[AfrICANN-discuss] Still on new gTLD

[Douglas Onyango]

All,
On 7 July 2012 04:11, Remmy Nweke <remmyn at gmail.com> wrote:
> This may be of interest to some of us.
> http://www.itrealms.com.ng/2012/07/new-gtld-why-africa-ranks-low.html
>North Americas having the highest applications amounting to 911, Europe follows with 675,
>Asia pacific which already has one continental domain .asia has three hundred and three domains
>, Latin America which shares the same ecological niche with Africa has 24 new applications
> 7 domains higher than Africa which has presented 17 new domains

This statement is flawed and since the writer chose to use it to base
his article, I would argue that the article then follow sas flawed - I
will explain

For the simple reason that applying for TLDs and possibly operating a
registry from places like Africa would present unique challenges and
can be very costly.  My assessment is that it is in the interest of
many to do this from the US or some place else where there is already
existing Infrastructure that would cut costs -- and If someone else is
thinking like I am, then it goes without say that the number of
applicants from areas like North America (NA) would be higher --
however on this backdrop, I would really be hesitant on crediting all
these registrations to NA

Also note that the bulk of applications being credited to NA are not
going to be uniquely NA, but generic string that we are all going to
us - and maybe even more than we use some of our own strings. This is
another reason I would really be hesitant to use the numbers as they
are printed by ICANN, but try to build some perspective to the stats.

Now, IMHO a better way to gauge interest and usage of new GTLDs would
be to use strings that are actually unique to communities - like the
Geographic TLDs - these should tell exactly how well communities
understand the value of new GTLDs. You will be surprised to learn that
Africa has 5 Geographic strings beating North America with 4 and Latin
America with 2.

Ok, now we have the number right -- can we now talk again about "in
terms of economic development as well internet infrastructure"??

Regards,
-- 
Douglas Onyango | +256(0712)981329 | Twitter: @ondouglas
Life is the educator's practical joke in which you spend the first
half learning, and the second half learning that everything you
learned in the first was a joke.