Demand Media has a few pieces of domain-related news this morning. Its United TLD subsidiary is now officially an ICANN accredited gTLD registry, eNom and Name.com have signed the 2013 ICANN RAA, and the company has joined the Domain Name Association.

Regarding the first two bits of news, a spokesperson for the company tells WebProNews, “These are significant steps forward in preparing the domain services business for over a thousand new domain name extensions coming to market – starting as early as later this year.”

“The speculation is over. New gTLDs are coming to market before the year ends and, with these ICANN contracts, Demand Media is ready to go as both a platform through which these names will be available, as well as bringing specific new gTLDs such as .DANCE and .DEMOCRAT to market,” said Taryn Naidu, executive vice president of Domain Services for the company. “We made a commitment to our business partners and customers that we would lead the way in opening up a new form of expression on the web – and we are delivering.”

New domain extensions will begin to come online in November. Others from United TLD will include .ACTOR, .ARMY, .ENGINEER, .NINJA, .PUB and .SOCIAL.

Of the RAA (Registrar Accreditation Agreement), Demand Media senior vice president and vice-chair of ICANN’s Registrar Stakeholder Group, Jeff Eckhaus, said, “This process was truly community driven and collectively organized; we worked to ensure that everything we did would better serve the customer – the person or organization registering a domain name. By signing on to the RAA, both eNom and Name.com have proven that they are fully prepared to support new gTLDs as they come to market in the months ahead.”

As noted, Demand Media has also joined the Domain Name Association (DNA). This is a new nonprofit that launched today to support the growth and development of the domain name industry. Board members include Eckhaus, United TLD’s Statton Hammock, ARI’s Adrian Kinderis (Chair), Google’s Job Lawrence, Donuts’ Jon Nevett, FairWinds Partners’ Elizabeth Sweezey and GoDaddy’s Richard Merdinger.

Earlier this month, Demand Media announced that longtime CEO Richard Rosenblatt was stepping down, but indicated that its plan to separate the domain business from the media business is still going forward, though the timing was still being evaluated.

Last week, ICANN introduced the first four new gTLDs.

Image: Demand Media