Afilias is a Gold Sponsor of the upcoming ICANN meeting in Cartegena. 

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Almost exactly nine years ago, the .INFO domain first started accepting registrations.  This was an historic event as it was the first time a new generic top-level domain (TLD) was launched to an existing domain marketplace and, in fact, was the first new TLD to be added since .com.  We’ve seen (and provided technology to power) many other TLD launches since then, with many business models.  As you seek to introduce your own new TLD however, you should carefully evaluate the different launch models that have been tried before and determine which one will work best for your specific TLD.

Trademark Protection
All new TLDs will require some form of trademark protection to ensure that Intellectual Property (IP) holders’ rights can be protected prior to live, public registrations.  Afilias has implemented a number of different types of trademark protection plans from pre-registration without trademark verification, to those with extensive application and verification processes.  We’ve seen the best success with a very focused trademark pre-registration period that has clear trademark parameters and works with a known trademark verification agent to weed through all of the submissions.  We also recommend that all registries lock pre-registered trademark domains for up to 60 days following their registration award to allow for any potential UDRP claims that IP owners may wish to file.  

Landrush
Landrush will be the most critical time for your TLD as it places the heaviest load on the technical registry system.  We’ve seen in excess of 300,000 names coming in through initial landrush opening minutes, so you want to be very careful about who you select as your registry partner.  You should make sure that their registry has been tested to withstand a significant landrush load.

In addition, you will have to make some policy decisions about how you want landrush to work. In almost all cases you should avoid pre-registration fees with a “chance” at getting your name. These can be viewed as lottery-based systems that can subject your organization to new legal restrictions.  We highly recommend that clients not charge for applications, but only for awarded names.

Regardless, you need to decide if you will open the floodgates all at once, or if you want to have multiple, specialized application periods (see below) in advance of the “public” opening.

Premium Names and Auctions
In recent years TLDs like .info, .mobi, .asia and .me have seen good success by reserving premium names, which are highly desirable generic or category terms.  In .info’s case, we reserved a number of country domains and have awarded them for use by their respective governments (some great examples are spain.info and germany.info).  Other TLDs have used reserved name lists for auctions following landrush.

Premium or other reserved names can fit well into your new TLD’s strategy, particularly if you will be representing a certain category or key community where they will present more value.  An auction approach helps to raise the price, and therefore perceived value of these names, and can help put your registry on a sound financial footing more quickly.  

RFPs
If auctions are not to your taste, other domains have also seen success by simply launching a period where interested users can respond to a “request for proposal” with a business and launch plan for a highly desirable name.  As a registry, you can offer additional promotion, partnerships or advertising to help assist with the launch of these sites, which can also act as great brand ambassadors for your fledgling TLD.

Each new TLD will have its own priorities. However, at the end of the day, you need a plan that will get lots of names into your target market quickly, generate awareness of your TLD (so it will be viewed as a legitimate place to visit by Internet users), and demonstrate actual use in the market (i.e. real sites and e-mail).  Your launch plan is critical to establishing these building blocks quickly. If you are not a TLD expert, consider teaming up with someone who has been there before.

The board resolved on Friday to dedicate its two-day retreat in September entirely to working on the issues that remain outstanding in the Draft Applicant Guidebook. The current version of the DAG, the fourth, is expected to be the final draft before applications become open to potentially hundreds of prospective new TLD registry operators.

ICANN Chairman Peter Dengate Thrush said the final Applicant Guidebook could be ready or almost ready for approval as early as December this year, when the ICANN community will meet in Cartagena, Colombia. Companies wishing to apply for their ".brand" TLD in the first round could find themselves able to do so in the first half of next year and should start their planning process now if they have not already.

However, because ICANN is a bottom-up policy-making organization, there are still issues that the community needs to resolve before the board can act. The procedures for providing intellectual property protection to trademark holders have almost been finalized, and the ICANN Governmental Advisory Committee has been asked for further guidance on how to handle its concerns about "morality and public order" in new TLDs. Registries and registrars are also continuing to make progress towards a consensus view on cross-ownership and vertical integration.

