ICANN’s new gTLD Program was approved on June 20th, 2011 in Singapore.
In a historic move, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) approved its long-discussed New gTLD Program. This program allows any brand or community of interest to apply for a unique “right of the dot” top-level domain. For example, instead of “.com,” a brand like Nike could apply for “.nike” to reinforce its brand on the Web.
This announcement has heralded a new era of competition and innovation for the Internet. Imagine living in a .BRAND NEW WORLD of new possibilities to build your brand, support your organization’s mission, and create new revenue streams in a secure and controllable manner.
Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs), and other brand builders, new .brand entrepreneurs, virtual communities, cities and regions and anyone (with the resources and imagination) should seriously consider applying for, launching, and managing their own branded TLD.
Definitely this is one step further, more userfriendly, domain-oriented URLs and allows the online players to play with innovative URL aspects. Few examples:
- If ING owned .ing and controlled every address registered, it could own a banking Web space free from phishing.
- Luxury brands like BMW could launch new services tying a .bmw email address to a new vehicle purchase and communicating service updates directly to the car.
- Organizations with distributors could sell unique addressesas a preferred status for sellers (like mystore.ebay)
So it will be interesting to see how internet is going to evolve, with this major step, in the next few years..