Starting Dot Launches Two New Extensions: .ARCHI and .BIO. Stéphane Van Gelder joins the Strategy Committee.

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Starting Dot

24 Mar, 2014, 18:34 GMT

PARIS, March 24, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --

Starting Dot, a start-up created in 2011, is one of the first European firms to enter the new extensions for domain names market. Its strategy will be to target communities.

 .ARCHI and .BIO will be available as of April 

  • Starting Dot is the exclusive administrator of the .archi, .bio and .ski top-level domains globally.
  • These extensions are intended for sectors with a strong professional identity. Their potential is higher because they are short (3 to 5 letters) and carry a universal meaning. archi is intended for architects, .bio for biographies, life sciences and organic agriculture, and lastly, .ski is the Internet representation of the world's most popular winter sport.
  • The .archi domain names will be available for registration starting April 8, 2014 ("Sunrise", the priority phase for trade mark owners, from April 8 to June 8, 2014 followed by general availability on June 16, 2014). More information on http://www.dot-archi.com.
  • The .bio domain names will be open to registration from April 24, 2014 ("Sunrise" from April 24 to 23 June, 2014, followed by general availability on July 1, 2014). More information on http://www.dot-bio.net.
  • The .ski domain names will be available in July 2014.

"After more than two years of technical and legal development, and with an investment of US$ 3.5 million, Starting Dot is today entering the sales and operations phase, enabling the company to serve the thousands of firms who have already sent us their advance orders," said Godefroy Jordan, Starting Dot's CEO and founder.

Sales of new domains take off

Due to the shortage of available domain names, in 2012 ICANN[1] authorized the creation of new extensions. Following a selection phase, 184 new extensions are already open for registration and hundreds of others will be available in the second quarter of 2014.

  • 350,000 domain names have been sold since the end of January with some notable successes: 46,000 domain names registered for .guru and 41,000 for .berlin.
  • The new domains have generated a growth of +10% of the global domain names market, even before the higher potential extensions have yet to be launched.

Stéphane Van Gelder appointed to Starting Dot's Strategy Committee

  • Stéphane Van Gelder joins Starting Dot's strategy piloting unit, which is composed of six independent persons alongside founders Godefroy Jordan and Guillaume Buffet.
  • Stéphane Van Gelder is director of Milathan, a consulting company, and member of the ICANN Nomination Committee. He has been involved in the domain names industry for 15 years. He was one of the founders of Indom, an internet domain name registrar, and former president of the GNSO, the ICANN constituency in charge of generic top-level domains.

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1. ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) is the independent global body that regulates Internet domain names.

Source: http://www.starting-dot.com