Dot Brand

This week, a few members of the FairWinds team are off in London to meet with some clients and friends across the pond. Of course, no matter where we are, we’ve always got new gTLDs on the brain. That’s why this picture (below) got us thinking:

This is the sign outside of Currys, a UK-based purveyor of electronics with stores all over England and Ireland. Brits likely know that they can find Currys online at Currys.co.uk, but anyone who has perused ICANN’s published list of new gTLD applications knows that Donuts, Inc. submitted an applications for .DIGITAL. That means that in another year or so, Currys.Digital could be a viable new domain name. We first discussed this concept on FairWinds’ Domain Name Strategy blog about two years ago, when Sony was promoting its Make.Believe campaign (pronounced “make-dot-believe”). Back then, we speculated that if and when a flood of new gTLDs entered the market, users may begin to interpret that tagline as a domain name, and that such an interpretation could lead to serious confusion on the part of Internet users.

The Currys.Digital example drags that speculation back to the forefront now that we have a rough idea of which extensions actually will become new gTLDs. Donuts was the only applicant to apply for .DIGITAL, and given the company’s high buy-in to the New gTLD Program (307 applications submitted), odds are we’ll see the .DIGITAL application come to fruition. In that case, it will be possible for the shop in the picture to go out and register the domain name Currys.Digital – but just because something is possible doesn’t necessarily mean it will happen.

Consider a scenario where Currys does not register its eponymous .DIGITAL domain name, but Boots, the well-known, UK-based pharmacy and drug store chain, applied for the .BOOTS gTLD. Imagine you’re a consumer and an average Internet user, walking down this street in London, and you see the sign that displays “Currys.Digital.” Then, a short block later, you see a sign in the window of Boots that reads, “Visit us online at our new site: Pharmacy.Boots.” Further up the road, there is another retailer whose name is SportsDirect.com.

So which of these is a domain name and which is not? How is the average Internet user, who beginning in mid-2013 is likely to be bombarded with marketing about new gTLD domains, supposed to be able to remember which is a viable domain name and which is not, when the number of available endings increases from 22 to over 1,000?

The key takeaway for brand owners here is that brands who applied for new gTLDs are going to have a bit of an uphill battle ahead of them to make sure that their customers and other Internet users are aware of their new gTLDs and that they navigate to them. But brand owners, who generally have a) a pre-existing customer base, and b) substantial marketing budgets and access to a wealth of marketing channels, have a leg up over entrepreneurial gTLD applicants whose budgets may be much tighter and whose audience base (the wide world of potential domain name registrants) is much more nebulous, and therefore, harder to target when it comes to marketing communications.

Oh, and whoever is in charge of Currys domain name portfolio should consider snapping up Currys.Digital during the .DIGITAL Sunrise period.

Here at FairWinds, we take a lot of pride in the services we offer clients around new gTLDs. But traditionally, our services have focused on domain names in existing gTLDs – specifically, advising clients on the best ways to use domains to promote and protect their brands online. This is the major underlying mission of the work we do. That’s why we found it so amusing when we noticed that cybersquatters had begun registering domain names referencing brands’ new gTLD applications. Call it meta-cybersquatting, if you will, squatting on domains that are about...domains. (more...)

With the Public Meeting in Prague taking place less than two weeks after ICANN’s big reveal of the 1,930 new gTLD applications, it’s no surprise that certain applications and applicants were discussed openly during various sessions. For example, during the Public Forum on Thursday afternoon, a 14-year-old boy and a 16-year-old girl from China (ICANN’s youngest participants ever?) stepped up to the open microphone to express her support for an open, unrestricted .KIDS gTLD. (more...)

Today, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) posted the complete list of new gTLD applicants and what they applied for. While Reveal Day is, understandably, an important and long-anticipated day, the day the Internet really began to change was June 20, 2011, when ICANN’s Board voted to approve the New gTLD Program. It was on that day that brand owners had to begin to truly consider applying for new gTLDs, weighing the potential opportunity for innovation against the risk of being left behind, should these new extensions catch on. (more...)

A few weeks ago, we reported on the new batching process that ICANN had proposed that revolved around giving applications a “secondary time stamp.” As of last week, the ICANN Board has approved the system for new gTLD applicants.

You can read about the details of the process, which ICANN has likened to “digital archery” (although “digital whack-a-mole” might be a more apt analogy), in our post, or on ICANN’s New gTLD Program site. But rather than rehash the mechanics of the process, today we’d like to discuss some of its implications. (more...)

Any business that has undergone a domain name migration can tell you, there are some significant headaches involved. One of the biggest worries when switching to a new domain is preserving search engine rankings. There is an entire industry devoted to Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, and many companies invest significantly in the tools and tricks to make sure that their sites appear at the top of search engine query results.

With new gTLDs taking the stage over the next few years, businesses will be faced with the decision of whether to simply use new gTLD domains (dot brand or others) as vanity or marketing URLs for specific campaigns, or to sell the proverbial farm and migrate their sites completely from their old .COM or ccTLD domains to their new gTLD domains. (more...)

Perhaps it is because there has been so little information out of ICANN about the field of new gTLD applicants that the media seem to be giving TAS registration numbers so much attention. ICANN has been publishing the number of applicants registered in its TLD Application System, or TAS, at regular intervals during the application period; as of last week, the number had topped 250. Each time this data point is published, certain members of the media tend to jump on it, attempting to extract some insight into how many applications that will ultimately translate to. (more...)

People sometimes wonder why ICANN hosts three public meetings annually, and in such varied geographical locations (this year’s meetings will start in Costa Rica, move to Prague, and then end in Toronto). While outsiders may regard these meetings as somewhat excessive, the truth is, much of ICANN’s “work” – discussing issues, developing policies, and even voting to approve or reject those policies – takes place at these meetings. (more...)

We were not expecting very much new gTLD news to come out of ICANN’s public meeting in Costa Rica, which opened this weekend. But it appears that ICANN has settled on a solution – or maybe it’s better just to say “process” – for dealing with new gTLD application batching.

In our post “Working on Batches,” we described how the New gTLD Applicant Guidebook includes a provision that if ICANN receives more than 500 new gTLD applications, then applications will be processed in “batches.” The first batch will consist of 500 applications, and subsequent batches will consist of 400 applications apiece. This batching process is designed to allow the third-party evaluator that ICANN hired to process applications to handle any extended evaluations, string contentions, or any other issues that may arise without overwhelming its capacity. (more...)