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And if your application is successful, "that's where the work begins," observed Mr Hnarakis. Registry and support services will cost between $50,000 and $250,000, he said.
The first round of applications will open on January 12, 2012 and run for 90 days. The resulting gTLDs are expected to go live in 2013. According to Mr Hnarakis, it is likely that the second wave of applications won't occur until 2014 or 2015.
"Today's decision will usher in a new Internet age," said Peter Dengate Thrush, chairman of ICANN's board of directors. "We have provided a platform for the next generation of creativity and inspiration."
"We need to find a way of rebuilding trust for operators," said Mr Hnarakis, suggesting that companies may push the line that '.brand' TLDs are more trustworthy. But he concedes that this could cause some confusion for customers of smaller players in particular markets (eg, banking).
He expects that "the search engines will recognise a name that is a .brand" prioritising it in the results. For example, if someone searches for Ford Mustang, then a result in the subdomain mustang.ford should rate very highly as it is very likely to be the site that the user was looking for.
It's not all rosy - please read on.
