There is a thaw coming to the ice-cold reception that brand and trademark holders gave to ICANN’s plan to introduce a host of new gTLDs.  In recent days, some serious publications have taken a look at the program and found reason to support it.

Forbes pointed out ICANN’s view that the new gTLDs can bring real value to cause-related marketing.  “Cause-related branding is one of the most anticipated consequences of the policy change, ICANN’s spokesman Paul Levins says.”  The most visible example is the group, incuding former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, promoting the gree-focused .eco gTLD.

Even the Financial Times, with its focus on the global business marketplace, is coming to grips with the potential value of the new gTLDs.  In a recent report, the FT noted that “While tensions are high, few dispute that opening up the naming system is a necessary step to creating a more lasting foundation for the internet, and one that will benefit hundreds of millions of users.”

The New York Times has weighed in, too.  The “Newspaper of Record” had a reporter at the ICANN briefing on new gTLDs held recently in New York City.  The result? Theses new gTLD-things might hyave some use afterall the opposition from brand and trademark holers.

“But there is another use for the new top-level domains: simpler Web addresses for companies. Expect to see the likes of .amazon, .ibm and .pepsi. This will let them offer slightly faster ways to get to their various subsections, books.amazon or servers.ibm.”

As the online world turns its attention to ICANN’s upcoming meeting in Sydney there is an emerging reappraisal of the potential brand value of new gTLDs.

The program to expand the Internet’s addressable real estate has been under intense criticism from brand and trademark holders.  Clearly, there ought to be appropriate protections, but we have shown that there is demand for the new names.

Now we are beginning to see evidence of interest in the new domains by the brand and trademark holders, too.  A long-awaited report on “The Liberalisation of the Internet” from The Future Laboratory for French registrar Gandi.net offers an in-depth view of the potential of new gTLDs, including this:

“(T)wo-thirds of businesses don’t realise domain extensions are being liberalised next year. But those businesses that do know about this (like Deloitte) are excited about the opportunities in the areas of global branding.”

On almost the same day, Irfan Salim, CEO of MarkMonitor, “the global leader in enterprise brand protection” took up the same point.

The report at ComputerWeekly.com, he is credited with offering real brand balance to the caution:

“(a new gTLD) also allowed them to use the domain name, which is theirs exclusively, to build a close-knit community by requiring their affiliates to register their own domain names under their GTLD.”

Salim may not be Irish, but he is well-versed in appropriate Irish proverbs; “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”

The mobsters in “The Godfather,” when the opposition starts to play rough, “go to the mattresses.“  That is to say they gather for protection without regard to missing dinner with their other families.  If the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is to be believed, it has placed an order for the beds to be delivered.

In a letter of protest to ICANN, the Olympic governing body has told the Internet governing body to obey the rules or face a lawsuit.

This is all a bit over-heated.  We are only at stage two — maybe half-way — in the process for rolling out new gTLDs.  The current revised RFP will lead to a second revision before a final is issued, likely by the end of September.  Of course, ICANN will incorporate brand and trademark protections.  It knows on which side its bread is buttered.  And, it responds to the threat of lawsuits.

But the noise obscures an essential point.  There is real value in the new domains and their names.  There are new businesses to be built.  There are global, commercial communities to form and rally.  And there are existing consumer-facing companies that can accelerate their one-to-one marketing.

It is the last that deserves a bit more attention.  If .amex or .wells or .pge existed, American Express, Wells Fargo and Pacific Gas & Electric could use the domain to create a web presence for each of their customers.  Sure, they could build it off their .com address, but the ability to integrate all their digital initiative in one place that is branded as tightly as those extensions are is a potential value wrong to overlook.

The rights of brand and trademark holders at the second and third levels, like Wells.bank or Amex@credit.card need to be sorted out.  But there is real money to be made.  Forget the mattresses; everyone will get a better night sleep if a deal is struck.

Today, most the world still turns to the domain names ending in (dot)com when they navigate the Internet.  Looking for a particular shop or product or place?  Type it in your browser’s address bar…and add, (dot)com.

Whichever came first, the dominance of the (dot)com name or the instinct to use it, the outcome is the same.  Sometimes we get where we want to go, sometimes we don’t.

It is this instinct for direct navigation that drives trademark holders nuts.  They don’t own all the domain names that can be made from the letters of those they do.   There is money in mistyping.

The expansion of new gTLDs will change all that.  It will weaken the hold (dot)com names have on the collective Internet and cause a shift in behavior from direct navigation to search.  Yes, search.

The more successful the new gTLDs, the more likely the “g” will no longer mean “general,” but Google instead!

Despite the perfectly appropriate criticisms from trademark holders of ICANN’s roll-out of new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs), there is no denying the potential market power of opening up vast new tracts of Internet real estate.

Even while it may be OK for branded companies to wish they didn’t have to deal with it, the dust that has been kicked up has obscured real value in creating new commercial and community districts on the Web.

The new gTLDs give us the chance to create global marketplaces based on communities of interest. Think about it. For a city promoting tourism, visitors no longer will need to troll thatcityhotel.com or thatcityrestaurant.net or thatcitytransit.ca. It can all be assembled at (dot)thatcity. The metaphor is even more powerful for active, global commercial markets that could rally around domains like .golf or .art or .music (there is already a group working on the last one!).

We are believers in brands and community.