Donuts has won another new gTLD, .Plus that was scheduled to go to an ICANN Last Resort auction later this month.
Google in the form of Charleston Road Registry Inc. has withdrawn their application for .plus leaving Donuts as the sole applicant.
Honestly I have no idea of why anyone applied for .Plus, much less two companies.
Not sure why anyone in a world of 1,000+ domain extensions would choice to use a .Plus
Computers.plus
Cars.plus
Sports.Plus
Plus what?
Sorry just don’t get this one guys.
Having said that, someone will probably register one on the 1st day of the Early Access Program (EAP) for $12,500.
Google would have been going after .PLUS due to their Google+ social platform.
Beyond that, I think .PLUS does have some appeal. Adding a “plus” suffix is a naming convention already used by some websites to signal that they’re mainly about 1 topic / product but also cover others.
For instance, BatteriesPlus.com sells more than just batteries. And ReadingPlus.com (a website for educators) probably expanded to deal with math education as well as literacy.