[kictanet] South Africans choose dot ZA ahead of dot com, market survey reveals

Tue Mar 16 16:43:41 EAT 2010

Simple economics.

A .co.ke domain is about 40 dollars
A .com domain is about 15 dollars
A .za domain is 150 rand, about 20 dollars - http://www.your.co.za/

5$ difference for South Africans vs 25$ for us? People will invariably vote
with their wallets

These are the sort of questions KENIC should be answering.

On Tue, Mar 16, 2010 at 4:28 PM, michael Ouma <benomnta at yahoo.com> wrote:

>
>
> Hi all:
>
> i think this is interesting.
>
> How about our own “.ke,” how do we fare as relates to being patriotic and
> proud of our ‘own’?  Please read below:
>
>
> South Africans choose dot ZA ahead of dot com, market survey reveals
>
> (also follow via this link
> http://mybroadband.co.za/news/internet/11791.html)
>
> The recently completed “dot ZA market survey” of the dot ZA Domain Name
> Authority (ZADNA) shows that South African businesses and people prefer to
> use co.za to dot com.
>
> This is the result of an intensive market survey which began in November
> 2009 and involved thousands of online and telephone interviews with .za
> domain name holders (registrants), business people and non-profit entities.
> It was concluded in late February this year.
>
> ZADNA intended to use the survey to better understand the dot ZA market and
> in particular to ascertain what improvements were needed to make dot ZA more
> attractive and so better serve the interests of South African organisations.
>
> According to Vika Mpisane, the GM of ZADNA, “the research results are very
> important as they provide answers to most of the questions we and our
> stakeholders had about improving the .za space. These answers clarify what
> interventions ZADNA or its stakeholders need to make to improve ZADNA.”
>
> What was very noticeable from the results is that 83% of South African
> businesses choose to use co.za for their online presence. This effectively
> means only around 15% of local businesses confirmed having dot Com website
> names. When asked if they considered having both co.za and dot Com names
> was necessary, 58% of businesses interviewed answered “yes”.
>
> “This must be put into a correct perspective: the perceived need for
> registering your product and brand names across multiple domains results
> from the ever-increasing instances of trademark abuse online. To counter the
> potential for such abuse, a growing number of local and international
> businesses now register in as many domains as possible.”
>
> The survey also shows that dot Com still ranks better than the rest of
> other dot ZA domains, such as org.za and gov.za. This is understandable
> because the rest of dot ZA domains are more focused on a smaller communities
> and sectors.
>
> Providing an example, Mpisane said: “The growth of gov.za will always be
> limited as government and its organisations cannot be expected to grow as
> radically as business organisations, plus some government entities, such as
> parastatals and municipalities, register their website names in co.za and
> dot Com, instead of gov.za.”
>
> What the survey results also show is that most South Africans are patriotic
> and loyal to South Africa when they choose their online presence. Fifty
> percent of the interviewees chose this as the main factor influencing their
> choice, while affordability of dot ZA domain names came second.
>
> Pitting co.za against dot Com, 83% of the interviewees chose co.za ahead
> of dot Com as giving them superiority locally. Co.za also outscored dot Com
> by a great margin when it comes to affordability of registration – 93% chose
> co.za here – and 75% percent felt that co.za gives their business most
> online credibility. Probably as expected, dot Com outscored co.za when it
> comes to global appeal.
>
> Most Internet service providers (ISPs) and registrants felt that the
> process of registering dot ZA domain names should be made easier by
> automation.
>
> “The need for more automation can never be over-emphasised, and ZADNA will
> answer this through the licensing of dot ZA domain registries (i.e.
> operators of domain name databases) and registrars (i.e. ISPs registering
> domain names), and the introduction of a central registry that can
> standardise such automation across most .za domains.”
>
> The survey also tested South Africans’ awareness of the new generic (i.e.
> non-country specific) domain names that ICANN, the entity managing the
> global Internet domain name and IP numbering systems, is planning to
> introduce in due course. Most South Africans are not aware of such plans,
> but ISPs showed substantial awareness (at 44%), as expected because they are
> the entities that sell domain name registration services.
>
> Interviewees were asked about introduction of new 2nd level domains such as
> city or region-specific domains. When tested on this, respondents felt that
> city-specific domains were not as attractive as they could because of the
> potential for changing city and region names in South Africa. There was also
> very little enthusiasm shown for registering names directly under dot ZA
> (i.e. yourname.za instead of yourname.org.za) and for introducing biz.zato compete with
> co.za.
>
> “The feeling is that allowing registrations of names directly under dot ZA
> will lead to a potential for abuse of trademarks and brands. It will lead to
> an unnecessary cost as a result of putting measures in place to try and
> protect known brands, something which sometimes may be quite a challenge to
> do”, says Mpisane.
>
> What the results showed was that mobi.za, fam.za (for families) and
> shop.za (for retailers) were seen as potentially the most attractive
> additional options. Music.za also showed support by some.
>
> In the light of attempts by some Western Internet companies to apply to
> ICANN to open up new top level domains using local city names, such as dot
> Joburg, dot Durban and dot Zulu, the respondents overwhelmingly felt that
> South Africa did not need to have multiple identities online.
>
> “ZADNA is aware of frantic attempts by non-South African Internet companies
> to abuse local city, heritage and tribal names as new top level domains.
> This survey shows that not only are such attempts unfounded, but they go
