Frank Schilling’s new gTLD play Uniregistry becomes ICANN accredited and launches their retail registrar, Uniregistrar.

Uniregistrar completed their accreditation earlier this month. The name and site clearly identifies it as being associated with Frank Schilling’s Uniregistry that is applying for 54 new gTLDs.

The new site states:

Uniregistrar is a new ICANN accredited registrar designed to let you create domain names in the new top level domain extensions offered by Uniregistry.

Beginning in 2014 anyone will be able to create and manage their domain names using the simple site we plan to create here. The names offered by Uniregistrar will be shorter, clearer, easier to use and manage than the .com .net or .org names you know from the past.

We think you’re going to like the names we have to offer and we look forward to serving you. Check back with us later this year as a new site gets created at this location.

With this move the registry operator and new gTLD applicant is one of the first of the new entries that is making it clear that they will be operating their own retail registrar.

“Vertical Integration” (registries that own/operate registrars) has been a long and ongoing issue at ICANN, but in late 2010 the board decided that registries are indeed allowed to own registrars. One of the other applicants, Demand Media, recently increased the reach of their retail channel recently by buying the retail registrar name.com.

The following is a guest post by Joe Alagna, GM North American Markets at CentralNic. He attended yesterday’s prioritization draw at the LAX Hilton in Los Angeles. His summary outlines the results of the lottery draw along with some important information regarding the timeline of the new gTLD process.

Yesterday, ICANN held the prioritization draw and assigned priority to each new gTLD application . The first thing I noticed as I started my day is Uniregistry’s Santa Claus milling around the hotel and wishing applicants a Merry (dot).Christmas. I think he really added to the event; it was appropriate for the season.

The event was well attended. All the largest applicants were present and interested in the drawing. We saw Donuts, Google, Uniregistry, TLDH, and others; about 300 – 400 people. The mood in the drawing room was all about “focus”. You could see that applicants were taking this seriously and that they wanted to know where they’ll stand over the next year.

The drawing began with a “glitch”. The auctioneer’s microphone stopped working and, apparently, the electricity to their systems was halted for a while. Everyone waited patiently and eventually things got started.

All applications were assigned priority numbers but the applications where drawing tickets were not purchased, were drawn last. There were 108 IDNs with tickets and 1,658 Non-IDNs with tickets to draw. So the drawing didn’t end until about 10:30 PM. The drawing proceeded in four stages:

• IDNs with tickets
• Non-IDNs with tickets
• IDNs without tickets
• Non-IDNs without tickets

The first ticket drawn was an IDN for Catholic Church in Chinese. The IDN drawing went quick. The last ticket drawn out of those that actually purchased tickets was a Donuts string, .finance. Some applicants, including Google, did not purchase tickets [for all of their applications] as part of a strategy, seemingly because they did not want priority for certain strings.

After a quiet start, where everyone listened and focused intently on what strings were being drawn, ICANN’s new gTLD Director, Christine Willett, announced that it would be OK to cheer if your string was picked. That gave the room some permission to have fun and cheering occurred but it didn’t stop the fact that there were a lot of strings to pick. The die hards hung it out, but most people went to dinner and got the results online later.

People who had uncontested strings were especially happy to get low numbers because they could get their strings in the root much earlier. I was really happy with how this turned out. Most participants felt that the drawing was done thoughtfully and fairly.

If you are an applicant, here are my estimates of the best and worst case scenarios moving forward.

The applicant’s likely situation now:

• ICANN has stated that no contracts will occur before the April 2013 ICANN meeting.
• You have passed the Administrative Checks
• You have passed the DNS Stability test (all apps have passed)
• Hopefully, you have received no Early Warnings from ICANN’s Government Advisory Committee (GAC)
• Hopefully, you have no obvious String Similarity Issues, subject to ICANN’s evaluation which should be released very soon (a recent progress report said November 2012 ?)
• Hopefully you have no obvious Geographic Name Similarities, subject to ICANN’s evaluation which should be released very soon (a recent progress report said November 2012)

Best case scenarios moving forward

• In Feb. or so, you pass Background Screening.
• In Feb. or so, you pass Registry Services Screening.
• You receive no Public Objections related to String Confusion, Legal Rights, Limited, Public Interest, or Community.
• Between March and August, you pass Financial Evaluation.
• Between March and August, you pass Technical & Operational Evaluation.
• Between March and August, you execute a contract with ICANN.
• No lawsuits are filed that extend the process.
• Between March and August, your gTLD is delegated to the root of the Internet and goes live.

