I had the privilege to speak at the CENTR General Assembly in Pisa, to discuss the marketplace and how new TLDs can be assimilated into the marketplace via the registrar channel.
https://www.centr.org/main/lib/g1/4622-CTR.html
It may prove to be like taking a small sip from a fireplug with the number of applications coming, so potential applicants would benefit from taking a look at the presentation.
The former Yugoslovia ccTLD has been designated for a 3 year sunset process, transitioning to .RS (Serbia) and .ME (Montenegro).  Following in the footsteps of the ccTLDs that have some generic appeal beyond simply that of the country (.TV, .MD, .FM/.AM, .CD, etc), there was some competition for the registry services with this recently introduced ccTLD.
According to the NIC, A bid was tendered, with three primary parties vying for this opportunity.Â
According to a Dutch Telecom Paper (googled – non/pw version), Afilias and GoDaddy have partnered with Montenegro’s MeNet and are the top candidate for managing the registry of .me (Montenegro’s ccTLD). They had been competing with Neustar and a consortium of companiesand VeriSign’s Registry Services. The government will now negotiate the final terms of the contract with the lead candidate.
All strong candidates with very capable registry services. It must have been a true challenge for the parties having to determine the most favorable bidder.
This interview recently posted at the French domain industry website Domaine.Info for a segment that was taped at the Sao Paulo, Brazil ICANN meeting.
I am joined by Phil Corwin, Roger Collins, and Tom Barrett in discussion of the Domain Marketplace and some of the current terms and trends in the industry, following a very well attended marketplace panel discussion at the ICANN meeting.
I had the opportunity to be interviewed by Victor Pitts of Moniker for the Domain Masters radio show on Webmaster Radio again, and spoke on the ICANN meetings in Los Angeles with a recap.
ICANN is establishing a forum on allocation methods for single character ([A-Z0-9]) second level registrations in the gTLDs.
There are 16 gTLDs that have single character registrations restricted, of which .COM, .NET, and .ORG have only six registrations within that predated the rule to establish the restriction (q.com – Qwest, x.com – Paypal, z.com – Nissan, i.net – Oxide, q.net – Q Networks, and x.org – X Windows open source).
 The net result of the current process could allow for a thundering herd of registrants clamoring for these domain registrations, or there could be an auction process introduced to accomodate the process, should there be a change from the status quo.
