Published on the 30/09/2014 | Written by Newsdesk

As of 1pm today, New Zealanders have the choice of a second local, simplified domain name for their websites and email addresses…

The .kiwi domain name launched in May this year, and now New Zealanders can also register the newly simplified .nz domain name and take advantage of another opportunity to own and project a specific identity online, whether they are a business, not for profit, school or individual.

The move shows that InternetNZ, the recognised delegated manager for the .nz country code top level domain, is responding to global trends and new competition by allowing registration of the simple .nz suffix, rather than .co.nz and other iterations of xx.nz.

Dot Kiwi, the company that lodged the ICANN application for the creation of the .kiwi top level domain name which was launched in May, has congratulated InternetNZ for keeping New Zealand in line with these global trends.

“The governing body of the UK’s domain names has already opened up the simpler .uk domain, whereas previously there was just .co.uk, .org.uk, .me.uk and a few others. It’s great that New Zealand is following suit,” said Dot Kiwi director, Tim Johnson. He added that now is the time for Kiwis to think about what their email and web addresses say about them in the online world. Of course, he also took the opportunity to tout the benefits of a .kiwi domain name versus a .nz domain name, but we can hardly blame him for doing his job.

The Domain Name Commission (DNC), which manages the .nz domain name space on behalf of InternetNZ, is calling this a “watershed day” for the space and is the biggest change since the introduction of the competitive Shared Registry System in 2002.

Domain name commissioner Debbie Monahan said: “The introduction of this new type of .nz name means people can now opt for a more representative .nz option.

“The important thing is that anybody who already has a .nz domain name goes to anyname.nz to check out their options and, if they’ve got preferential eligibility or a conflicted name, to know that they can take action from 1pm today.”

Registering one of these new, shorter .nz names is called “registering directly at the second level” and can be done in the usual way through a registrar or domain name provider. DNC said that most people who already have a .nz domain name of some description (be it .co.nz, .org.nz etc) will be able to get the shorter version of their name before anyone else through the Preferential Registration Eligibility (PRE) period, which ends six-months from today at 1pm, 30th March 2015.

Some people, however, may find that their name is ‘conflicted’, which means they may have the .co.nz version, while others may have .org.nz, .net.nz, or other versions. Cases like these conflicted names (and reservations) are dealt with at www.anyname.nz.

According to Johnson, the overall global uptake of gTLDs (generic top level domains) has been slower than expected, but .kiwi is in the top 20 percent of those that have launched by volume. It added that .kiwi registrations haven’t just been a case of people switching their .nz addresses to .kiwi addresses with a quarter of purchasers in September 2014 not owning the corresponding .co.nz version. This indicates that a small but growing proportion of people are consciously choosing to use .kiwi instead of .nz – three months ago this figure was at 15 percent and it has been steadily increasing, he said.