An introduction to Dot Chinese Online [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SywF0Nme34&rel=0&w=500] . An introduction to Dot Chinese Website [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tgKmqSLMk0&rel=0&w=500] . The SEO benefits of Dot Chinese Online & Dot Chinese Website [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yp5Gs3TXS-w&rel=0&w=500] . A Deeper Dive into Dot Chinese Online & Dot Chinese Website...

Following our announcement of final contracing with ICANN in Beijing on September 10th, the essential new Chinese TLDs are making their way though the next mandatory stages. Today at the New gTLD Roadshow in Taipei, TLD Registry's Pinky Brand announced that our next major milestone, Pre-Delegation Testing, will begin on November 4. Pinky also announced that Dot Chinese Online and Dot Chinese Website integration into the Trademark Clearinghouse has begun . Both of our Chinese TLDs are considered 'low risk' as it relates to ICANN's 'Name Collision' question. However we are still reliant on ICANN in understanding when our TLDs will be delegated by IANA, and thus the timing of our Sunrise, Land Rush and General Registration periods. Once we have achieved delegation into the global DNS root, we may issue a mandatory 30-day notice for our Sunrise period. At that time we’ll have a clear set of dates to announce. According to current estimates, we should be able to achieve our Sunrise in January 2014, our Landrush in March and our General Availability in...

Do you support all Chinese dialects and scripts? Yes. Chinese is considered by most linguists and sinologists to be a "language family" -- Chinese consists of more than 250 spoken dialects which share a more-or-less common writing system (either the original Traditional Chinese script or the post-1949 Simplified Chinese script). Native speakers of major Chinese dialect groups do not generally understand each others' dialects. The dominant dialect of Chinese is Mandarin, which is spoken by about 960 million people. According to a 2007 China Ministry of Education survey, only 53% of Chinese citizens can speak Mandarin. That study found that in rural areas of China, only 45% of citizens can speak Mandarin. Counted by numbers of native speakers, the next most common dialects after Mandarin are Wu (roughly, Shanghainese) which is spoken by about 80 million people; Yue (roughly, Cantonese) which is spoken by about 60 million people; and Min (roughly, Fujianese) which is spoken by about 50 million people. TLD Registry's mission is to make the Chinese web more accessible and safer for all Chinese people -- not just for the 53% who speak Mandarin, or those who use the Simplified Chinese script. It is due to the extraordinary diversity of Chinese people and the languages they speak and write that we strive to make Dot Chinese Online and Dot Chinese Website useful for all Chinese, whether in China or around the world. To do anything less would be an abrogation of our responsibility to the cultural treasures that 5000 years of Chinese culture have brought to the world. ICANN policy on exactly how the Chinese language family can work within Dot Chinese Online and Dot Chinese Website is still unclear. As Chinese internet experts, we are proactively working to provide China's three main official scripts -- Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese and Pinyin -- at launch time. We'll be writing more about our Dot Chinese Online and Dot Chinese Website's mission to make the web fully-Chinese for all Chinese speakers and writers in subsequent articles. Article by Simon Cousins, Director of Marketing and...

