For fresh TLD firms, ball finally gets rolling

Applicant talks revenue and jobs — two things mostly missing from fresh TLD firms so far.

Finally.

Following years and years of false starts, it looks like the business engine behind fresh top level domains is starting to fire up.

That’s certainly the case with the only publicly traded pure-play fresh top level domain firm: Top Level Domain Holdings Inc. (TLDH).

The firm put out a press release late yesterday explaining what it thinks will happen over the coming year and a half:

* If ICANN follows its current timeline, it expects its 17 uncontested gTLD strings and the 5 uncontested client gTLD string to start producing revenue in 2013.

* The balance of names will become revenue producing in the first half of 2014.

* With this in mind, TLDH has commenced discussions with registrars, premium name specialists, and secondary market platforms for distribution of these gTLD names.

* It is working with competitors that have applied for the same strings to work out a private auction mechanism. It thinks these auctions will happen in the second half of 2013.

* Following the TLD ordering lottery in December, TLDH will start hiring for its operational team.

I’m not sure if other TLD applicants have the same timeline, but since TLDH is the only publicly traded pure play applicant, this is the only public peek we’re likely to get.