According to ICANN’s recently-published “roadmap”, the earliest any new gTLD will be delegated is August 2013.

ICANN cannot delegate more than 1,000 new gTLDs per year due to constraints on scaling the Root Zone. Thus, it requires an ordering of the applications for new gTLDs, either at the Evaluation phase (called batching) or at the Pre-delegation phase (called metering).

ICANN will develop a metering process to help handle the large number of gTLD applications that have been filed, with the intention of implementing it by the end of 2012.