WebProNews

Registration for .asia domains began at 8:00 this morning, along with a virtual gold rush of domain prospectors looking to connect with an area containing nearly 4 billion people.

Not quite that many in the Asia-Pacific region have internet connections yet, but think of the potential.  In Europe, there are 389 million people; in the US, just 300 million. When two-thirds of the world lives in a specific place with Internet growing at 240 percent of the past seven years, that's cause for sufficient excitement amongst brands, startups, and entrepreneurs.

Special "sunrise auctions" already have some of these .asia domains going for $20,000, according to one report, which may one day turn out to be a bargain.

Like .eu, the .asia domain is restricted to locals. At least one of the administrative contacts on the account must reside in one of 73 Asia-Pacific countries.