Afilias: Could be 10 years ahead of another fresh TLD application round opens

Registry urges brands to get their act together.

With just forty days to go ahead of ICANN opens the application process for fresh top level domains, Afilias has a warning for brands: this opportunity could be once in a decade.

Here’s how it figures this: If you take one of ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom’s numbers for possible applications (4,000) and consider a delegation rate of 500 domains per year, along with other possible delays, it could be a decade.

Indeed, it could be a decade (if ever) that this opportunity comes up again. But this begs another question: if I apply for my .brand (or other TLD) today and these numbers are right, then I might be waiting around eight years or so for my .brand to be delegated. Ouch.

I personally suspect in this scenario that delegation will happen much faster, especially for .brands.

Of course there’s somewhat of a catch-22 here. By not announcing when the next round will be, ICANN has created artificial demand that will increase the number of brands that will apply for “just in case” reasons, thus making Afilias’ statement more likely. If ICANN guaranteed that this opportunity would come up again in two years, I suspect a lot of brands would hold off.

Regardless of how you run the numbers, if a .brand really wants a TLD in this round then it better get its act together.