There’s a new campaign launched to increase the number of Kenyan businesses especially ran by young people that are online. The campaign is dubbed “I am Dot Net” and it comes with a unique offer for anyone interested to own a .net domain with 1GB of hosting for an entire year and 2 free email accounts and a free website builder.
The campaign has been launched by AfriRegister, local company with presence in Burundi and the only ICANN accredited web registrar in East Africa in partnership with VeriSign, the authoritative registry for the .net domain globally.
Explaining the rationale behind the campaign, one of the Directors at Afriregister, Mr. Barrack said, “The I am Dot Net campaign has been tailor made mostly for the young people for instance musicians, film makers, actors among others in Kenya looking to offer their services beyond their physical locations.” He added “currently these kinds of personalities have very limited online presence with most choosing to operate a Gmail account, Facebook page or twitter handle because they believe owning their own domain is expensive”.
Mr. Otieno said that VeriSign, the innovators of the Dot Net domain initiated a pilot project in Kenya with the current 700/- price tag to popularize the Dot Net extension as it offers unique advantages over other domains currently available in that it is less crowded, meaning the chances of one having to alter their business name because its already been taken up are non-existent. Moreover, the individual registering has more control of the entire process cutting out the middle man, his profit and his bureaucracy.
Since the campaign was launched last month, Afriregister has received positive feedback from the market especially from university students who have latched on to the vision of affordable domains, to cater for their ‘side hustles’ (innovative money making ventures). The students are even taking up Swahili domain names further adding to uniqueness of the ‘I am Dot Net’ campaign.
“We cannot deny that the internet has completely changed the business landscape globally and especially in Kenya. With many more people preferring to use the internet to access information, it is inevitable for any business owner, big or small, to have an online presence if they are to access a wider customer base,” added Mr. Otieno
The Dot Net suffix is not only more affordable to set up, it is also easy; one simply has to follow the steps provided on the Afriregister website www.afriregister.net and pay using any of the following mobile wallets (M-pesa, Airtel money, Yu-cash and PayPal). Afriregister has designed a full-proof back-end customer support system which is available upon registration.
Globally, the Dot Net domain uptake is currently 30% and it’s growing by the day as people realize the benefits. Dot Net has consistent programming model, direct support for security, simplified development effort and easy application, deployment and maintenance.
