BRS Media announced recently that it has submitted an application for the new top-level domain .RADIO to ICANN’S New gTLD program.
You can read the press release after the jump:
“BRS Media Inc., a diverse and growing media e-commerce firm that helps traditional and interactive media companies build and brand on the power of the Web, today announced that earlier this week it submitted an extensive, comprehensive and detailed application for the New Top-Level Domain .RADIO to ICANN’s New gTLD program.
BRS Media pioneered Industry Specific Domains, launching ‘multimedia’ based TLDs .FM & .AM over 15 years ago, and has increasingly attracted premier social media ventures, streaming entrepreneurs and traditional broadcasters. As the first domain registry to introduce a top-level domain to a targeted Industry, the company is well positioned and understands how to manage, operate and market, a new Top-Level-Domain name for a diverse On Air and Online Radio community.
“We look forward to moving ahead into the next phase of .RADIO. We are ecstatic and thrilled to have the opportunity to establish a new Top-Level-Domain, and envision great possibilities in creativity and innovation in the .RADIO namespace,” remarked George T. Bundy, Chairman & CEO of BRS Media Inc. “Our depth of experience and understanding in the market demonstrates our commitment to administer the .RADIO top-level domain in a professional, reliable, secure and all-inclusive way, while at the same time encouraging innovation and openness in the .RADIO domain space. Our current registrant list includes some of the most recognizable and innovative brands in streaming media and social entertainment today. Our comprehensive portfolio of clientele represents both the on-air and online media community.”
BRS Media announced, in early 2009 that Minds & Machines, a leading registry services provider for new Top-Level Domains (TLDs), will provide critical registry services for the .RADIO TLD. M+M has been delivering similar critical registry services for the .FM TLD, for over two years. Additional clients of Minds & Machines include .MIAMI, .KIWI [New Zealand], .NRW [North Rhine-Westphalia] and recently announced .LONDON New Top-Level Domains.
BRS Media will provide a brief presentation about existing Industry Specific Domains and .RADIO this weekend, at RAIN Summit West 2012 Conference on April 15, 2012, at the Las Vegas Hotel and Casino (formerly the Las Vegas Hilton). The Internet Radio Summit is a Co-Located Event of the NAB Show in Las Vegas NV, the World’s largest electronic media show.”
This is the third of a series of articles on new TLDs as a result of interviews with leading industry players. In this article we interview Richard Wein, general manager of the Austrian registry nic.at.
With the closing date for applications for new Top Level Domains delayed one week, there are soon to be a lot of nervous people out there waiting to see if their money and time was well spent in applying for a TLD. One of those is the Austrian registry nic.at, who submitted 11 TLD applications on behalf of clients, easily surpassing their goal of five.
While cities and regions have been quite happy to discuss their plans, special interests have overall been not quite so forward in saying if they will apply. And brand names have been very reticent with fears they will alert their competitors to their intentions, to apply or not.
Brand names such as Google, Unicef, Hitachi, Canon and the Australian ISP iinet have been among the few to say they will apply, while Pepsi and Facebook have said they will not be. But expect a flurry of announcements now that applications are closed.
One of those involved in assisting applicants, and providing registry services, has been the Austrian registry nic.at that developed a package they snappily named Registry In A Box to help would be applicants.
Overall Wein says they were quite successful signing up 11 TLD applicants – .WIEN, .TIROL, .BERLIN, .HAMBURG, .VERSICHERUNG, .REISE, .IMMO, .VOTING, .BRUSSELS, .GMBH and .VLAANDEREN along with one yet unnamed brand name. With an initial target of five, nic.at has exceeded their target.
Nic.at’s general manager Richard Wein believes there will be between 1500 and 2200 TLD applications, somewhat lower than others Domain News has spoken to, but took a similar line on the number he expects to come from brand names, predicting they will be responsible for around 70 per cent of applications.
But Wein did agree business was slow to wake up to the possibilities of TLDs, saying “many big enterprises and brands woke up to the possibilities quite late and realising that the application window will be the last, possibly for quite a few years.”
For successful applicants though, the non-brand TLDs face a significant hurdle. If there are more than 800 successful TLD applicants coming to the market within 12 months or so of one another, and an average registrar nowadays offering up to 50 existing TLDs, Wein sees it as a significant problem for new TLDs to get access to registrants.
“The only way for the new registry operators to get their TLDs ‘to market’ is for them to offer registrars an easy technical way of getting the TLD to market, which would mean no human interaction, as well as sales support and of course an attractive revenue.”
The process for applying for TLDs worked well for nic.at.
“I think it was quite OK,” Wein said. “Of course there is room for improvement, but it is very hard to try to please everyone. That the TAS broke down the last day was very embarrassing and shows one time more that ICANN don’t have the core competency for developing electronic solutions.”
Wein does not think there will be many novel ideas for the use of TLDs from what he has seen. The only one he is aware of is .HIV, but he is unsure as to whether the idea will work. Besides, the TLD .VOTING will create a new namespace for votings and surveys, offering additional tools to their domains Apart from this, all of the applicants Wein has dealt with will run their TLD on a fairly typical registry model.
Wein though has been quite disappointed in how brands have approached the concept of new TLDs, saying they “have no idea how to use this new thing.”
ICM Registry, the registry operator for .XXX, has submitted applications to ICANN for three additional adult entertainment-related top level domains — .SEX, .PORN and .ADULT. While ICM Registry is not guaranteed the TLDs, they are undoubtedly attempting to ward off competition in the adult TLD space.
ICM Registry has worked for more than a decade to create .XXX which has become a globally accepted and responsible place for adult online entertainment to thrive in an easily recognizable self-regulated environment,” said Stuart Lawley, CEO of ICM Registry. “We are dedicated to protecting interested stakeholders by providing the latest technology and the best domains which is why we created the .XXX TLD. We chose to submit applications for additional TLDs to spare .XXX participants from needless expense and to ensure the TLDs will be run in the same trustworthy and appropriate ways that .XXX is today.”
If ICANN awards ICM Registry these new TLDs, the company is offering an unprecedented “grandfathering” clause and will automatically reserve matching names at no cost for those who already have .XXX domains. .XXX registrants can chose to do nothing and the matching names will never be released under the new TLD suffixes. If however, registrants choose to register the new names for use, there will be a nominal fee. This means .XXX domain holders can potentially triple their exposure and value of their holdings, while brand and trademark holders who own .XXX domain names are automatically protected and will not have to register for the new domain names.
Applications do not come cheap and ICM Registry has spent $2 million in applying for these additional TLDs.
“ICM Registry has invested just under two million dollars in these applications to support our existing customers,” said Lawley. “By offering the grandfathering clause at no charge, we are demonstrating our commitment to our adult entertainment community and will not collect fees for this from anyone who already has purchased a .XXX domain by the appropriate cut-off date.”
In December 2011, ICM Registry launched the world’s only internet TLD dedicated to adult entertainment. In doing so, ICM Registry adopted industry-leading best practices to create a safe place for visitors to interact with online adult entertainment. These practices include daily malware scanning of all .XXX sites by McAfee. The .XXX TLD has more than 215,000 domains under management. ICM Registry also created a fair and easy way for individuals and trademarked brands to protect against undesired use of their names with a rapid takedown and dispute process.
Each of the new TLD applications were submitted under separate, wholly-owned subsidiaries of ICM Registry LLC: ICM Registry SX LLC, ICM Registry PN LLC, and ICM Registry AD LLC.
