iblog

Those of you who have tried to set up a fast, free website - whilst also providing it with a catchy domain name - will have heard of Dot TK. Fewer, however, will have heard of the island Tokelau. But revenue generated from Dot TK has been generating 10% of Tokelau’s GDP since it began offering such a service in 2001.

When people make quick and simple websites - little hompages, or sites to advertise one event - they usually want to do it for free. This means signing up with a free hosting company - which is all well and good, but means that the ultimate internet address used to get to the site will include the company’s name, making your site’s name a non-central part of the address. For instance, if you sign up with Yahoo’sGeocities, your ultimate address will be www.geocities.com/yourpage, and if you sign up with Lycos-provided service Tripod, your ultimate address will be yourpage.tripod.com. 3 clicks away from this is www.dot.tk, where you can get yourself a much catchier address like www.yourpage.tk. Although the service is free, Dot TK sites come with targeted banner adverts, and these are what generate the island’s income.

The “.tk” part of the address is called the domain. Whereas the more expensive and definitive “.com” domain refers to websites which are commercial, and the common “.org” domain is used for organisations, Dot TK is what’s known as a country-level domain, specific to Tokelau. All these domains are registered through the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) - and whilst it has always been obvious that a Dot Com domain was needed for companies, it took a lot of persuasion to initially allow a domain specific to Tokelau. It was Joost Zuurbier, a Dutch entrepreneur, who presented the case for his investment:

“It was a four year process. They didn’t believe the contract or even the island were real and it was only because a member of the board had been to Tokelau in 1978 that they finally agreed it was OK.”

Since 2001, millions of mini-website makers have been drawn to the attractive address Dot TK offers, bringing in huge revenue from advertising. With every domain registered, the Dot TK Company donates an undisclosed amount to Tokelau’s miniature economy: in 2007 contributing 10%. This has in turn enabled the tiny nation to start using the internet more; back in 2001 there were 12 computers on the island, now there are over 200, including ones in internet cafés. There is broadband internet, and people make phone calls no longer with radios but with Skype. The inhabitants have even been discovering YouTube, MySpace and music downloads. Even better, Tokelau hospitals are now able to receive medical advice from experts overseas.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 16th, 2007 at 3:42 pm and is filed under Internet, Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.