The .cloud domain has become available to the general public on a first-come-first-served basis.
The new domain extension is open to both individuals and businesses as an alternative to the likes of .com, .uk or .io, with business owners able to use the domains to better communicate their online brands.
Interest in the domain has already been quite strong with cloud players such as Canonical, Weebly, ePages and Odin releasing dedicated portals for their cloud offerings as part of the .cloud’s Pioneer Program which launched in October 2015.
These aren’t the only businesses to react quickly to the opportunity, with start-ups such as ClouDesire, Food.Cloud and FashionCloud all picking up the domain as they look to position themselves as having a more distinct brand.
This has come about following the Priority Registration phase which saw 2,000 orders placed for 200 domains, although not all of these are unique with some being duplicate requests that will be assigned via auction.
Francesco Cetraro, Head of Registry Operations at .cloud, said: "Today marks an important day for everyone who has been eagerly awaiting the opportunity to own and use a .cloud domain."
Cetraro went on to say that he was "thrilled" with the response so far, due to the wide level of interest in the Pioneer Program and because of how well subscribed the Priority phases were.
This shows that there is a clear interest among both companies and individuals to get access to a domain extension that helps to reflect their business capabilities, said Cetraro.
A network of over 70 worldwide registrars are available to accept orders for the .cloud registration, including; GoDaddy, 1&1, Gandi, Name.com, Domain.com and OVH.
Stefano Maruzzi, VP EMEA, GoDaddy, said: "Cloud computing has quickly emerged as a key driver of innovation and its importance as backbone of the digital economy is only going to grow in the coming years."
Total spending on cloud IT infrastructure reached $32.6bn at the end of 2015 according to IDC estimates, which highlights the potential attraction that the .cloud extension represents.
Those drawn in by the .cloud domain will be businesses that have been born in the cloud and software developers that are working on as-a-Service products.
Iseult Ward, co-founder of FoodCloud, said: ".cloud synced perfectly with our company name and brand. By using .cloud we can clearly explain to the public and our key audiences what we do and how our app and web-based business is powered by the cloud."
New domains have seen companies such as Amazon spend large amounts of money to buy top-level domains. Amazon recently spent $4.6m on .buy while Dot Tech spent $6.7m on .tech.
