I know this guy has to be related to us (the Alagna family); but I don’t know how. He is Sicilian (but grew up in France). This has nothing to do with domain names which is my usual fare here. This song however, is so me:
Here’s another picture of him when he was in his 20s. Doesn’t it look familiar? He has to be related:
ICANN has revealed the entire list of new gTLDs today. You can download a spreadsheet here (right click and ‘save as’ since this is an Excel spreadsheet).
It’s good to see so many brands. Interesting that the first press question was about .sucks. We have an applicant for that and although it may seem offensive to some, it is a term popularly used in domain names to criticize companies, governments, and individuals.
Some Brands That Have Applied
Some of the brands that have applied include:
.aaa from the American Automobile Association
.aarp from the American Association of Retired Persons
.amazon from Amazon
.amex from American Express
.apple from Apple Inc.
.asda from Wal-Mart Stores; not sure what they have in mind for this.
GM has applied for many of their brands such as .buick and .cadillac.
.google from guess who? Using the Charleston Road Registry.
.mcdonalds from McDonalds
.xbox from Microsoft (Should be big for them).
I think that advertising dollars will begin to flow to these new names rather than the .com versions of the same. The result will be a bit less equity in the .com brand. However, .com will remain the dominant TLD because smaller businesses that still advertise will continue advertising them in local markets.
Smart Choices (IMHO)
.autoinsurance from Allstate
.author from Amazon
.baby from Johnson and Johnson
.bible from the American Bible Association
.book from Amazon (and many others)
.deal from Amazon (and one other)
.expert – I think this was an interesting one.
.gop – From TLDH. It looks like they are assisting the California GOP
.how from Google
.makeup from Loreal
.tunes from Amazon
.yellowpages from Telstra in Australia – I think this one has potential
Of Note
My personal favorite new TLD is .spot which was applied for by Amazon, Google, and DotSpot, LLC (Great minds think alike :-)).
.dot – That seems confusing to me.
Several very smart retailers have applied for IDNs. Walmart and Amazon have applied for a few.
The Vatican applied for .catholic – I think that is pretty cool and will become popular over time.
Likely to End Up Costing the Most in Auction:
.web – Applied for by Afilias Domains No. 3 Limited, Charleston Road Registry Inc., DotWeb Inc. NU DOT CO LLC, Ruby Glen, LLC, Schlund Technologies GmbH, & Web.com Group, Inc. These are all well-funded players who want that domain badly.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) received a total of 1930 applications, after refunds, for new generic top-level domains.
– 1846 of those are “standard” applications.
– 84 are designated as “community-based”.
Of the 1930, 66 have designated themselves as geographic name applications.
116 applications are Internationalized Domain Names, or IDNs, using non-Latin scripts.
Three applicants seek support through ICANN’s Applicant Support Program.
Applications were received from 60 countries. Using ICANN’s definitions of the world’s regions, which can be viewed on our website:
– 911 applications came from North America.
– 675 from Europe.
– 303 applications are from the Asia-Pacific region.
– 24 are from Latin America and the Caribbean.
– 17 from Africa.
Some domain names have been applied for by more than one applicant. There are 230 domain names for which at least two applications were submitted, involving a total of 751 applications.
Ok, it hit me once again; I am obsessed with domain names. It is 4:44:22 PM PST and all I can think of is the deadline coming up in fifteen minutes and thirty-eight seconds. I had to walk away from my desk and take a break because of the anxiety. But it’s not a negative anxiety; it’s an anxiety of excitement that the first real step and deadline for an entire new world of top level domains is about to occur (will have occurred by the time you read this).
I felt the same way when I was bidding on Alagna.com. I really wanted my surname in .com! Now I feel that way on behalf of our clients and partners. I’m exhilarated by this and the minute hand on any clock I look at seems to have this dead weight attached to it. The last ten minutes seem as long as the past year.
Just for fun, and to tip my hat (I really don’t wear hats) to the idea of digital archery, I’m going to try and post a tweet at exactly 23:59:00.
Update: I hit the time +1 second (24:00:00). Time will tell if that would have been a good digital archery hit
Congratulations, first to all my co-workers for the hard work they’ve done, then to all our clients and partners; and finally to all applicants, who I know have been working very hard towards this historic moment. Good luck to you all! You are truly part of a historic event online.
I know we have bigger, more difficult challenges ahead, but for now, I just wanted to congratulate everyone, including the people at ICANN on a great start. So what is next?
P.S. I posted my tweet at exactly 5:00:00 PM PST (12:00:00 AM UTC). If it were digital archery, I would have been 1 second late. Hmmm…
