.Wien launches. .Tokyo is next week.
The latest geo city top level domain name to launch received more than 4,000 registrations on its first partial day.
.Wien (German for Vienna) launched yesterday and added 4,201 domain names to the zone file. That brings its total to about 4,650.
The registrations are spread across multiple registrars, mostly focused in Europe. United Domains got about a quarter of all registrations, judging from nameservers used.
.Wien domain names will set you back about $35-$60 per year. 1&1 is offering the domains with a $29.99 first year price and then $49.99 going forward.
A potentially much bigger city domain name goes live next week. .Tokyo domain names enter general availability on July 22.
Joseph Peterson says
Curious how much traction .TOKYO gets, given a Tokyo population reading and writing in Japanese. Will they recognize .TOKYO as representing their city?
Kassey says
Having just returned from Tokyo, I’ve changed my mind and decided not to get any .tokyo domain name. While in Tokyo, I was intrigued by one thing I saw everywhere: subway, newspaper, billboard, TV and other media. In many ads, you often see a search box containing keywords the advertiser wants you to type in to reach their website. In many cases they don’t even include their website address. I asked two of my relatives how they actually used the information. They showed me how easy it is to enter the Japanese keywords. So, the average consumer in Japan may not be interested in remembering domain names. They just need the search box on their phone!
I also did a survey using Asahi Shinbum, one of the largest newspaper companies in Japan. I checked all the ads in June 26 edition of the Japanese newspaper. My conclusion is that companies in Japan still see domain name as merely an address. (1) domain names are printed in very small font size (2) they still include all the unnecessary parts such as www, http://, http://www and are not standardized so consumers are very confused (3) 32% of the 128 ads includes NO domain name at all!!!
My conclusion is that there is no general awareness of the value of domain name by the Japanese consumers. So I will not try to get any .tokyo domain name.
Andrew Allemann says
I’ve heard that about the Japanese market. Thanks for your first hand experience.
Luke says
Thanks for the insights Kassey, very interesting.