Who Are the Major New gTLD Applicants and… (Part One: Famous Four Media)

...what is their approach to bringing new domain names to market?

This article is the personal analysis by a new gTLD consultant who has been following the ICANN new gTLD program from the beginning but with a Frenchman's perspective.

I recently read an article which made me smile because entitled "the top 10 new gTLDs to follow in 2014". But according to what? I partially read it to find out that it was written by a professional from a certain culture and written for a certain culture. None of the top 10 new gTLDs listed in the article were of any interest to me: a French person.

http://www.circleid.com/posts/20140131_who_are_the_major_new_gtld_applicants_part_one

...what is their approach to bringing new domain names to market?

This, the second in a series of articles looking at portfolio gTLD applicants, is focusing on Uniregistry. At the moment, the Uniregistry press machine is buzzing, like an angry bee, about two of the 50 TLDs in its portfolio: you may have read about .TATTOO and .SEXY. Yes! .SEXY but, according to Uniregistry, it is nothing to do with sex; it is about fashion, modelling and attitude. If the adult industry is already very well gifted by some very unpleasant extensions (should we thank ICANN for this?), Uniregistry is trying desperately to avoid positioning itself on the seedy side of the street with .SEXY. Uniregistry has some other interesting domain name extensions like .GUITARS and .PHOTO.

http://www.circleid.com/posts/20140204_who_are_the_major_new_gtld_applicants_and_part_two_uniregistry

...what is their approach to bringing new domain names to market?

Minds + Machines was the first "new gTLD portfolio applicant" I spotted early in 2008, when .PARIS started being mentioned. Then came a few other projects like .HORSE and later .VODKA. Being French, my vision of good new gTLD suffixes may be slightly different to those native English speakers. Therefore, I favour some TLDs such as .SURF and .ART over some clearly English terms others such as .HORSE. I like .BLOG, .HOTEL and .RESTAURANT too and I like the idea of niche markets with .YOGA ... another TLD which could be marketed in French too. In 2008, I remember starting to follow the CEO of Minds + Machines, Anthony Van Couvering's communications in the online press and I remember that he used to focus on one word: the opportunity for new gTLDs to bring innovation to the domain name sphere. Today, things have moved on and I question whether many applicants will bring anything but new TLD space since it has taken far too long for new gTLDs to launch. Innovation has a cost, unfortunately!

http://www.circleid.com/posts/20140218_who_are_the_major_new_gtld_applicants_part_three_minds_machines

...what is their approach to bringing new domain names to market?

Donuts is an applicant that threw the entire domain name industry into uproar due to the number of applications it submitted: 307 in total. Recent figures about Donuts are available here.

http://www.circleid.com/posts/20140226_who_are_the_major_new_gtld_applicants_and_part_four_donuts

...what is their approach to bringing new domain names to the market?

Rightside is a name you may only have heard of very recently. It is a relative newcomer in the new gTLD industry. It is important to note that there is a difference between "Rightside" and "Rightside Registry". One is the Trademark and also the name of this new group to which eNom (a Registrar), Namejet (a platform to buy/sell domain names and Premium domains) and Name.com (another Registrar) belong. As for "Rightside Registry", it is the new name of the platform to operate new gTLD applications such as .attorney .pub .ninja. .democrat .rehab .social, etc… United TLD Holdco Ltd is the previous name of the company; the name under which it used to apply for 26 applications.

http://www.circleid.com/posts/20140306_who_are_the_major_new_gtld_applicants_part_five_rightside_registry

...what is their approach to bringing new domain names to the market?

Starting Dot ("SD") is a French new gTLD applicant which applied for five strings: .ARCHI, .BIO, .DESIGN, (which has been withdrawn) .IMMO and .SKI. It is the only French applicant to have applied for several open new gTLDs. Some French brands have applied too but as closed Top-Level Domains.

http://www.circleid.com/posts/20140408_who_are_the_major_new_gtld_applicants_and_part_six_starting_dot/