The Next Wave of new gTLDs is Coming Why you should Care. by Shane Ryan

The general public still really doesn't have a clue about the new gTLDs as evidenced in this comical series of man on the street interviews: What do people know about gTLDs?, but that may soon change.

For those not yet in the know, new generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs) are new domain name extensions (to the right of the dot) that are expanding the Internet. According to the latest stats on ntldstats.com, over 5.8 million domains have been registered by 1.4 million unique registrants.

These new domains stem from 635 new gTLDs that have been delegated (introduced to the Internet) by ICANN, which publishes a weekly update of stats on the new gTLD program, and a listing of all of the delegated strings on its website.

But what does this mean to the average person or business?

Let's address businesses first. Big brands like Coke or Nike can buy the gTLDs for their brand and create all sorts of web sites like drink.coke and diet.coke or run.nike and justdoit.nike to build brand awareness. Organizations, groups, and geographies can also do the same thing. Small businesses can buy a single website address like joes.pizza from a domain name registrar to make their website stand out from the crowd. But, what about the average Joe consumer? In terms of finding or remembering a website, a unique name may be easier, but time will tell.

We'll look at some of these new gTLDs, what they are being used for, and what's coming next.

What has been successful with new gTLDs?

One of the most successful new gTLDs to date is .club, which was released in May 2014 and recently celebrated its first birthday. Over 220,000 .club websites have been registered and almost 40,000 are active. CEO Colin Campbell believed that .club would become a great domain extension because it is short, memorable, meaningful, and has the same meaning and spelling all over the world.

Some .club domains have been snagged with a high price such as wine.club, which was auctioned for $140,000, and coffee.club and vegas.club also going for six figures. Adoption is being pushed along by celebrity ambassadorship including 50 Cent with his 50inda.club promotion.

The .science domain name, operated by Famous Four Media, has topped 303,000 registrations, and is still climbing. Domain name registrar, AlpNames.com initially gave away around 50,000 free .science domain names and have been selling them for $0.49 ever since, gaining the vast majority of the market share at the registrar level for .science.

What's coming next?

Beginning on June 10, 2015, Donuts will release over one million previously unavailable web addresses across its top level domains. Donuts is the world's largest registry for new gTLDs, and its new gTLDs, which include .church, .movie, .coupons, and .soccer, will be staggered in batches.

Interestingly, GM recently became the first Fortune 50 Company to launch a site on a new gTLD with GeneralMotors.green, which is a channel dedicated to the company's sustainability message. Until now, big companies have primarily re-directed their new gTLD traffic to their existing .com sites.

What's Controversial?

And, how can we talk about what's going on with new gTLDs without mentioning the controversial .sucks domain name? With every new business opportunity, there seems to be two sides, and .sucks domain names are usually registered defensively by a brand - without the intention of using the domain - just so that no one else will buy it. The registration fees of .sucks gTLDs are also hefty at $2,499 per year, significantly higher than other new gTLDs. This article discusses the pros and cons of protecting your brand on .sucks.

A healthier model for a new gTLD is the geographically-based .nyc domain. With over 75,000 registrations to date, New York City is one of the first cities with a top-level domain and individuals, businesses and organizations must have a physical address within the five boroughs to get the .nyc domain. Interestingly there is a fairly even split between .nyc domains individuals (53%) and businesses and organizations (47%). The new domain is also spurring the creation of new online communities such as digital.nyc, New York City's hub for tech and start-ups.

How are new gTLDs protected?

It's good to know that ICANN has safeguards in place to ensure that the Internet and the businesses that depend on it keep running smoothly. ICANN requires gTLDs to protect their domain name registration data via a Registry Data Escrow Agreement. This way, in the event that a registry fails or falls short of meeting its requirements, ICANN can reassign its customer data to another registry to ensure that the domain-holding businesses do not suffer. In fact, of all the new gTLDs delegated, Iron Mountain has signed Registry Data Escrow Agreements with over 75% of them.

So Are you Ready?

The ICANN community began the policy development process a decade ago to consider the introduction of new gTLDs, yet most average consumers still don't know what they are. However, as brands, communities and geographies take the leap and experiment with new gTLDs, typing .green or .club or .pizza as part of a web site address may soon be done without a second thought.

Iron Mountain will be at ICANN 53 in Buenos Aires and will also be sponsoring the ICANNWiki edit-a-thon - stop by and say hello.

(Note: All of these stats change quickly, but all the latest are available on www.ntldstats.com)

LINK:	http://blogs.ironmountain.com/2015/service-lines/technology-escrow/the...
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