After an arduous and complicated five-year journey, TLD Registry has finally passed the most important milestone since our formation: the all-important Registrar Agreements with ICANN have been signed and countersigned. And in Beijing, in the presence of Finland's prime minister Jyrki Katainen no less! Read the news story at the Wall Street Journal's MarketWatch. Dot Chinese Online & Dot Chinese Website, and our vision for a vibrant, open, culturally relevant and linguistically relevant Chinese web have taken a huge step forward. Prime Minister Katainen made us feel very proud when he told the assembled media, "It is reasonable to expect that this innovation made real by entrepreneurs from Finland will bring tremendous, long-term benefits for China's Internet users. Bridging the last gap in a fully Chinese web is a milestone achievement and it will be remembered. I am very proud it was my countrymen who came up with this solution that is so significant economically and culturally." With ICANN RAs in hand, we are now on a clearly signposted path towards our "eligible trademark owners only" Sunrise period, followed by our "open to entire world" Landrush period where anyone can apply for favorite or highly valued available 'premium' names, followed by another "open to the entire world" General Availability period where anyone can register available names on a first-come, first-served basis. When exactly will these phases start? A great question. In fact, this is the single most common question our registrar relations and marketing teams are asked every day. Our simple answer: soon. We wish we could be more precise, however the next steps which ICANN requires us to take -- pre-delegation testing (to ensure we comply with ICANN's operational and technical rules), Trademark Clearinghouse integration (to better protect the privileges of trademark owners), and delegation into the IANA root (so registrant's domain names work correctly) -- will all start and end at currently-indefinite times. Once we have achieved delegation into the IANA root, we may issue a mandatory 30-day notice for our Sunrise period. At that time we'll have a clear set of dates to announce. Our best guess?  We'll be in full General Availability either by Christmas (December 25, 2013) or by the Chinese New Year (January 31st, 2014). However these goalposts may move due to situations and stakeholders beyond our control! We'll be blogging our progress right here at the home of Dot Chinese Online & Dot Chinese Website. Please join us on our journey to make the Chinese web better and safer for Chinese netizens and the enterprises and organizations which inform, entertain and empower them. Taneli Tikka, Arto Isokoski and Jarno Marjamäki Co-Founders, TLD Registry 10th September...

A statement on "Addressing the Consequences of Name Collisions" from TLD Registry's CEO, Arto Isokoski On the 5th of August, 2013,  ICANN announced its “Addressing the Consequences of Name Collisions” report, and its recommendations. As a "New gTLD" registry with primarily Chinese top level domains, our view of the report’s substantial impact is nuanced with a different perspective than other New gTLD domain name registries, especially in light of the priority given by ICANN to Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) applicants. The one factor seemingly not considered by ICANN is the Chinese New Year, which begins on January 30, 2014. Similar to the “silly season” of Christmas and western New Year, the Chinese Lunar New Year is a business blackout period in which no business, government or media activities can be transacted in the China region. Our own planning shows that if the report’s recommendations are implemented, no Chinese new gTLD can sensibly achieve general availability until May 2014. This affects a wide range of applicants including us. ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade has said on several occasions that it’s his hope that the Chinese new gTLDs will lead the overall program, in addition to Arabic and Cyrillic new gTLDS who have already signed registry agreements with ICANN. We believe that if the report’s recommendation of a 120-day delay for name resolution after RA contracting is finalised, the overall new gTLD program will be needlessly delayed by some 5 or 6 months. This will result in damaged reputations for New gTLD applicants and, in the case of Chinese IDNs (which is our main concern), within key influencer segments. The Chinese New Year falls soon after the Christmas and western New Year period, causing an effective business blackout period from December 13th, 2013 to at least February 17th, 2014. This is a crucial five weeks which falls exactly in the late landrush and general availability launch periods for our, and presumably many other, registries. The knock-on effect of this interruption is that, if the recommendations are adopted by the ICANN Board, general availability will delayed until May 2014. Our executive and go-live teams have crunched the dates since the report’s release on Tuesday. We offer for consideration several “before and after” [the report’s] scenarios. A gTLD launch scenario, pre-ICANN “Collisions recommendations”: September 23 -- Possible contracting date Mid October -- Pre-Delegation Testing of an optimistic two weeks Transition to IANA/delegation: two weeks Sunrise notification period (30 days) End October -- Sunrise (mandatory 30 days) End November -- Landrush End December -- General availability Same gTLD launch scenario, post-”Collisions recommendations” (if effected): September 23 -- Possible contracting date January 23 -- Conclusion of “Collisions Avoidance” 120 day delay in name resolution, for 80%...

Seeing our Instagram follower hashtagsouthafrica posting a shot with our fun new stickers made us all happy! Thanks...