ICANN advertises new gTLDs on Twitter

ICANN has really ramped up the social marketing of its new generic top-level domain program for the last few weeks, and today it started plugging new gTLDs with some Twitter advertising.

It’s bought some “Promoted Tweets”, which means some Twitter users will see a designated ICANN tweet even if they don’t already follow ICANN.

Here’s an example captured by @andrewhennigan.

The Promoted Tweets ad service is bid-based and priced on a cost-per-engagement basis, so advertisers only pay when they get a reply, retweet, follow, etc. Reportedly, there’s a $15,000 minimum commitment.

Judging by Twitter noise today, I’m guessing that today ICANN is promoting its new gTLDs Twitter chat, which is happening at 1600 UTC tomorrow with the hashtag #newgtlds.

Five amusing Twitter accounts to follow

One of the good things about Twitter is that there’s no Whois (yet), which makes it fertile ground for pseudonymous humor.

Here are the five bogus domain humor tweeters I find amusing.

No, before you ask, none of these are me. I’ve only written one thing under a fake identity since I launched DI.

@BobRecstrum

Bob tweets in-character as a “heightened” version of ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom.

He’s basically a globe-trotting narcissist hippy with delusions of grandeur and an obsessive penchant for taking panoramic iPhone photos of himself shaking hands with world leaders.

His avatar, inexplicably, is Sam Rockwell as Zaphod Beeblebrox.

@thereforeICANN

This account, which usually offers a satirical view of ICANN proceedings, typically peaks during its thrice-yearly public meetings.

Whoever is responsible for this account has clearly been around ICANN for a while – s/he goes to the meetings, reads the web site, and knows what’s coming before it happens.

@dns_borat

This one’s for the geeks. Imagine everyone’s favorite Kazakhstani roving reporter, but he’s a DNS administrator.

That’s pretty much it really.

@DotSucks

This account was only created in the last few days. I’d hazard a guess that it has links to the adult entertainment industry, due to the obvious anti-.xxx sentiment on display.

The premise, of course, is that new gTLDs are basically a massive shakedown. Shows promise.

(I’ll note that the first time I heard of .sucks back in 2000 when it was floated by then-chair of ICANN Esther Dyson, ironically now one of the new gTLD program’s highest-profile critics.)

@domainhumor

This one is slightly different for two reasons: 1) I know who it is. 2) He/she has not tweeted much funny stuff lately.

I follow it in the hope that this might change one day.

Twitter co-founder to headline DOMAINfest

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone is to keynote the 2012 DOMAINfest Global conference, organizer Oversee.net has just announced.

It sounds rather like his speech will focus on the “inspirational story” angle, rather like Go Daddy founder Bob Parsons’ keynote at the 2011 show.

According to the agenda, Stone will “share his thoughts on Twitter’s future and the evolving world of social media”.

Judging by the other speakers and panelists lined up, it’s an SEO-heavy agenda, but there will be a workshop entitled “Everything You Need to Know about New TLDs”.

For the new gTLDs panel, so far only Neustar’s Ken Hansen is listed as a confirmed speaker. I don’t expect that state of affairs to last long.

The show will be held at the Fairmont Miramar in Santa Monica, California, from January 31 to February 2 next year. Prices start at $1,195 if registering before December 31.

.xxx reveals new gTLD support problems

It’s late 2012. You’ve spent your $185,000, fought your way through objections, won your contention set, and proved to ICANN that you’re technically and financially capable of running a new generic top-level domain.

The registry contracts have been signed. But will your gTLD actually work?

The experiences of .xxx manager ICM Registry lately suggest that a certain amount of outreach will be needed before new gTLDs receive universal support in applications.

I’ve encountered three examples over the last few days of .xxx domain names not functioning as expected in certain apps. I expect there will be many more.

Skype. Type http://casting.com into a chat window and Skype will automatically make the link clickable. Do the same for the .xxx equivalent, and it does not.

Android, the Google mobile platform. I haven’t tested this, but according to Francesco Cetaro on Twitter, unless you manually type the http:// the domain doesn’t resolve.

TweetDeck, now owned by Twitter. It doesn’t auto-link or auto-shorten .xxx domains either, not even if you include the http:// prefix.

This problem is well known from previous new gTLD rounds. ICANN even warns applicants about it in the Applicant Guidebook, stating:

All applicants should be aware that approval of an application and entry into a registry agreement with ICANN do not guarantee that a new gTLD will immediately function throughout the Internet. Past experience indicates that network operators may not immediately fully support new top-level domains, even when these domains have been delegated in the DNS root zone, since third-party software modification may be required and may not happen immediately.

Similarly, software applications sometimes attempt to validate domain names and may not recognize new or unknown top-level domains.

As a 10-year .info registrant, I can confirm that some web sites will still sometimes reject email addresses at .info domains.

Sometimes this is due to outdated validation scripts assuming no TLD is longer than three characters. Sometimes, it’s because the webmaster sees so much spam from .info he bans the whole TLD.

This is far less of an issue that it was five or six years ago, due in part to Afilias’s outreach, but just this week I found myself unable to sign up at a certain phpBB forum using my .info address.

I understand ICM has also been reaching out to affected app developers recently to make them aware that .xxx now exists in the root and has resolvable domains.

ICANN also has released code in C#, Java, Perl, and Python (though not, annoyingly, PHP) that it says can be easily dropped into source in order to validate TLDs against the live root.

The last beta was released in 2007. I’m not sure whether it’s still under development.

(UPDATE: CentralNic CTO Gavin Brown has knocked up a PHP implementation here.)

Wanted: official ICANN tweeter

ICANN is looking to beef up its media relations department, and has put out its feelers for someone to take over its Twitter and Facebook accounts.

The organization has posted a job opening to its hiring page for a media and marketing coordinator, reporting to director of marketing and outreach Scott Pinzon and head flack Brad White.

Responsibilities include writing “blogs, tweets, and status updates on ICANN’s behalf for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other platforms”.

I believe that currently @ICANN is usually authored by Pinzon.

The role also includes more traditional media relations activities, such as writing press releases and fielding calls from journalists and bloggers.

ICANN has also started looking to fill an opening for a publications manager for its marketing department. I believe both positions are new.

Also of note: ICANN is no longer advertising for a compliance director, raising hopes in some quarters that it has finally found a replacement for David Giza, who left unexpectedly last July. UPDATE: it’s back.