.KIWI And .BERLIN Commence Registrations On 18 March

If you live in Berlin or New Zealand you have a choice of a .berlin or .kiwi domain as of 18 March.

For Berliners, the General Availability commenced for .berlin through leading registrars, while a Landrush phase for .kiwi domains commenced allowing New Zealanders to register their very own.

The .berlin gTLD is likely to be one of the more successful of the city TLDs, in part due to there being well over 15 million .de (Germany) domain names, making it a relatively crowded domain name space.

In New Zealand, approximately one thousand domains were sold during the pre-registration period for trademark holders and through early reservation programmes. These domain names are starting to go live and include brands such as www.lotto.kiwi, through to sports celebrities like Bevan Docherty’s www.docherty.kiwi.

Dot Kiwi research indicates there is significant demand and excitement about the .kiwi domain name. To date Dot Kiwi has received registrations of interest for 3,000 domains, not including the number of pre-registrations domain name resellers around the globe have received.

To ensure that all New Zealanders have a fair opportunity to purchase the domain name they want, Dot Kiwi is not operating on a first-come, first-served basis for its initial public launch phase.

The Landrush Period runs until the 30th of April, during this time Dot Kiwi will be taking applications for .kiwi domain names. Domain names with only one applicant will be immediately registered on the 1st of May. If there are multiple applications for the same domain name all parties will be invited to bid for the domain name in an online auction.