Pieces of Flair

Look, there's a coconut!


Nick (now available on shirts, postcards, and light switches at Flair Wear!) sends along this fun news item:

The arrival of the Internet brought a rare bit of good fortune to Niue, a tiny, impoverished island in the South Pacific.

Its national Internet suffix, dot-nu, has become a big hit in Sweden, as "nu" means "now" in Swedish. An entrepreneur in Medfield, Mass., named Bill Semich, who acquired the rights to operate and sell the dot-nu domain name in the late 1990s, has plowed some of the profits from Sweden into making Niue (pronounced New-Ay) the world's first nation with free wireless Internet for all of its citizens, about 1,200 people.

The island's government has locked horns with the 62-year-old Mr. Semich, whose company is called .NU Domain Ltd., demanding a bigger slice of profits and more control over the domain name. The fight prompted a nearly three-year independent investigation launched by the government and became the dominant issue in the island's elections last year.
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With its closest neighbor, Tonga, more than 350 miles away, Niue ranks among the most remote places on Earth. British explorer Captain James Cook got a bad taste of the island when he visited in 1774. After shouting natives chased him and his crew away, he dubbed the place "Savage Island." Subsequent settlers were surprised to find vegetation on the chunk of coral rising from the sea, calling the place Niue, which in the local language means, "Look, there's a coconut." When Niue finally built an airport in 1971, thousands of Niueans used the opportunity to emigrate.