Africa
becomes the last in the number of new gTLD’s that have been applied for in the
current new gTLD application. Africa has applied for 15 new gTLD’s , Africa
closely trails the Latin America that has applied for 22 new gTLD’s .
The
total number of new gTLD’s that have been listed by ICANN as entries for the
current application round falls to 1930, though Africa as well as the
counterpart in the five RIR’s have the lowest number of applications, it would
be regarded as a very small percentage, many would argue that, though Africa
has attracted enough interest particularly for one gTLD that has been at the
center of all discussions easily ranks as the most favorite TLD.
However,
apart from this new TLD which is continental which has two applications
representing the same TLD(DotAfrica/.africa) ,
and certainly I would be ridiculous to say .dotafrica (dotdotafrica) is a
geographic name said, DCA in its Press Briefing, to mitigate misrepresentation by media clarified its
dotafrica (.africa) application, (that certainly generated many humorous
headlines for sure), three other domains are geographic , and represent
.capetown for Cape Town ,.Durban for Durban and .Johannesburg for joBurg.
Interestingly however only one came for community(.Arab) this can however be
said to be covered under dotafriqya, a string that was center of contention
after some representatives suggested to ICANN to include it in the list of
reserved names.
Other
names that received huge media coverage but didn’t make it for application
includes .ZULU, favorable suggestions that should have featured include
.swahili ,Among the Cities however, Africa seems to have lost a huge
opportunity include geographic names for the top cities of Africa including
Nairobi ,Kigali ,Lagos ,Dakar among others.
The
most intriguing fact however can be hugely attributed to the kind of
bureaurocracy that has existed within the governing bodies that are PanAfrican,
these include regional blocks, and some of these can be blamed on non starter
characteristics and foundations only good on paper.
Indeed
Africa can be ranked among the highest growing infrastructuraly, economically
and ranks as the region with the highest resource that is untapped, both
materially and intellectually and as Vint Cerf told Africa, the Key factor is
content, this is driven by availing enough channels for promoting content.
The
increasing number of undersea cables that is expected to bring down the cost of
internet access as well as the use of mobile phones will ensure content, these
developments though must be promoted by increasing the number of the African
gTLD’s. Cost has been taken as a major impediment to application, though many
will be blamed for not taking advantage of the $47,000 fee reduction from the
standard $185,000.
Another
factor could be that most African Governments are not interested in developing
the internet infrastructure beyond the small local area networks that give them
access to email and have relegated these responsibilities that unfortunately
cost billions to the private sector which I must admit has outdone itself thus
far.
Talking
of the private organizations sector only 9 Brands applied for their TLD’s,
these include .multichoice ,.supersport , .kyknet , .mnet , .gotv ,
.africamagic , .dstv , .mzansimagic all that belong to the MNET media group and
.naspers , yet we have thousands of successful African Brands in the commercial
, Tourism and academic institutions.
This
Application round should be taken as an eye opener for African institutions now
that .Africa is among the 50 top favorite gTLD’s, Africa cannot remain as the
spectator and its leaders must appear to be in charge , It’s the only way that
Africa can truly achieve the millennium development goals, come 2013, we hope
that Africa will have achieved the first batch of the new gTLD’s and prepare
enough to be among the leading applicants in the next round of applications.
Gideon Rop,
DotConnectAfrica.
