I've always said that .us will begin to take off as soon as peopl start putting some marketing dollars behind it because its a natural fit in the USA, particularly with local search taking on a life of its own in the near future. The real question in my mind was if anyone would ever be the first one to put money behind the new domain (?). Now if a few more people would be as brave, perhaps we could convince the rest of the country that .us domains really are viable...and then those domain names I own will *finally* be worth something! :)
The second string TLDs will happen, and they will grow.
of course dennis kucinich (democratic presidential hopeful) used it during the democratic primaries.
all those domains have had a great come-uppence.
EDIT: erm. i mean pop culture. heh.
