Second-level .CN domain names

available March 17, 4PM GMT

[bill]

CNNIC will no longer provide domain name registration services to end users, but they have a list of accredited domestic registrars [cnnic.net.cn] and a list of accredited international registrars [neustar.com.cn]. The .CN land rush is scheduled for 4PM GMT on March 17.

I find it interesting that they are kicking this off when it will be midnight in Beijing. Maybe there is some other reason for the timing that I am unaware of...however, that means I have to be up at around 1AM to participate. :(

Will anyone else here be jumping on the bandwagon? I'm going to have to look into these registrars in more detail as I don't have experience with any of them.

[Edwin]

I've got (free) preregistrations at 4 or 5 different registrars for the only 2 .cn domain names I want, though I've probably got only about a 0.1% chance of success!

[bill]

There are only a few more hours before the .CN second level domain names go live (less than 15 as of this posting). Did everyone get their pre-registrations in? I've got a small pile in the queue.

The next step after securing the names will be to determine whether to switch from my .com names to the newer .cn names.

[bill]

An update...
I got all the names I pre-registered and they are now all resolving properly. It took a little over 12 hours for the DNS to work itself out, but all seems fine now. .CN is ready for business ;)

[Hunter]

yeah, I grabbed a few nice ones myself. If anyone wants any advice on them, I'm happy to help.