Hi Will, My personal experience with ICANN tells me this: If you (like me) want a 2nd round to happen - and in this decade- then YOU have to start that movement. Because if none of us starts it then NOTHING will happen. I think latest in Morocco a group will have to form that beats the drum. The good thing is that THIS TIME we can count on some unlikely allies (which in the past tried to slow down everything): - The GAC: Brought up to speed by all the city managers who missed the band wagon and do not want to look stupid any more longer. None of the city TLD's has gained traction yet; but it's just a matter of time until you will see a full page TIME magazine advertisement sporting a city TLD based domain - and then all majors of cities that matter will run around like headless chicken - and eventually will start to lobby their GAC member. - The brand community: Once the first global brand starts to actively promote their brand gTLD the life for hundreds of brand managers will likely become hell on earth - their board will pelt them with curses and demand an instant catch up. The IP constituency and ANA (entities that constantly tried to bury the current round) will be forced by their own members to revert to active promoters for a 2nd round. In the last round most participants were closeted: Brands wanted to keep it calm, applicants for generics were afraid of copy cats, mostly just those serving a community like city TLD's or community applicants were really visible and advertised their string (and not even all of them did that). But this time I assume brands won't be ashamed to promote a 2nd round and certainly cities not! So to speed things up we could ask the 200 top brands and the 100 top cities to issue kind of an statement in this regard - to show the demand. We probably need a WG for the whole issue. To answer your question: The 2nd round could start as early as 2017/2018 with the first 2nd round TLD's being in the root THIS decade. And why not having this as goal: At least one 2nd round gTLD in the root this decade. Why not planting this notion into the head of different stakeholders - and maybe even the CEO? The biggest single problem of the 2nd round however will be demand: It will be way to high. I expect not less than a 5 figure amount of applications and we should have something in place that keeps the flood at bay. Alexander.berlin From: gnso-newgtld-dg-bounces@icann.org [mailto:gnso-newgtld-dg-bounces@icann.org] On Behalf Of Will Ellis Sent: Monday, September 08, 2014 12:34 PM To: steve.chan@icann.org Cc: gnso-newgtld-dg@icann.org Subject: Re: [Gnso-newgtld-dg] - Reminder: Submit Issues & Nominations for Group Chair(s) Hi Steve I am a new joiner to this group. I often get asked when will there be a round 2 of new gTLDs. I appreciate it will be too early to answer that question yet, but it would be helpful to understand the milestones this group needs to undertake in order to have a clearer picture on the timeline to round 2. Any assistance you can offer in this area would be greatly appreciated. Kind regards Will Will Ellis gTLD lead Nominet UK e will.ellis@nominet.org.uk <mailto:jo.golley@nominet.org.uk> t 01865 332211 m 07880 009899 <http://www.nominet.org.uk/> Nominet UK is a private limited company, registered in England and Wales. Registration number 3203859. Registered office: Minerva House, Edmund Halley Road, Oxford Science Park, Oxford, OX4 4DQ.
