Tonight ICANN the worldwide internet authority revealed the 1930 applicants for a Top Level Domain name or TLD. This is the most significant step made by the organisation to progress the Internet domain structure since it’s conception. Google and Amazon dominated the applicant lists with 101 and 76 applications respectively.

A Top Level Domain refers to the letters after the dot – eg. domain.com (.com is the top level domain)

The “Reveal Day” was the public announcement of all of the applications for a TLD. This is also the time when comments and formal objections can be made to ICANN about the appropriateness of any applicant applying for a TLD.

It was always inevitable that if companies like Google or Amazon were to apply that they would be competing for several names.

In this case, they will be competing  for:

.app, .movie, .music, .play, .shop, .show and .talk

Movie and Music attracted 8 applicants each so it will be interesting to see who takes the crown for this and how much they pay.

There were several domains with multiple applicants, here are the most notable properties being sort:

.app (13)
.home (11)
.inc (11)
.art (10)
.llc (9)
.blog (9)
.book (9)
.hotel (8)
.movie (8)
.music (8)
.love (7)

Of course, a lot of the biggest brands worldwide have participated in the new TLD program including:

Microsoft (11) applying for their key brands .windows .office .bing etc.
Dell for .dell
Apple for .apple
BBC for .bbc
BMW for .bmw

In Australia, there are 41 applicants. With the top banks CBA, ANZ and NAB all applying.

Interestingly, 4 Australian universities have applied which makes them the leader worldwide for applications with MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) the Ivy League university in the USA as the only other higher education institution applying.

The entire Top Level Domain list can be found here or visit ICANN website