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Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and others scramble for new top-level domains like .app, .xbox, and .book
.app is one of the most contested top-level domains, with 13 applicants including Google and Amazon. Microsoft has applied for a total of 11 domain names, including .Xbox, .Hotmail, and .Windows. Apple appears to have only applied for one, just .Apple, and Google has applied for over 100 domain names including: .Android, .Dog, and .Blog.
We already knew some applications: Google announced recently it had applied for .docs, .youtube, and .lol, and British non-profit Nominet has applied for .cymru and .wales. Organizations will have to pay a minimum of $25,000 per year to keep the domain, and not all applications will succeed. 231 domain names have more than one application, and 731 applications overlap.
Applications will be dealt with 500 at a time, and more than 1,000 could be live within a year. The first of the new top-level domains will go live in the first quarter of 2013. ICANN says “this is a historic day for the internet and for the more than 2 million people that depend on it, because the internet is about to change, forever.”
