China Business Opportunity

So yesterday we talked about Chinese Internet Domain, let us talk about an alternative to that today, it is called 3721

What is 3721?

3721 officially launched its Chinese domain keyword service in June 1999 and has since then experienced rapid growth. 3721 enables Internet users to navigate the web and search for relevant on-line information using real world names and familiar identities in their native language, rather than having to remember domain names/ URLs. (i.e. type "fish" instead of "http://www.fish.com")

The application was developed on top of the existing DNS infrastructure; it provides a human friendly Internet navigation interface as well as on-line directory search-like services. The service is widely available on client-software enabled browser as well as from most of the leading portal sites, search engines, and ISP portals throughout China.

In the past four years of market and technology development, 3721 has established itself as one of the most popular Internet brand in China. The CKW service is one of the most widely used service on the Internet in China, serving over 30 million keyword resolutions everyday and reaching over 90% of Chinese Internet users. 3721 has formed broad strategic partnerships with leading portals, search engines and close to 300 local ISPs throughout China. As a result, in addition to enjoying direct navigation and keyword search in the browser address line, Internet users in China can access the Chinese Keyword service from China's leading portals and ISPs.

At the international level, 3721 works closely with leading international companies, notably their collaboration with MSN enhances the users' search and navigation experience on the IE browser in China.

3721 is dedicated to the vision of helping millions of Chinese businesses and their prospective customers to interface more easily with each other on the Web. Going forwards, 3721 will continue its focus on keyword and related service development and strive to provide better and more human-friendly Internet navigation and search services for Internet users and businesses in China.

Note: The name of the company "3721" came from a Chinese proverb "as easy as 3x7=21", something similar to "Just do it" in connotation. It was the vision the founder of 3721 had when it was started - they wanted to make going online for the Chinese in their native language as easy as possible, which the company has achieved through their IE plug-in that translates Chinese keyword into domain names or search queries. 3721's service now reaches over 90% of the desktops in China. Also, a numerical domain name would be easier to remember than English or Pinyin (Chinese pronunciation in alphabet) word for ordinary Chinese, thus making the 3721 corporate web site easier to access for the target users, no matter whether they're using Chinese keyword or domain name to navigate to the site.

The Million Dollar Question...

So we have, in front of us, 3 options - .com.cn (or .cn), Chinese Domain (.gongsi), and 3721, which one is the most popular and most likely to dominate the future China Internet Market?


Enough of that; next time in China Business Opportunities, we will talk about the million dollar question, which domains are likely to become profitable and which to register for.