Possible worst case scenarios

Worst case scenarios include the opposites of what you see above, which can either stop the application or add 12 to 18 months to the process of getting your new gTLD working. If you were able to get a low number, you could see something much closer to the Best Case Scenario and get your gTLD(s) working by the middle or end of 2013.

We have one more step in the process behind us. I wish you all the best moving forward!

• 1766 tickets were sold, 92% of applications (1920 total)
• First draw is for IDN applicants (108 out of 116 applications purchased tickets)
• Second draw for non-IDN applicants
• Third draw for the remainder of applications that did not purchase a ticket (142)

1. Kiva Microfunds
2. Invenio
3. Wikimedia Foundation

The draw has not yet commenced, apparently due to a “power outage”. Official reason is a “glitch”. For a while it appears that the audio of one of the remote participants was audible through the stream.

And here’s where to watch the ICANN new gTLD lottery draw live today – either via the embedded stream below, or you can also watch it directly on Ustream or via Adobe Connect. The draw is expected to start at 4pm EST, 1pm PST which is 21:00 UTC.

Streaming live video by Ustream

Pinky Brand of Domain Diction released a mock movie trailer today for the new gTLDs. The prioritization draw takes place today.

[via InternetNews.me]

ICANN has opened their ticket sales for the lottery for new TLD applicants earlier today. Ticket sales end on December 17th at 11am PST.

Due to the lottery laws in California, the tickets have to purchased for $100 in person. Originally ICANN had proposed a digital archery system, where applicants would provide a target time and whoever clicked a link closest to their target time would be processed first, but decided to proceed with a lottery instead due to protest from the community. You can review the full ICANN rules for the lottery draw here.

The picture shown above shows the lottery ticket for Uniregistry‘s .CHRISTMAS application and was posted by Brett Fausett on Twitter.

The applicant who recently launched their preregistration and information site about .AUTO, also launched a site for their application for .FOOD. There are two other applicants for the same TLD.

And in order to avoid having to report the trickle of the other releases, here are some of the other sites for this applicant’s TLDs, which are not yet fully launched as the company informs us, since the content is not complete yet. The active sites have “over a million pages worth of content” a company spokesperson told DNN.

• sucksdomainia.com
• corpdomainia.com
• sportdomainia.com
• citydomainia.com
• techdomainia.com

Their main site at Domainia.com also allow pre-registrations for most of the TLDs applications.

See the press release after the jump.
(more…)

Just in time for Black Friday, Frank Schilling’s Registry company, Uniregistry, has launched a site for their application for the .Blackfriday TLD. Uniregistry is the sole applicant for this TLD.

The site says about the purpose of the .blackfriday TLD:

.blackfriday will become the recognized label for websites with worthwhile deals and specials on this renowned shopping day. Internet users and retailers will benefit from an online hub for Black Friday information, ads, and deals. It will open up opportunities for creative marketing and unique shopping experiences that will make this day even more legendary.

Businesses that set up shop on the .blackfriday domain will capture the attention of shoppers and get more out of the day. When every shopping moment counts, consumers will jump at this opportunity to quickly identify the worthy online shopping destinations on Black Friday.

As brick-and-mortar stores and online retailers look for new ways to showcase themselves online, .blackfriday will become an important part of their marketing toolkit to fully capitalize on this opportunity that only comes once a year.

As for information on pricing the company writes the following:

.BLACKFRIDAY will be a specialty gTLD, with a flat pricing structure and fixed renewal costs, with no material price increases for the first five years. This moderately priced namespace is designed to offer registrants an attractive, competitive registration alternative or complement to existing registratiaons for the purpose of specialized content.

[via The Domains]

Are you confused by the new TLDs? Don’t worry, this video will sort it all out for you.

The was already posted in July of this year. For the full info see the creator’s post at http://depraved.new.world.of.internet.domains.scares.me/ .

[Hat tip to Daniel Eisenhut of EuroDNS]

Dot Auto, LLC, one of the four applicants for the .AUTO gTLD (the other ones are Donuts, Fegistry, LLC and Uniregistry) has started their marketing for a potential launch of the gTLD, before they even know any results of the evaluation phase. The company launched .autoDOMAINIA, a “pre-registration and awareness solution”.

The press release tries to highlight why this applicant sees itself more qualified than the other applicants for this TLD:

Dot Auto LLC is the ONLY applicant to apply for an auto-related TLD that is also an active and valid participant in the automotive industry. Through the creation of autoDOMAINIA, and backed by parent company, Automotix, an authority in the automotive industry, Dot Auto LLC is committed to educating its client base about the benefits of having a .AUTO domain extension while creating awareness among automotive businesses worldwide, and maximizing pre-registration for the auto professional or enthusiast.

See the full press release after the jump.

(more…)