The good .com names have been taken and only longish, awkward-sounding and looking are available. Besides, many consider .com the domain of the US.

The Europeans have .eu and all countries were given their respective internet addresses like .eu .ca .jp and .ph for the Philippines.

Now a door opens and opportunity knocks. After all, a greater portion of the world’s population is in our region.

Presenting .asia !

Via Happynews.com

Internet addresses ending in ‘’.asia'’ will be open to governments and trademark owners starting in October, with general registrations coming in 2008.

The initial round, which starts Oct. 9, is limited to governments desiring geographical names such as ‘’china.asia'’ and those with trademarks applied before March 16, 2004, and actively in use. Registrations for other trademarks and for company names begin Nov. 13.

Since national governments get a first crack at I hope the Philippine government through CICT, Department of Tourism, DTI and other business and “outward” looking agencies, in collaboration with private business organizations such as Makati Business Club, Chamber of Commerce, together and gets all the country related names such as Philippines.asia, Pilipinas.asia Ph.asia and other major islands and provinces such as Manila, Cebu, Boracay, etc. and include other generic names of our products and other interests such as mango, banana, abaca that may have similarly named places in our country. Oh and trademarks too like sampaguita or Philippinemango or manilapaper - (ok, I am not really sure about how trademarks go. Help, anybody?).

There is an October deadline and if you know anybody “up there”, stakeholders, business and government people, kindly give them a heads up. Aileen, Janette and the tech bloggers, new media people and anybody (hi Pierre!) who can send the message across before the bigger fishes eat everything up.
For local internet marketers, SEOs-gurus and bloggers who see the traffic potential this may hold, just think of the myriad of possibilities: like Mallof.Asia, Southeast.asia, tourism.asia, tech.asia Biz.asia! business.asia, computers.asia , etc. And the most coveted Agcaoili.asia (kidding!).

There’s potential here. My question is how will the search engines’ algorithm change as a result of this new market.

Whatever the case, we must act now and get those domains in our shores.

Click here for the complete article.

Go to Registry.asia for registration and other details.