.八卦

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Status:	Proposed
Language:	Chinese (Hans/Simplified)
Translates to:	gossip
Manager:	Zodiac
Registry Provider:	KNET
Type:	IDN gTLD
Category:	Lifestyle
Priority #:	21

.八卦 is an IDN gTLD being proposed in ICANN's New gTLD Program. The applicant is Zodiac (Zodiac Scorpio Limited), which has chose KNET to provide backend registry services.

Application Details

Excerpted from response to Question # 18 in TLD Application:

"Zodiac Holdings Limited (“Zodiac”) was founded and incorporated in Cayman Islands by James Seng in 2008 in anticipation of the launch of the ICANN new gTLD program. Currently, it is headquartered in Hong Kong and has an operation center in Beijing, China. The team consists of experienced veterans in the global and China domain name industry like James Seng and former China Network Information Center (CNNIC) employees such as Eugene Li.

James Seng is one of the Internet pioneers in Singapore and is widely recognized as an international expert in numerous Internet areas. He is well known as the inventor of IDN and has co-chaired the IDN Working Group in IETF from 1999 to 2004, leading to the standardization of IDN.

Eugene Li, is the former Vice President of China Network Information Center (CNNIC). During his 7 years tenure at CNNIC, Eugene has launched initiatives that doubled domain name registrations and helped CNNIC become the no. 1 ccTLD and no. 2 TLD by volume. At the time when Eugene left to join Zodiac, CNNIC has over 13 million domain name registrations.

Under the vision and leadership of James Seng, with the support of angels, venture capital firm and family offices of approximately USD 20 million in place for the application and operation of the new gTLDs, Zodiac is seeking to become the first and largest privately held ICANN-approved TLD registry operator in Asia. It intends to operate TLDs that are centric to the Chinese culture.

[..]

[.八卦], pronounced as “bagua” means “gossip” in Chinese. To the Chinese community, “STRING” is commonly used to all sorts of information, news or gossip with respect to any high profile, entertainment, media or sports star. For example, news or gossip about Steve Jobs can be referred to Steve Jobs’ 八卦 (“STRING”). The Chinese love to read about the latest on these people. Such a phenomenon has made online entertainment portal like Sina.com one of the most trafficked website due to its official partnerships with various media and film stars."

[..]

The Applicant expects “.STRING” to initially reach about 9,340 in the 1st year, and grow to 13,343 and 18,680 by the 2nd and 3rd year respectively."