> right against the feeling of South Africans. South Africans are happy with
> dot ZA as their online identity. Any attempts by non-South Africans to give
> us multiple online identities, without support of the South African
> population, are baseless and driven by greed and ambition for profit”, says
> Mpisane.
>
> ///
>
>
> The recently completed “dot ZA market survey” of the dot ZA Domain Name
> Authority (ZADNA) shows that South African businesses and people prefer to
> use co.za to dot com.
>
> This is the result of an intensive market survey which began in November
> 2009 and involved thousands of online and telephone interviews with .za
> domain name holders (registrants), business people and non-profit entities.
> It was concluded in late February this year.
>
> ZADNA intended to use the survey to better understand the dot ZA market and
> in particular to ascertain what improvements were needed to make dot ZA more
> attractive and so better serve the interests of South African organisations.
>
> According to Vika Mpisane, the GM of ZADNA, “the research results are very
> important as they provide answers to most of the questions we and our
> stakeholders had about improving the .za space. These answers clarify what
> interventions ZADNA or its stakeholders need to make to improve ZADNA.”
>
> What was very noticeable from the results is that 83% of South African
> businesses choose to use co.za for their online presence. This effectively
> means only around 15% of local businesses confirmed having dot Com website
> names. When asked if they considered having both co.za and dot Com names
> was necessary, 58% of businesses interviewed answered “yes”.
>
> “This must be put into a correct perspective: the perceived need for
> registering your product and brand names across multiple domains results
> from the ever-increasing instances of trademark abuse online. To counter the
> potential for such abuse, a growing number of local and international
> businesses now register in as many domains as possible.”
>
> The survey also shows that dot Com still ranks better than the rest of
> other dot ZA domains, such as org.za and gov.za. This is understandable
> because the rest of dot ZA domains are more focused on a smaller communities
> and sectors.
>
> Providing an example, Mpisane said: “The growth of gov.za will always be
> limited as government and its organisations cannot be expected to grow as
> radically as business organisations, plus some government entities, such as
> parastatals and municipalities, register their website names in co.za and
> dot Com, instead of gov.za.”
>
> What the survey results also show is that most South Africans are patriotic
> and loyal to South Africa when they choose their online presence. Fifty
> percent of the interviewees chose this as the main factor influencing their
> choice, while affordability of dot ZA domain names came second.
>
> Pitting co.za against dot Com, 83% of the interviewees chose co.za ahead
> of dot Com as giving them superiority locally. Co.za also outscored dot Com
> by a great margin when it comes to affordability of registration – 93% chose
> co.za here – and 75% percent felt that co.za gives their business most
> online credibility. Probably as expected, dot Com outscored co.za when it
> comes to global appeal.
>
> Most Internet service providers (ISPs) and registrants felt that the
> process of registering dot ZA domain names should be made easier by
> automation.
>
> “The need for more automation can never be over-emphasised, and ZADNA will
> answer this through the licensing of dot ZA domain registries (i.e.
> operators of domain name databases) and registrars (i.e. ISPs registering
> domain names), and the introduction of a central registry that can
> standardise such automation across most .za domains.”
>
> The survey also tested South Africans’ awareness of the new generic (i.e.
> non-country specific) domain names that ICANN, the entity managing the
> global Internet domain name and IP numbering systems, is planning to
> introduce in due course. Most South Africans are not aware of such plans,
> but ISPs showed substantial awareness (at 44%), as expected because they are
> the entities that sell domain name registration services.
>
> Interviewees were asked about introduction of new 2nd level domains such as
> city or region-specific domains. When tested on this, respondents felt that
> city-specific domains were not as attractive as they could because of the
> potential for changing city and region names in South Africa. There was also
> very little enthusiasm shown for registering names directly under dot ZA
> (i.e. yourname.za instead of yourname.org.za) and for introducing biz.zato compete with
> co.za.
>
> “The feeling is that allowing registrations of names directly under dot ZA
> will lead to a potential for abuse of trademarks and brands. It will lead to
> an unnecessary cost as a result of putting measures in place to try and
> protect known brands, something which sometimes may be quite a challenge to
> do”, says Mpisane.
>
> What the results showed was that mobi.za, fam.za (for families) and
> shop.za (for retailers) were seen as potentially the most attractive
> additional options. Music.za also showed support by some.
>
> In the light of attempts by some Western Internet companies to apply to
> ICANN to open up new top level domains using local city names, such as dot
> Joburg, dot Durban and dot Zulu, the respondents overwhelmingly felt that
> South Africa did not need to have multiple identities online.
>
> “ZADNA is aware of frantic attempts by non-South African Internet companies
> to abuse local city, heritage and tribal names as new top level domains.
> This survey shows that not only are such attempts unfounded, but they go
> right against the feeling of South Africans. South Africans are happy with
> dot ZA as their online identity. Any attempts by non-South Africans to give
> us multiple online identities, without support of the South African
> population, are baseless and driven by greed and ambition for profit”, says
> Mpisane.
>
> ///
>
>
> Michael Ouma
> Journalist
> Kenya
> Tel:+254-725-537823
>
>
> "Do not go where the path may lead, but go instead where there is no path
> and leave a trail," - Ralph Waldo Emerson
>
>
>
>
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