One key element of the new TLD process is the requirement that all new TLDs incorporate DNSSEC at launch.  DNSSEC took another significant step forward at this meeting with the signing of http://www.isoc.org/ as the first second level .ORG to be secured by this new security protocol.  The .org TLD is the largest TLD to date to deploy DNSSEC at the zone level; and the http://www.isoc.org/ signing paves the way for EVERY .ORG to be secured via DNSSEC.

There was also good news in Brussels for the world's over one billion Chinese speakers, as the ICANN 

Board voted to approve three Chinese-script internationalized domain names for addition to the root. The country-code managers for China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, who received standing ovations following the Board's decision, will soon be able to distribute addresses ending in their IDN scripts.  These TLDs will join several other country-specific strings that were applied for in the "fast -track" process approved at the Nairobi meeting.

If you are a new TLD applicant, one of the key pieces of your plan is how you intend to go to market. Many applicants will be required by ICANN to use registrars, and there are many good reasons for this. Registrars understand the domain business, they are experienced domain marketers and most importantly, they have existing business relationships with many of the same registrants you will need to make your TLD successful.

The question is: HOW do you get registrars to support YOUR new TLD? Afilias has more experience introducing new TLDs to registrars than anyone, and we’d like to suggest 3 principles for success:

1. First, choose an attractive string: The most important reason for a registrar to support you is if your TLD will sell. Make sure your string has a strong reason for being—that it adds value to the Internet and will serve a market that will buy it!
2. Second, Provide Support: Be sure to give registrars tools that will help them sell your TLD. For example you’ll need to ensure competitive pricing and provide marketing materials and promotional support. Plan to work as a TEAM with your registrars
3. Third, Keep it simple: Registrars are going to be swamped with new offerings. If YOUR TLD is simpler to implement, your chances for success are better.
   • Simplicity begins with the accreditation process—Study what new TLDs have done in the past and don’t re-invent the wheel.
   • Pricing should also be simple and sustainable. Look at how registrars sell domains today and try to replicate that model.
   • And last, Technical systems must be familiar and standards-compliant: Registrars don’t have time to learn a whole new system. They will support TLDs that use systems they are familiar with, as it saves them time and money.

Registrars are the key to distribution so you must learn how to succeed through them. How? Choose an attractive string, provide appropriate support for your registrars, and keep it simple for them.

Of course, it isn’t quite that simple. That’s why you should work with an expert who is already dealing with registrars and has done this for many new TLDs before. Afilias already has a group of accredited registrars that together support over 90% of the active domain name marketplace. This coupled with our registry technology which already supports 15 different TLDs, has the kind of experience you’ll need in gaining distribution to make your new TLD successful.

If you are a prospective new top-level domain (TLD) applicant, one of the most important questions you must answer is: how many registrations will my TLD have? This will be an essential element of your submission to ICANN, and if profit or even economic sustainability is your goal, getting the volume right is critical.

Although the market has never seen hundreds of new TLDs launched in rapid succession, it has experienced many new TLD launches, and each applicant should study these as they develop their volume estimates.

In 2000, when 47 applicants submitted bids to ICANN for all types of TLDs, there were already over 20 million .com domains in a total market that was less than 50 million names. Many applications relied on the belief that “all the good .com names had run out and that new TLDs were needed to serve market demand.”

Of these 47, only 7 applications were chosen and the first new TLDs were launched in 2001. A second round for “sponsored TLDs” was hosted in 2004, and 6 additional TLDs were launched. .EU and .ME have also launched. In all, more than 15 new TLDs have launched since 2001.

Well, here we are in 2010 and the industry has now grown to over 190 million domain names. If you think it was because of new TLDs, you’d be wrong.

COM, NET and ORG have grown by over 80 million names. ccTLDs, like China’s CN and Germany’s .DE, have grown about 45 million names in total. But new TLDs have added less than 15 million names. Indeed, from a market share standpoint, new TLDs have never comprised more than 7% of the market.

This shouldn’t be bad news for prospective new TLD applicants. .INFO, for example, launched in 2001 and now has nearly 6 million domains. And many of the other new TLDs are considered successful and sustainable. With over 13 million total registrations in a growing segment, new TLDs can be quite successful.

So while it may not be realistic to assume millions of registrations, what should you plan on?

