Welcome back to the official ChopChop Domains blog!
​It’s been nearly a full year since the launch of ChopChop.domains, and as we near the end of the year and prepare for 2017, we have the opportunity to reflect on some stories and successes in 2016 and what lies ahead in 2017 for ChopChop Domains, Chinese IDNs, and the evolution of a global internet.
In late 2015, the idea for ChopChop.domains was originally conceived as a response to the somewhat concerning lack of visibility of Chinese Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) in a robust and growing global domain name marketplace. Although still relatively new in the domain name space, Chinese and many other non-English script IDNs have been severely underrepresented through traditional purchasing platforms, and ChopChop was created in order to mitigate this lack of visibility and provide internet users a simple, direct, and hassle-free alternative to finding and registering abundant and affordable Chinese IDNs.
The motivation to create ChopChop.domains also came directly from the fact that foreign businesses large and small can have the hassle-free opportunity to protect their brand in China, eliminate the language barrier, and reach a larger online audience by registering and using meaningful, relevant, and powerful Chinese domain names. Of course, there are plenty of other reasons to use a Chinese domain for brands and businesses as well.
With the idea and need to demonstrate the power and possibility of Chinese IDNs and subsequently increase visibility, ChopChop.domains was built and soft-launched in February of 2016 as a subsidiary company of IDN registry operator TLD Registry Ltd. ChopChop thus became the world’s first direct retail sales channel offering fully Chinese, pinyin, and English domain name IDNs in the Dot Chinese Online (.在线) and Dot Chinese Website (.中文网) extensions.
Over the course of the year, the ChopChop Domains platform has accomplished what it was originally set out to do: be a beacon of light for Chinese IDNs in a crowded marketplace of domains to serve businesses, individuals, and anyone else who wishes to utilize the power of a language spoken by nearly a quarter of humanity and the largest e-commerce market in the world.
We take pride in the work that was done to create the ChopChop.domains platform, which includes amazing features like instant domain registration of general availability names in the Dot Chinese Online (.在线) and Dot Chinese Website (.中文网) domain extensions, domain management, and an easy-to-use premium domain name search tool. ChopChop’s premium name search tool allows users to filter their search based on keywords in Chinese characters, pinyin, and English, and also allows the user to search for specific categories, price ranges, and the popularity of keywords based on statistics from China’s largest search engine, Baidu. Users also have the option to make an offer on the premium names they may come across.
Another great feature of ChopChop.domains goes beyond Chinese domain name registration and management, however. We take great pride in providing important and relevant information about the China market overall, including providing educational resources directly to the viewers of this blog! ChopChop.news has been a great source of information for many people regarding Chinese domain names, different aspects of the e-commerce market in China, brand protection, the history of Chinese IDNs, the significance of numerics for Chinese domaining, fully-Chinese IDN email options, and more! We have gained many interested followers in our blog, and we will continue providing thought leadership on all things related to Chinese domains in 2017 and beyond, so keep coming back!
So what lies ahead for 2017?
As the internet continues to expand and alternative domain extensions become available, there will be more choice for more people, in the native language of the user, all around the world. We are in a new age of domain names, and it’s an exciting time in which internet users from all over the world have additional options for choice, meaning, and relevance in a domain name ending in a language that makes sense to them. As visibility, trust, and credibility also continue to grow for Chinese IDNs in 2017, we will begin to see a shift in how domain extensions are used, especially in China.
The internet is a tool that is expanding from the usual technologically elite, to being introduced to rural parts of the world, to people who have not experienced the ability to access instantaneous information and data with the click of a mouse. The internet is growing, and growing rapidly. In fact, the next million internet users will be coming from China and India.
What does this mean? It means that in 2017 the number of people who will be able to use the internet will continue to rapidly grow, resulting in what we can only assume will be an influx in domain name registrations coming from all over the world. Since many of the next several million internet users will be coming from China, the need for fully-Chinese domain names only makes sense, and ChopChop.domains is a platform to serve these next million internet users.
There are already thousands of new domain extensions in the English language, and many new IDNs, Chinese and otherwise, are being applied for and launched over the next couple of years in response to the amount of people all over the world who will have access to the internet and wish to register domains in their own native language.
ChopChop is a marketplace that aims to serve these next several million Chinese internet users who want to register domains that are culturally relevant and linguistically correct, and we anticipate 2017 to be an even better than the year before.
We would like to thank you for joining us all throughout the year on the blog, and we wish you a productive and happy New Year. Usher in the New Year with a Chinese domain name, and we’ll see you around in 2017!!!