Branding Africa with a new domain
As the the world goes online by the millions, the possibilities for domain names grows. The internet naming governing body, ICAAN, has been doing a good job so far of keeping up with the demands of online activity and creating standard practices. But while ICAAN considers the creation of non-english domains, Andrew Mack asks, “In a world of .com and .org, why not .Africa?”. Andrew raises a good point as the African continent attempts to attract investment; what better way to reach as many people as possible than organizing around a similar domain. From a business and tourism stand point I can see the .africa domain working as it will help foreign consumers identify services available within countries on the content. Imagine if there was a www.tourism.tz.africa for Tanzanian tourism information instead of the current www.tanzaniatouristboard.com. As Andrew points out, many southern African businesses have currently adopted the .za domain in an attempt to create an association with the strong South African economy and brand. But why not eliminate the regional segmentation and create a continental domain that would aggregate the strengths of the various economies. A .africa domain will also allow the centralization of many African content, business or otherwise, and more accurately reflect the size and depth of content about the continent strengthening the Africa’s brand image. So what do you think? What are the pros or cons of a .africa domain? Would you change your domain? Read more about the .africa efforts at www.dotafrica.blogspot.com.
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