AfriRegister, a local company has launched a campaign to increase the number of Kenyan businesses on-line. The campaign dubbed “I am Dot Net” comes with an offer to own a .net domain plus 1GB hosting for a whole year, two free email accounts and a free website builder. AfriRegister has a 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.
“The I am Dot Net campaign has been tailor made mostly for the burgeoning SME market in Kenya looking to offer their services beyond their physical locations.” Said Mr. Barrack Otieno a Director at AfriRegister, “currently these businesses have very limited online presence with most choosing to operate a Gmail account 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 KES 700 price tag to popularize the Dot Net extension. Thee Dot Net extension is less crowded and thus limits the chances of one having to alter their business name because its already been taken up. 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 says it has received positive feedback from the market especially from university students who have taken up the domains to cater for their ‘side hustles’. 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
To register one has to follow the steps provided on the Afriregister website www.afriregister.net and pay using any of the following payment solutions; M-pesa, Airtel money, Yu-cash and PayPal. AfriRegister says it has designed a full-proof back-end customer support system which is available upon registration.
Globally, the Dot Net domain uptake is currently 30%. Dot Net promises a consistent programming model, direct support for security, simplified development effort and easy application, deployment and maintenance.