.sh

Saint Helena Island is mostly famous for having hosted Napoleon after he abidcated in 1815 following defeat at the Waterloo battle. First exile in Elba island near Italy proved not to be far enough since Napoleon actually came back and restored his power for a few months. This period is known in France as the 100 days (“Les cent jours”). For his second exile, Napoleon was sent as far as possible, i.e. Saint Helena Island, South Atlantic.

The Island seem to have all the features of the dream tropical island with blue sea and palm trees, though it is surrounded by rocky shores.About only 5000 people live on the island… but they found a new resource.

The internet domain name for Saint Helena is sh . It had little use until a clever Shanghai based weekly (8 days) started to use it for its website (the domain does not work anymore since the newspaper has closed down). They came up with www.8days.sh. I think that most people in Shanghai associated this URL with 8 days Shanghai. Suddenly, .sh started to find many more usage. There are not so many yet, but I have already spotted www.hudec.sh, celebrating the 50th year anniversary of Hungarian architect Laszlo Hudec death. As Shanghai is become a leading city in Asia and the world, I am pretty sure more of those will soon appear. The 2010 Shanghai World expo should also help a lot.

St Helenans have spotted the opportunity as a .sh domain currently costs USD 120 / year, about 10 times more than a .com or .cn . Like Tuvalu Islands making money out of the .tv internet domains, another tiny island finds itself with a great money maker. Shanghai is becoming richer and richer, and I am sure that this kind of money will not deter Shanghainese to proudly advertise their beloved city. With its (nearly) own domain on the worldwide web, Shanghai is really becoming a world city.

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