First, look at the history: Afilias has supported more launches than any other provider, so we have more history. The .info, .mobi, .asia, and .me domains had enough time to successfully build demand among registrars and gain some awareness to the target market. They were able to obtain an initial Landrush of between 50,000 – 300,000 names within the first year. After 1-2 years, if you have the same determination and market penetration, you may be able to sustain daily new creates as much as 100-200 per day, which would put you roughly at a growth of 30,000-75,000 domains per year.

Second, consider pricing: To be competitive, you will need to price your TLD against others in the market. This July, .com will raise its wholesale price to $7.34 per year. But you should be aware that some gTLDs are offered as low as $1.99 in the market at retail pricing.

Third, leverage launch revenue: To generate revenue early, you should consider revenue streams such as premium name auctions or RFP bids. These often provide higher revenue per name and may result in the creation of flagship Web sites that can drive branding, awareness and usage. In addition, if your TLD is a high-margin specialty domain or it offers add-on services, those advantages may provide more revenue.

Fourth, address channel needs: As more and more new TLDs come on the market, obtaining shelf space at registrars will be a critical challenge. The fastest, cheapest and most effective way to gain access is to use a registry provider that registrars are already connected to. While no provider can guarantee distribution, it stands to reason that existing connections will deliver results faster than having to start from scratch.

Of course, community or corporate TLDs are not as subject to these types of market conditions. But even these applicants will find it easier to leave the technology to experienced providers so they can focus on their unique community and corporate needs.

As you consider your own TLD, carefully consider the above points and tap the experience of those who have gone before. Few clients we have talked with have the special registry and DNS knowledge needed to address the complex needs of today’s TLDs—and even fewer already have relationships with registrars. As the applicant, you should focus on what makes your TLD unique and valuable, not on the nuts and bolts of registry systems, DNS and channel connections. Experience matters—seek a partner that can help you steer clear of the potholes.

Afilias is a Gold Sponsor the 38th ICANN Meeting in Brussels.  We will be sponsoring the DNSSEC Workshop on Wednesday from 9:00 - 13:30 in the Silver room on Level 1.  Afilias is also a sponsor of the ccNSO lunch on Tuesday, June 22nd.

Due to the many groups that did not attend this month's ICANN meeting in Nairobi for various reasons,  I don't think anyone expected the meeting to result in major decisions on new TLD issues we've been debating for over a year.  However, that is exactly what happened.

The proposed Expressions of Interest (EOI)
Going into the ICANN meeting, many expected the EOI process to be approved. The EOI would have required interested new TLD applicants to confirm their interest and place a $55,000 deposit against their new TLD application. Over the course of the meeting, however, a number of groups expressed concerns that the EOI would in effect be a pre-application process that would preclude future applicants from getting a shot at their TLD. After listening to feedback from the community, the ICANN Board dismissed the EOI process in favor of just proceeding with the round.

From Afilias' perspective, we think this decision was wise because it will accelerat the nTLD launch process by re-focusing the community on resolving the remaining issues instead of debating an entirely new process.  Further, ICANN can now work on increasing awareness of the opportunity so that when the round does open,  more entities will feel informed and ready to commit.

Vertical Integration
The ICANN board elected to maintain today's registry and registrar separation requirements that prevent a registry from acting as a registrar in a TLD that it also operates. This separation policy has historically provided important consumer protections and safeguarded the current fair marketplace.  Rather than rushing into a significant rules change, ICANN is following its "bottoms up" mandate by allowing the GNSO PDP process to complete.  The PDP process allows for full discussion of the pros and cons and generally enables community consensus to become clear.

Trademark protection
Most of the trademark issues either have been resolved or are close to resolution. Key intellectual property protection mechanisms will include: a centralized trademark clearinghouse which will validate trademarks and provide data for pre-launch or sunrise services; a uniform rapid suspension (URS) process that will enable trademark holders to quickly suspend any infringing registrations; and guidelines for addressing malicious conduct.  

Security 
The concept of a High Security Zone (HSZ) is being refined through the work of an advisory group. In effect, this would give HSZ registries a trust seal if they adhere to higher security standards for operating their registry and potentially compel registrars to verify registrant data.  In addition to this security discussion, various zone file access models are currently being reviewed.

Root Zone Scaling 
ICANN completed the Root Zone Scaling study and expects reports from the SSAC and RSSAC soon. In addition, a model is being developed to assess the impact on the Root of varying numbers of new TLDs over various time frames.

