Internetblog.org.uk Web hosting, Domain names, Dedicated servers
Today is a big day for Europeans with the availability of .eu IDNs. Interestingly, so far most of the names registered are German.
Here is a list of the first ten IDNs registered. All of them are in German and contain umlauts.
1. ärzte.eu (doctors)
2. börse.eu (stock exchange)
3. flüge.eu (flights)
4. bücher.eu (books)
5. ferienhäuser.eu (vacation homes)
6. reisebüro.eu (travel agency)
7. büro.eu (office)
8. küche.eu (kitchen)
9. müller.eu (miller, also a last name)
10. öl.eu (oil)
A lot of the premium names have already been picked up and will be auctioned in the comings weeks.
It will be interesting to see how IDNS stack up against identical names without special characters. Misspellings like ol.eu (öl) and fluge.eu (flüge) have been registered for years. I think speakers of languages that use non-Latin characters have gotten used to altering their spelling for the web, after all.
