The Internet corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) had approved the proposal for creating .asia domains sometime in November last year and it was mentioned that these domains would be available in Feb 2008. The date was deferred to March and from today on (26th March 2008), .Asia domains are available for registration.
This is available to individuals, businesses, organizations and community groups located in Asian countries. It is estimated that around 11% of the domain name registers occur from Asia-Pacific which has a internet usage population of 33%. All .ASIA registrations must include at least one contact who resides in one of the .ASIA countries and list of asian countries where domains are available are listed in the website.
Img Src: GoDaddy
Damn it. ashwin.asia is not available.
Thanks for the info.
@Ashwin,
Looks like there is demand for your name.
Dunno why.
.com, .co.in, .tv, .name, .org, .net , .in, nothing is available. Even some 27 months back!
Incidentally ‘ashwin’ on Google gets ashwinr.com in 1st or 2nd SERP.
I too have blogged on this. Read your post after that. Otherwise, would’ve given you a trackback.
I tried registering one but net4.in are charging 100 USD registration fee for .asia domain.
@ Madhur Kapoor
They charge Rs.800/- for the domain name alone and asks you $100 as “processing fee”. Actually, that processing fee was for during the sunrise and landrush periods. But, they haven’t removed that even after .asia passed “Go Live!”.
Try GoDaddy, they provide it for $19.99 (i.e.abt Rs.800/-) per year and a little more as ICANN fees.
@Madhur,
That was before the domains were available. Try goDaddy, its best as pointed out by Aravind.
Syahid.asia is available! Not that interesting though. All the “cyber squatters” must be licking their lips for domains like fant.asia etc.