I’ll admit I tend to get evangelical when I’m talking about .brands. To me and the team at Neustar, every development in this space is exciting and significant and we’re always eager to share the latest news and insights.

But you don’t have to be a .brands nut to see that the last few weeks have shown some serious signs of momentum.

And it makes me wonder, with everything that’s developed in just the last week or two, could we be set for October to be the biggest month in .brands we’ve ever seen?

Here’s just a taste of the headlines:

Brands and Domains

The Brands and Domains conference took place in The Hague last week, and I was lucky enough to present among an awesome collection of speakers representing all facets of domains, marketing, branding and business. One particularly great session was a panel on .brands in social media, featuring Kevin Audritt of HSBC and Katie Espinoza of Rebrandly. This topic is really fascinating, and will actually be the focus of Neustar’s next .brands webinar in early November.

Amazon Web Services goes mainstream with .aws

You may have seen my recent blog on this—Amazon Web Services has shown some serious marketing mettle, recently launching a widespread advertising campaign featuring a .aws domain. The ‘Build On’ campaign includes billboards and posters in major airports and train stations across the U.S. as well as television commercials that even ran during NFL football.

AXA’s new service, Fizzy

This global insurance firm has used Blockchain technology to launch a new service that helps travelers gain instant, hassle-free compensation for delayed flights. You can see more about the service on its super eye-catching landing page at fizzy.axa.

Australia Post innovates on .auspost

In another example of a brand aligning its .brand TLD with its future company strategy, Australia’s oldest, continually-operating organization is trialing an innovative new system to securely deliver packages and parcels without relying on a delivery driver. The ‘Mobile Parcel Locker’ will be rolled out first in Queensland, and all the information can be found at mobilelocker.auspost.

Barclays continues to lead

Barclays Bank was the first brand to fully transition its primary web page to a .brand domain—when it moved barclays.com to home.barclays. In recent weeks, Barclays has rolled out even more .barclays domains for internal and public initiatives, such as digitalindex.barclays, highgrowth.barclays and readytowork.barclays. There are more awesome examples over at the Showcase on MakeWay.World.

The Showcase is booming

Speaking of the MakeWay.World Showcase; new .brand sites are launching so quickly we’re barely keeping up! The organizations featured come from all over the globe and represent almost every industry sector, including Microsoft, Globo, Philips, Kia, Schwarz, Lamborghini, State Bank of India, Emerck, Sandvik, Bridgestone….the list goes on!

I really could go on for pages about the activity we’ve seen recently in the .brands space, but I’ll just say this: momentum is a powerful thing. It seems the snowball is gaining speed and growing by the minute, and soon those who aren’t activating their .brand TLD will truly be in the minority and risk being left behind.

I for one can’t wait to see what the rest of the month holds.