[Rubber Duck]

I think in the short-term what we are going to see is IDN ccTLDs.

The Implementation Plan for IDN ccTLD Fast-Track is November. The Plan for New gTLDs won't be considered before January. Acceptance for a lot of ccTLDs is going to be a formality, for all New gTLDs including IDN there is going to be a lot of due process to go through. Even if these names are not contentious it will probably take about 6 months. Then they all have to be Sunrised.

For ccTLDs, I think they get launched very quickly. China does have a Launch or a Sunrise. As soon as it is delegated, it can go live. I am sure if ICANN isn't going to Alias, they will simply do it themselves (perhaps with Verisigns help). There is a lot of National Pride at stake here. The Russian are pushing hard and want to be at the vanguard. The Chinese won't want to be upstaged, and then there is JPRS coming up on the rail. Have they been lecturing on DNAMEs because they are ready to go with this on their own servers?

On balance, I think IDN ccTLDs will be live by April 2009. I can see any New gTLDs being operational before April 2010, unless they are for aliasing of existing gTLDs. Even then late 2009 at the earliest.

The point is, however, that most of the existing gTLDs are dead in the water as from yesterday. Even the Muppets at Namepros are panicking over this one. There is not much quality out there and everyone is going to get burnt. There is going to be a lot of ongoing debate about represents quality. From our perspective, that can only be a good thing.