We dont know when the .Asia domain will be available to the public registry yet, and we probably have to wait for an official press release for the Dot Asia Sunrise, but it now has been confirmed by the Skype mood message of Ching, a great guy behind .Asia: http://www.registry.asia. A nice introduction to this can be downloaded here (it is in English, I am wondering why there are no versions in Asia languages, though).
.EU was out like half a year ago, then .Mobi, now comes .Asia. Will these new domains give you any hints on the trend of the global Internet market?
I am not sure all these extension will hit the jackpot. There have been alot of domain extension coming out. EU, ASIA, MOBI just to name the big ones, and none has been able to stir the waters that has been long held by .COM and .NET.
On another note, I feel that Internationalized Domain Names(IDN) might offer something meaningful, thus big business opportunity, especially for certain markets that have minimal english usage. Just imagine the ability to type http://www.我的名字.com.
Actually… There is a scheduled release date for dot Asia going public. Visit my site http://www.thedotasia.com to read more about it.
Hope I’ve helped!