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dotShabaka Diary — Day 8, Launch Uncertainty

Kevin Murphy, September 5, 2013, 08:39:00 (UTC), Domain Services

Today, the eighth installment of dotShabaka Registry’s journal, charting its progress towards becoming one of the first new gTLDs to go live, written by general manager Yasmin Omer.

Thursday 5 September 2013
Having passed PDT on the 27th of August, we were notified of our eligibility to transition to IANA for delegation and told that we will receive instructions regarding the next steps via the Customer Portal.
We’re still waiting to hear from ICANN. We have no visibility regarding when we will be delegated.
There are so many moving parts in the new gTLD program right now that the delegation timing impacts everything from hiring staff to deciding on launch strategies. Discussions with registrars and marketing agencies beg one simple question – when will you be launching? My response: no idea.
We’re trying to launch a business in what can only be described as a vacuum. We understand that delays may be inevitable right now, however, it would be great if the nature and impact of those delays on our TLD was officially communicated to us (perhaps by a designated account manager?).
Communications during the PDT Pilot and Beta periods were great but seem to have slowed down since we passed PDT. We look forward to receiving some clarity about delegation from ICANN soon.

Read previous and future diary entries here.


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Comments (1)

  1. Rubens Kuhl says:

    ICANN did communicate they will not be delegating strings for a while:
    http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/announcements-and-media/announcement-27aug13-en
    Low Risk – Eligible applicants will be invited to begin contracting and may proceed through contract execution of a Registry Agreement. Delegation of Low Risk strings will be held until we have evaluated community comments and settled on appropriate mitigation measures.

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