Economic impact 
ICANN has retained various consultants to assess the economic implications of a new TLD round, including defensive registration costs and assessments of the overall economic benefit to the Internet community. Final findings on this issue have yet to be issued.

new TLD character format
ICANN has been working for some time on introducing internationalized domain names at the top-level (otherwise known as IDN.IDN). ICANN is moving cautiously here to avoid any issues with variants that might cause collisions in the DNS.  While the applications for countries are on a separate fast-track process, new TLD applicants may also apply for their new TLD in an IDN string, or the IDN equivalent(s) to the ASCII string they are proposing. The burden will be on the applicant to document any variant issues and address them before delegation will be permitted.  As part of the new TLD process, ICANN will also consider 2-character TLDs in certain circumstances (relaxing the historical 3 character minimum restriction), but one character TLDs will be prohibited for the time being.

We can expect a lot of work to be done between now and the next ICANN meeting in Brussels this June on the subject of new TLDs.  The key take away, however, is that the process is nearly final.  Therefore, if you are going to apply for a new TLD, now is the time to formalize your plans and select your registry and DNS provider.

Afilias is a sponsor of ICANN no. 37

.INFO remains the market leader for new TLDs

DUBLIN, IRELAND - December 21, 2009 - Afilias, a global provider of internet infrastructure services and registry for the .INFO domain, has released the 2009 .INFO Annual Report illustrating .INFO's rise over the past eight years.  .INFO currently ranks seventh among all 270+ Top Level Domains (TLD's) worldwide and first among all new TLDs introduced on the Internet since 2001.  

 "After 8 years of concerted effort, .INFO is the undisputed most successful new TLD launched to date, accounting for over 40 percent of all new TLD registrations," said Roland LaPlante, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for Afilias ".INFO's experience provides many lessons applicable to the launch of new domains to come.  As an organization, Afilias has been able to use our experiences with .INFO as a benchmark for successfully gaining approval for, launching and growing more new TLDs than any other registry services provider."

.INFO, which now boasts over 5.3 million domains, continues to deliver on its mission to provide Internet users with a fast and intuitive way to access information online, with over 70 percent of domains resolving to real content and over 1 million unique Web sites. The top regions for registrations continue to be North America (61 percent) and Europe (23 percent).  However, Asian markets are growing and the region now holds 11 percent of .INFO registrations.

.INFO also continues to gain penetration into the registrar marketplace which offers domain names for retail sale.  .INFO is now available with over 330 distributors that support over 90% of sales volume in the worldwide domain name industry. 

In addition to statistics on the health of .INFO, the report also addresses important news and initiatives that .INFO has undertaken over the last year. This includes .INFO's efforts to reach new audiences via Facebook, Twitter, the recent .INFO Awards and the release of an interactive .INFO domain directory at www.info.info/directory .  The report also highlights Afilias' continued efforts and accomplishments at keeping the .INFO domain space and Internet users secure through its Domain Anti-Abuse Policy and supporting initiatives.

".INFO's market leadership has been driven by a combination of its value as an intuitive string with broad appeal, near universal registrar support, effective registry management, reliable technology, and an experienced team with a track record of success in the ICANN community," added LaPlante.

The full 2009 Annual report is available online at http://www.info.info/webfm_send/99.

About .INFO

.INFO was the first generic, unrestricted TLD to be launched since .com. Registrations in .INFO first became available in 2001. Since then, .INFO has grown to become the fourth largest gTLD in the world with over 5 million registrations. .INFO websites have a large international audience that is looking for information on every topic from blogs to businesses. Domains are currently available in ten IDN scripts.  For more information please visit http://www.info.info/ 

About Afilias

Afilias is a global provider of Internet infrastructure services that connect people to their data. Afilias' reliable, secure, scalable, and globally available technology supports a wide range of applications including Internet domain registry services, Managed DNS, and services in the RFID and supply chain market with its Afilias Discovery Services. For more information on Afilias please visit http://www.afilias.info/.

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Afilias is a sponsor of the 4th Future of the Internet Conference which presents the innovations and challenges that will effect the future of the Internet.  The conference is organized by CABASE and ICANN.