Twitter Plans To Apply For gTLD

Which sounds better: .Twitter or .Tweet? This is a question Twitter will have to answer before the second round of gTLD applications begins.
Trademarks & Brands Online recently reported that social media giant, Twitter, is planning on applying for their own unique web address ending in the second round of new generic top-level domains (gTLDs).
The International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) manages the application and release of unique web address endings as an alternative to .com or .net, the first round of which offered gTLDs like .club, .xyz and .ninja. Due to the program’s immense success we will most likely see a wave of businesses and organizations jumping aboard the new domain train.
For everything you need to know about gTLDs, a unique alternative to .com – read this blog post.
Stephen Coates, trademark counsel at Twitter, told Trademarks & Brands Online that he isn’t sure what he would put on the right side of the dot, revealing: “I would think that .Twitter would be at the top of our list”.
Many major companies didn’t think to apply for the first round of applications to ICANN that were announced in June 2012. Twitter stands as one of many businesses to take the idea seriously.
Along with branding and reputation bonuses, Coates touched on the matter of security, saying, “Some of the more interesting things gTLDs will offer are, number one, security. The only way you can maintain control of all servers and a domain name experience is by operating your own gTLD. Because at some point there is going be a server you can’t control.”.
New domains have been used for brand protection before. Famously Taylor Swift registered the TaylorSwift.porn domain name before someone could use it against her. And sometimes gTLDs are just used for fun: Taco Bell had some fun with their new domain ta.co. Clever right?
http://youtu.be/q6Fzt-kRd4M
Google’s newly created parent company, Alphabet, recently made headlines by registering abc.xyz. Other brands are quickly discovering how creative domains can raise awareness for an individual brand, and sales of .xyz domain names continue to spike following this purchase.
Trademarks & Brands Online asked Coates about a timeline for when Twitter users could expect to see a .Twitter or .Tweet domain. His response was: “A second round could open up as early as 2018, but I’m not optimistic given how slowly the community works.”. ICANN is notorious for running slowly, but with the attention the gTLD options are getting we can expect great things.

Perhaps soon we can expect to see all of our favorite brands with their own domain extension? A .Facebook would be nice, or maybe a .Netflix? We will have to wait for word from ICANN to know for certain, but until then we can all have fun creating fun gTLD versions of our own websites.

To check the availabilty of your own gTLD visit Midphase.com