination of Shanghai 1920s glamour and contemporary Chinese art. The ambiance of China Rouge, which is exceptionally difficult to gain entry to wtihout a member's invitation, presents a dramatic and luxurious backdrop to the auction of our excellent premium domain names." "The all-day live auction event will feature expert speakers, fine refreshments and entertainment in between the action," said Simon Cousins, the registry's CMO. "We've invested six months of effort to design an unforgettable event, and to showcase our premium domain names in the best possible place." The auction event will be preceeded by a first-day-of-Landrush celebration, also held in Macau, on Thursday March 20. "Our Landrush celebration will feature a traditional southern Chinese feng shui ceremony to mark the "ground breaking" of Dot Chinese Online and Dot Chinese Website," said Cousins. "We've carefully synchronized all of our key dates to the ancient Chinese almanac, so that our Sunrise, Landrush and General Availability dates fall on auspiciously lucky days. Our invited guests will have the opportunity to experience China and Macau in a way unprecedented in the domain name industry." "The timing couldn't be more convenient for our guests", said Pinky Brand, TLD Registry's registrar relations head. "With the Singapore ICANN Meeting beginning on Sunday March 23, most of our guests will choose to take a short flight to Singapore right after our celebrations conclude." Flying time from Macau/Hong Kong to Singapore is less than four hours. "A special microsite for the two day celebration of Dot Chinese Online & Dot Chinese Website is online now, at internetregistry.info/auction and, in Chinese, 域通联达.在线/拍卖," said Lillian Zhang, Senior Communications Manager for the TLD Registry. "The complete agenda for our two days of celebrations is online now, and specific details on travel logistics, partnerships and auction lots will be made available from that microsite over...