It wouldn't surprise me if the costs for the first few thousand .tld's were outrageous, but ICANN is clever enough to realise the revenue maximization benefits

It wouldn't surprise me if the costs for the first few thousand .tld's were outrageous, but ICANN is clever enough to realise the revenue maximization benefits of an auction model. I'm sure there are right now a dozen people who are scheming up ways to get as many airport codes nailed down (.lax .sfo .sea .jfk .dfw .etc) as possible and that if there is any prospect of a bidding war prices for 2-4 letter combinations will be high. The thing is that these are namespaces, not domains, purchasers are going to have to declare trademark interests, and declare whether domains are being offered for public sale or are being reserved for private registration. And really there are only going to be a few winners in this game because not every word makes for a good namespace .motor isn't going to be too useful immediately .city could do really well with the right management. For all you entrepreneurs out there here's a free idea for you; buy the .friends namespace and back it up with an app that can eat the ground out from under myspace and facebook.