ICANN Sydney, Day 2: In the “Yeah, right!” department, ICANN confirmed today that “first applications for new gTLDs were still expected for the beginning of 2010” with the last version of the “Applicant Guidebook” in December of 09.
“So you mean Santa will bring us new TLDs?”. The laughs that followed this comment from the audience at this morning ICANN session on new gTLDs by Kurt Pritz were bitter-sweet. Many of the participants have been here for so long and saw the timeline extended so many times that “the man with the bag” appears almost more realistic that the occurrence of a .Sport or a .Brand.
While ICANN anticipates 500 applications, the list of new gTLDs present at Sydney is already quite impressive: .Gay, .Food and .Radio are the most recent ones while the “dotCities” initiative just received two new supporters with Rome and even… Sydney, called for by the Australian Premier himself while he was welcoming delegates to the 35th meeting.
ICANN said that “probably 70% of the guide book were correct at this time but there is still a lot of red ink”. The 175 people that all wear a t-shirt or a pin advocating that (some) new gTLDs could happen now don’t seem to care!
Chief Editor