New gTLDs are the Seoul of ...

ICANN's 36th international meeting officially gets underway today (Monday October 26), but the weekend has already involved a lot of work for several members of the ICANN community.

The GNSO Council on which I sit, for example, had two full days of meetings on Saturday and Sunday. And although we've been very involved in our restructuring process and upcoming Chair elections, there seems to be a common thread throughout all the community discussions: new gTLDs.

Walk into the main conference area, and almost all booths are about new gTLDs: consultancy or technical services, new gTLD projects… Open up the bags that are given to each person who registers for the meeting and you'll find a lot of new gTLD oriented sales blurb. Without a doubt, a thriving industry has sprung up around new gTLDs.

But how long will that new industry last if ICANN is unable to give potential applicants a clear timetable for the start of the application process? Latest word is that there will be a 4th version of the Draft Applicant Guidebook (DAG). Kurt Pritz, ICANN's Senior Vice President, Services, told me that although the 3rd version that was published recently is almost complete, there is enough work remaining to warrant another draft before the final version comes out.

That could be in Q1 2010, meaning that the first round of applications could still be launched before the end of 2010.