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

Tue Mar 16 17:47:51 EAT 2010

Hi Rad!. 

  A workshop I facilitated at   ICANN  last week see
http://nbo.icann.org/node/9097  painted  a different picture . economics is
just one of the many reasons for low uptake of local domains.   indeed in
the case of the .za , when the tariffs came down there was no  corresponding
increase in .za.  the same for Australia. what participants restated is
that  this  is multifaceted. It involves stability and reliability , many of
ccTLDs especially in Africa  have problems some as simple as lack of power,
staff on strike over pay , poor marketing, outreach etc. others have
perception problems  - that gTLD is better by being international   than
local domain ( local is not as good as international !!)and even more
importantly that the government can tamper with  local domains etc . all
these perceptions where prevalent contribute to the low uptake of local
domain names compared to gTLDs.  Those who have succeeded like .za is that
they are able to differentiate   the product against gTLDs , add value by
leveraging on the other national endeavours , branding , trust and
awareness . this is what other ccTLD are up to .it is even more critical
when new gTLD are  approved by ICANN. And btw why is kenya airways  .com and
not .ke . just imagine the leverage it can provide ----

Cheers 

Muriuki 

From: kictanet-bounces+mureithi=summitstrategies.co.ke at lists.kictanet.or.ke
[mailto:kictanet-bounces+mureithi=summitstrategies.co.ke at lists.kictanet.or.k
e] On Behalf Of Rad!
Sent: 16 March 2010 16:44
To: mureithi at summitstrategies.co.ke
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions
Subject: Re: [kictanet] South Africans choose dot ZA ahead of dot com,
market survey reveals

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.za to
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.

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