The window opened for the first time in fourteen years.
The last time ICANN opened a general application window for new generic top-level domains was 2012. Everything that came out of it was decided in a window that closed before TikTok existed, before the creator economy had a name, before “link in bio” was a sentence anyone said out loud.
Fourteen years later the window opened again — and closed on 12 August 2026. We applied for .socialmedia. Here is why we chose that string, what we think it is worth to the people who will eventually register names in it, and what we are (and are not) promising. We have tried to keep it honest: where the future is genuinely uncertain, we say so rather than dressing a forecast up as a fact.
The chapters that follow take it in order: the size and permanence of the thing the string names; the problem a handle has that a domain does not; why this string beat the others on our shortlist; what a name in it is worth to the person who registers it; the hub we are building so a name has something at it from the first day; the two objections we hear most; who is applying; and the clock the process actually runs on.