We reached out to Demand Media, Inc. to get some more information on some of the new gTLD’s they applied for.
Leyla Farah was nice enough to respond on behalf of Demand.
Here is the email interview:
Q: There are some applications made by Demand that strike me as quite strange.
Can anyone chat about the thoughts and business plan behind the new gTLD’s Demand applied for like:
.airforce
.navy
Are you doing these on behalf of the armed forces or with the consent of them?
If not don’t you expect objection to them from the armed forces?
Likewise the new gTLD’s applications for:
.Republican
.Democrat
Don’t you expect those political; parties to object to the applications?
A:
“””Our entire portfolio of gTLD applications were all grounded in the same data-driven process.
“We analyzed all of the data we could find to determine which words people were consistently using to navigate through their digital world.”
“Many of the most interesting words capture a universal sense of personal or professional identity, or are words that have come to define large and important ideas around the world. ”
“Ideas like “democrat” and “army” and “actor” represent global, vibrant communities that naturally gravitate to one another using shared language and experiences. ”
They are universal ideas that aren’t limited to any single entity like an armed service or political party in a single country — in fact they are often used generically (e.g., “Arnie’s Army” etc.). ”
“Because of the universality and generic nature of of these words, there really aren’t grounds for objection by anyone.”
“More information about the mission for these applications can be seen in question 18 of each of our ICANN new gTLD applications here:”
“I’ve also attached a document to this email that combines all of our Question 18 answers for your convenience.”
Q.
What are the thoughts behind
.Kaufen
.Moda
.Moto
.Ninja
Finally I understand what a NINJA is, but whom do you expect to want to register, do business under or have the email address for .NINJA?
A:
“Again, our strategy was to use data to unearth hidden gems.”
“We identified words that spoke to universal themes of identity, or words that have come to define a universal understanding of a concept. ”
“Strings like “ninja” and “moto” are a reflection of the evolution of language and culture itself.”
“These days, individuals with exceptional skills are commonly referred to as “ninjas” – no matter where they happen to live or what language they happen to speak.”
“The word “moto” captures the global phenomenon of motosport culture in a single word that transcends both language and geography.”
“Our data told us these types of strings represent some of the best available business opportunities precisely because they reach the broadest communities in the real world.”
“Importantly, the nature of the data also signaled to us that these kinds of names were unlikely to be spotted by others in the ICANN process.”
“Our website at dotninja.co gives some fun examples of that particular string in use.”
According to their application, Demand Media says about the extension .Kaufen”
“It is a generic and broadly used German word that holds particular affinity for people and organizations engaged in online commerce.:”
“Global in scope, today a passionate group of millions of consumers and hundreds of thousands of organizations identify with this word.”
“The mission and purpose of the .kaufen TLD is to establish an easily recognized and accessible namespace for the German-speaking portion of this large and dynamic group.”
Too much data and no common sense. There is no commercial value in extensions like .ninja. Who on earth is at the wheel?
Short demand media stock!
ICANN to Allow Switching to String Variations
Based on the nonsense “revealed” ICANN now enters the phase where the Public Benefits by writing letters to Obama, Romney, the Congress, etc.
AirForce can be switched to .FORCE and sell AIR.FORCE as one example
.FORCE then has rights to…
.FORC
.FOR
.FO
.F
…with the new Auto-Completion DNS features recently released
Need, want, desire…..I don’t think they ever asked “John Jones” what he thinks.
I don’t even understand the answers but that may be my short comings.
.short .areyoukiddingme
a dot ninja nobody care but what can we think of a dot islam …
Progress means cuting/ divize people like new gtlds depending on sex orientation, taste, opinions, politics
so what is the difference with a dictatorship ??
lol lol lol
what a bunch of retards
this is priceless
i am with snoopy
‘Short demand media stock!’
Nice of Donuts to leave them .green
In this case it’s best to plead the 5th.
just for curiosity, if the applicants for a new TLD are (e.g.) five, the four that will not have that TLD assigned, will be refunded of the $180k paid, or these amounts are lost forever?
Applicants have been left .OUT of the Reveal ???
Some of the most lucrative new Top Level Domains do not seem to show up in the lists being passed around.
People close to ICANN claim they are trying to get things .ORGanized
Super
There are times in this process that applicants can withdraw their application and get a partial refund.
If an applicant goes through the auction process without dropping out and withdrawing their application and simply losses the auction they would not get a refund but that would be a strategic mistake.
100% refund offer is gone.
found a buyer by accident when browsing around http://transitis.ca/index.php?page=transit
“The Transit Ninjas are here to tell Edmontonians about the benefits of transit.”
.wrong
The Republicans came after me years ago for a domain I own.
He’s wrong. They do own a trademark.
Those answers are all obviously complete .bullshit
Are we to believe they are really that arrogant as to not expect any objections to those strings? Seriously?
Aside from the obvious objections from the US Government, both for the armed forces extensions and the political party strings… MOTOrola is going to have something to say, as are a few other ginormous corporations on the others.
…they may just be left with .ninja though 😉
and yes, shorting that stock seems like a wise move.
“There are times in this process that applicants can withdraw their application…”
Did all the famous domainers withdraw already ?
.TRAFFIC ?
Cayman.Islands ?
Mali.BLUE ?
Big.RED ?
Forrest.GUM.p ?
I think these arses with too much cash who are buying up their ‘strings’ LOL are all clearly snorting bath salts
loving this car crash
After reading this article it has become very clear that many of these applicants have more dollars than sense.
Brad
There’s NO way they’re going to be allowed to keep some of those names. This is embarassing for them and doesn’t help the industry’s “cybersquatting” image at all.
I want to register Lawyer.ninja!
Karen
Don’t you have a common law trademark on that one
))):
.lol
I think the military ones have potential if they are allowed to have them. How can the military object? It’s not like they’ve ever made a move on army.com etc… Furthermore .army doesn’t have to mean the US Army.
But this shinanegans about .ninja sounds like trying to sell a “brandable” only idea. It’s hard enough to sell 1 brandable .com but a registry full of them, I guess we’ll see.
Sure Ninja.com would be cool, but even 2 years ago if you had Ninja.com and put it up for auction for $100k do you think Demand would have bid on it?
well, now we all get to see how the mind of the registry wannabe domainer works. these tld’s are for one thing only: type-in traffic. anything else is a bonus.
marketing or no marketing. this is about unsavvy internet users, and typing errors. it’s about silly stuff that people type in the address bar.
somewhere right now someone is typing a .mil address and accidentally left off the .mil
if this tld were to be placed in the icann root guess who will get that errant traffic?
Wrong Mr. Naysayer, this is all about representing vibrant global communities.
All it takes is a little .MOTA and it all makes absolute perfect sense.
Really? Those are the best you could come up with from every word in every language?
I guess these were the choices of a committee.