ITU makes applying for a gTLD cheaper
International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is to release template answers about registry technical details that are required to apply for a new generic top-level domain. The entire template set will be available on a new wiki under a Creative Commons license.
As the format suggests, wiki-based encyclopedia will be free to use — meaning the registries that don't come loaded with funds probably might make good use of it. The project is supervised by Michael Palage, a former ICANN board member and a domain consultant who stood behind a number of previous TLD launches. It is also known that Palage uses all available input from engineers and registries alike.
Even before ICANN approved its Applicant Guidebook, there was a significant market behind new generic top-level domains — for example, several consultants offered their advice to companies wishing to become new registries. Initiative started by ITU might as well take some money out of their pockets; on the other hand, it is highly doubtful that companies offering consistent back-end support to new registries will suffer from this project.
ICANN in search for 'creative solutions'
ICANN recently posted a request for proposals outlining its need for an advertising agency. The agency has to promote new generic top-level domains among potential owners, using a more than modest budget of $750,000 — which is not much, considering that the proposed campaign has to be global and multilingual in order to bring significant results.
As stated at ICANN's FAQ page, the company is in search of 'creative solutions' under one very limited budget. What's interesting is that in April, ICANN posted a very similar request on its site, citing a budget of $500,000, and the search ended with no results as ICANN didn't choose the ad agency to represent it back then. Anyway, the agency picked by ICANN may find itself in a situation when much of the work is already done, as press hype rises constantly along with concerns regarding new generic top-level domains.
.co still has short domains on sale
.co registry that has been a huge success so far — over a million domain names sold since its launch a year ago — still has something to offer to domainers: as the registry states, 51.2% of its three-letter domain names and 71.1% of three-symbol (including numbers) names are still available. This means about 9,000 three-letter names and about 33,000 three-letter/number domains ending in .co could still make a nice investment — for example, there are no three-symbol domains available in .com for a basic price.
However, the numbers stated above include Spanish alphabet letters — á, é, í, ó, ú, ñ, ü; this means that the number of domains with 'regular' ASCII naming is probably much less than that including all symbols.
Check my .xxx
As .xxx nears its sunrise phase sometime soon, both the registry and the third parties are making their way to please customers. The latter, in particular, will soon enjoy their adult content, virus-free — thanks to McAfee providing virus scans to all sites hosted at .xxx domain names. ICM Registry revealed the details of $8 million deal: 'every .XXX domain will be scanned for vulnerabilities such as SQL injection, browser exploits and phishing sites, reputational analysis and malware', the company said in a press release. The subscription to virus scanning is included in domain pricing which is said to start at around $75, making a nice discount as McAfee's services usually cost more.
Domainers could benefit of the deal in two ways: first, a 'trust mark' could be put on site, raising user confidence (McAfee's own studies reveal that such 'trust mark' can raise sales up to 12%). Second, customers could use McAfee SiteAdvisor, a browser plugin that shows if the site is virus-free.
The third parties, however, seem to benefit from different 'checks' too: EnCirca's Tom Barrett and Mark Kudlacik from Checkmark Network offer their own tool enabling customers to check if their trademarks qualify for sunrise periods of .xxx and other new gTLDs. At the moment, the service supports over 30 national jurisdictions, and more are to follow. Checks cost $10 each, but the business owners think this is the way to save money for domain name applicants: for instance, if .xxx sunrise application is rejected due to insufficient data, the only option is to pay at least $200 for an application again.
