Reveal Day

If you’re anything like us here at FairWinds, you’re visiting this blog while taking a break from parsing through the lengthy list of new gTLD applications that ICANN published yesterday on Reveal Day. And if you’re anything like the clients we work with, you know that the biggest takeaway from all the data is this: the way all brands do business online is about to change.

On Tuesday, the day before Reveal Day, FairWinds hosted a workshop for brand owners at the Harvard Club in New York City titled, “The Next Chapter of New gTLDs: Brand Owners’ Guide to New gTLDs after ICANN’s Reveal Day.” Over 50 major brand owners gathered to hear from FairWinds and from brand executives, as well as to discuss their plans regarding new gTLDs after ICANN unveiled the list of applications. You can see the agenda here.

Attendees included representatives from both companies that applied for their own new gTLDs, as well as those that opted not to invest. Brands from both groups are understandably concerned about second-level domain name registrations, both the potential possibility for cybersquatting and the potential cost of registering in so many new gTLDs. While some expressed excitement at the possibility of establishing a presence in new online spaces, many are worried about how they will be able to scale their current practices across hundreds, if not over 1,000, new extensions.

But it wasn’t just anxiety about the unknown that ruled the day. Many attendees are excited about or intrigued by new marketing possibilities presented by new gTLDs. Marketers and brand owners will need to be strategic in determining which new names matter and which do not, but they also recognize that certain new gTLDs have the potential to bring in new types of business.

As we said before, the most resounding message that came out of the workshop was that new gTLDs are going to change the way all brands do business online. The next step is to figure out how. Here at FairWinds, we’re busily going through and analyzing the list of applicants and the public data attached to each application. We’ll be continuing to publish more insights and thoughts here on the blog, so keep checking back with gTLD Strategy.

Anyone who put their money on June 13 as the date when ICANN would reveal the list of new gTLD applicants and their applied-for strings got some great news last night. In a new update, ICANN announced a series of important upcoming dates. First, the TLD Application System (TAS) will close tonight at 23:59 UTC, or 7:59 PM EDT, as scheduled. The Batching process will officially begin on June 8 and close on June 28. And during that timeframe, Reveal Day will take place on June 13. (more...)

So now we know how ICANN’s Digital Archery process will work, and have a very rough idea of when that process will take place. On the surface, it may seem like having the process start before before Reveal Day is not a big deal – perhaps ICANN is even trying to make up for some time lost during the month-long TAS delay. But there could be some really serious ramifications to the timing of this process. And like so many other aspects of the New gTLD Program, these ramifications result from ICANN keeping applicants in the dark. (more...)

It’s been more than two months since ICANN first announced its plans for how to deal with the “batching” issue – how it will order new gTLD applications for evaluation – and yet there still seems to be rampant confusion around the basics of the process and its implications.

Let’s start with the basics: what exactly does ICANN mean by “batching”? Well, according to the New gTLD Applicant Guidebook, if ICANN receives substantially more than 500 new gTLD applications, which we know with certainty that it will, it will divide those applications into groups in order to evaluate them. The first batch will consist of 500 applications, and subsequent batches will each contain 400 applications. In an announcement on May 4, ICANN stated that the TLD Application System (TAS) held 2,091 applications, plus 214 potential applications for which the payments had yet to be reconciled. Assuming that all 2,305 applications make it through, there will be a total of six batches. (more...)

We may not know precisely when ICANN will finally publish the full list of new gTLD applications and applicants, but we do know that it will be at least a month from now. And certain companies have come forward over the past few weeks, announcing that they are applying for certain new gTLDs. So while we’ll have to sit tight for the full list, we at least have a small sneak peak of a few of the 2,100+ applications we’ll see on Reveal Day. Here’s what we’re looking at so far: (more...)