With the registration of the first .ng domain in Nigeria occuring today, we could be on the verge of witnessing some new internet startup naming conventions and companies utilising the top level domain of the African country.
Nigerian news group ThisDay registered thisday.ng, posting up a holding page that states a new website will launch on January 3 2011.
Whilst it will be great for companies within the country to advertise shorter domains and work with an easy suffix, the real value is going to come from internet startups and established internet services that which to turn their company names into verbs.
Oo Nwoye, a Nigerian entrepreneur, spotted the domain registration, proposing that companies like Facebook and Google will move quickly to register domains like Googli.ng and Facebooki.ng.
According to the Nigerian Internet Registration Association (NIRA), there are 27 Nigerian domain registrars, all capable of registering domains for customers. The TLD is so new, none of the companies listed have updated their websites to show the new domain option – it’s not even available on the official NIRA website.
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The domain could prove very lucrative for its Nigerian owners, if it becomes available to buy publicly. We are sure Ning and a number of other companies are watching proceedings with a keen eye.
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