<div dir="ltr">McTim,<div><br></div><div>maybe we need less ideology like levine's "explanation", Africa and LAC are the regions with the fewest number of applications and they are both the two regions with the least outreach effort from ICANN, something that the board member Mike Sielber pointed since Dakar meeting and but no change happened. so when you have few people aware about the new gTLD program , you cannot expect big number of applicants . yes the economic,legal and technical barrier maybe explain partly the number applications but how we could change the situation, if people become aware too little and really too late.</div>
<div>not always easy to make causality relation but at least we have here an interesting correlation </div><div><br></div><div>Best,</div><div><br></div><div><div dir="ltr"><div>Rafik </div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote">
2012/6/18 McTim <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:dogwallah@gmail.com" target="_blank">dogwallah@gmail.com</a>></span><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 3:16 AM, Vika Mpisane <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:vika@zadna.org.za" target="_blank">vika@zadna.org.za</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div style="font-size:14px;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;word-wrap:break-word"><div><div><div>Allow me to take a quick stab at your question, Remmy.</div><div><br></div><div>Yes, 17 gTLD applications from Africa is really not good, but is still linked to the growth of domain name industry in Africa, which is still substantially behind that of other regions. For example, we have 5 or 6 ICANN accredited registrars in the region. My limited experience on new gTLDs showed that ICANN accredited registrars played an important role in advising corporates to look at new gTLD possibilities. So in Africa, having 5 accredited registrars could be one of the reason for the existing lack of awareness on gTLDs.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Yet the fact that some of the African applications are from corporates shows some of the "registrars" (ICANN accredited or not) did educate some corporates. That's nice to see.</div><div>
<br></div><div>I personally think the 17 applications are quite credible & give us a bit of a slice of the new gTLD market. What is not nice, though, is the fact that a substantial number of these 17 applications have non-African registry operators. That's where we're missing out on an opportunity to prove the resiliency of the African registry infrastructure & to develop registry management skills.</div>
</div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>+1</div><div><br></div><div>I also like John Levine's reply about this topic on another list:</div><div><br></div><span>"A reasonable interpretation of the lack of African applicants is that</span><br>
<span>people looked at the substantial cost and dubious benefits of a vanity TLD</span><br><span>and everyone who wasn't already drunk on ICANN kool-aid came to a rational</span><br><div><span>decision that their limited funds would better be spent elsewhere.</span> "</div>
<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888">
</font></span></div><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br>Cheers,<br><br>McTim<br>"A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A route indicates how we get there." Jon Postel<br>
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