Demand Media announced this morning that it is pursuing some new generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs). Specifically, the company says it has selected names in categories connected to ecommerce, personal & professional identity, education, entertainment, internet life, sports, small business and social media.
“We believe the new gTLD program represents a significant milestone in the evolution of the Internet,” said CEO Richard Rosenblatt. “In addition to delivering more choice for consumers and business owners, we expect the domain name expansion to spur innovation and new business opportunities.”
The company has applied for 26 names on a stand-alone basis. It has also partnered with Donuts Inc. so that it may acquire rights in certain gTLDs, after they’re awarded to Donuts by ICANN.
Demand Media tells WebProNews it will not comment further on specifics.
We did speak with Donuts Vice President of Communications and Industry Relations, Mason Cole, who told us, “If you look at the existing namespace, there are only 22 existing generic told level domains. There are hundreds of country coded TLDs, like .jp for Japan, and so on, but in the generic name space, it’s awfully constrained. It’s very hard to find a good Internet identity that a company, or a person, or a family, or a new product, or a cause of some kind can use to identify themselves and promote their interests on the web.”
Watch the video for the full interview:
Donuts CEO, Paul Stahura said, “As previously announced, Donuts has raised more than $100 million in funding to pursue the new gTLD opportunity. Donuts’ strategic arrangement with Demand Media takes us well beyond that $100 million funding and enables both companies to utilize additional resources, expertise and talent to generate the most value and benefits for customers from this historic opportunity.”
Last week, Donuts announced that it selected Demand Media Europe (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Demand Media), as its registry services provider.