.MOE New gTLD Launches Today

Interlink Co., Ltd. announced that it has opened the new Top Level Domain Name, .MOE to the public for registrations, on a first-come,first served basis.

You can read the press release after the jump:

“.moe” Could Potentially Hit over 200 Million Registrations! –

Interlink Co., Ltd., a new Domain Registry Operator, announced on July 22 that it has opened the Internet’s most unique Top Level Domain (TLD), “.moe”, to the public for live registrations on a first-come, first-served basis. For the first time ever, users will finally have an online platform worthy to express their MOE (passion) with!

(Photo: http://prw.kyodonews.jp/opn/release/201407182382/)

The word “moe” (pronounced as “moh-ay”) comes from the Japanese Otaku (geek) culture and is used to deeply express “kawaii” (cute things) or things you “love” where words just won’t do. The “moe” subculture is globally recognized for anime, manga, comics, visual novels, gamers, cosplayers, and hobbyists.

“.moe” Voted Most Popular Amongst Otaku’s (Geeks)

Interlink conducted a survey to identify which new gTLDs users have the most interest in while participating as a sponsor at the Japan Expo event held in Paris, France (2-6 July 2014). Participants were asked to select their preferences for various domains (ex. “.moe” vs. “.com”; “.moe” vs. “paris”). The results showed that “.moe” was more popular amongst this audience by a large margin over other popular new gTLDs (see below for more details of survey).

Calculating the results for “.moe” vs. “.com” (“.moe” won by a vote of 70 to 30) the number of “.moe” registrations could potentially double “.com” (113,401,886 as of January 2014!). If the entire world population were Otaku (geeks) “.moe” could hit 264,604,400 registrations!

Starting on July 22, anyone can visit global registrars such as Name.com, Gandi.net, EuroDNS, 101Domain, Dynadot, Hexonet, and many others to register a unique .moe domain.