Hi All,
For those following the issue (all of us?), here's the latest in the 
Closed Generic battles: Google likely will open key strings. Hooray!
Kathy

If Google is awarded the right to manage the domain registrations for 
.search, .app, .blog and .cloud, there is now a good chance 
<http://forum.icann.org/lists/comments-closed-generic-05feb13/msg00196.html> 
that it won't just use them for its own services and will open them up 
for non-Google properties, too. Last year, when ICANN 
<http://www.icann.org/> opened up the first phase of the registration 
process for new generic top-level domain names, Google accounted for 
about 100 
<http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/expanding-internet-domain-space.html> 
of the over 1,900 applications ICANN received. Among those were some 
that referenced Google brands and products like .google, .chrome, 
.android and .gmail, but Google and many of the other applicants also 
applied for the right to manage top-level domains with very generic 
terms like /.blog/, /.show/, /.earth/, /.book/ and /.car/....

http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/09/if-it-gets-them-google-may-open-search-app-blog-and-cloud-gtlds-to-the-public/