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The
Lowdown
Welcome to the
The Lowdown from
DN Journal - your source for notable news and information from all
corners of the global domain name industry!
The Lowdown is
compiled by DN Journal Editor & Publisher
Ron Jackson.
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Brothers
in Arms: John Alagna's Million Dollar Decision to
Apply for Multiple New TLDs Was Easier to Make With a
Key Family Member in His Corner |
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In my
last couple of posts, I covered the opposite
ends of the spectrum regarding the number of
applications that were filed to to run new top
level domains (TLDs) - and who filed them
before ICANN's window for applications closed last
week. Over 1600 submissions came in with the
largest block of them - more than 300 - come from the
newly formed Link Freedom Group. As a
counterpoint to that story we covered USA
Made In America Inc.'s application for a single
TLD - .factory - the same
strategy that the new company's co-founder, Colin
Campbell, used to get .CLUB in the last
round of new TLDS back in 2012. To
wrap up the theme, today we have an example of an
applicant that, like the majority, followed a
middle path, marshaling resources to go after
a limited number of domain extensions that were
appealing to them. Since it cost $227,000
just to file each new TLD application, you
can see why it was wise to carefully consider the
prospects for every TLD on your want list before
taking the application leap. Despite
the heavy price tag, it seems to some like everybody
and his brother had applied to run new TLDs.
Well, it wasn't everybody but a well-known somebody
was enlisted by his brother to help guide
his entrance into the domain race. That somebody
was industry veteran Joe
Alagna, the Chief Strategy Officer at .it
.com Domains, who literally wrote the
book - How
to Get Your Own Top Level Domain -
with co-author Andrey
Insarov. Joe's expertise came in very
handy when his brother, serial entrepreneur John
Alagna, saw running his own TLDs as an
opportunity that was too good miss. |
Joe
Alagna
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John
Alagna
Founder, TLD1 LLC |
To
make it happen, John started a new company, TLD1
LLC and, with Joe as his adviser,
applied for two new generic top-level
domains: .bewell and .etc and
chose two others - .joinus,
and .whatsnew as replacement strings
(If their first choices are contested by other
applicants ICANN gives applicants a short
window to switch to their chosen replacement
strings). While John is new to the
domain business he is no stranger to building
successful companies, having scored big wins across the retail, web services, and insurance
industries. His most recent exit was Carolina
Heritage Insurance, a Hilton Head Island,
Carolina brokerage that he grew into one of
the leading independent brokerages on the East
Coast before selling it to Relation Insurance
Services, a top-25 national brokerage, in
2024. John noted, "The internet has about six
billion users, but fewer than 200 million of
them actually create, publish, or sell online.
That gap is going to close, and every
new creator will need an address they
own. We applied for names that are
positive, useful, and open to everyone. Each
will operate as an open TLD, available to all
registrants through ICANN-accredited
registrars, with accessible first-year pricing
and active DNS abuse prevention." |
While there is still a long way to go before
ICANN chooses winning applications - including
the possibility of having to compete with
other applicants for the same TLDs -
John has already contracted .it.com Domains,
one of the first ICANN-evaluated registry
service providers, as its back-end registry
operator.
Joe, who has more than 25 years of experience in
the domain industry, said, “I worked with dozens
of successful applicants in the 2012 round. The plan
here is the one that works: good strings,
proven infrastructure, and honest pricing.”
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(Posted
August 17, 2026)
*****
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See
all of our recent posts in the full
Lowdown section.
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Archive! |
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