Thursday, November 28, 2013

Kheweul and Freenom Announce Partnership to Get Africa Online

ME Newswire / Businesswire

ABIDJAN, Côte d’Ivoire - Thursday, November 28th 2013

Kheweul and Freenom today announce a joint venture to provide free

websites with a free domain name to all Africans. Under the new

FREENAMES brand, every African internet user will be able to obtain a

free website with a free domain, using a phone, tablet or computer. The

venture partners believe that providing a free web presence with a free

domain will increase the number of African websites significantly and

will give African local content quality an enormous boost. This

increase in online communication will connect communities and

businesses throughout Africa and will create a foundation for further

e-development.

All free websites will be available with an African free domain. Free

domains are very popular on the continent. Countries like Gabon (.GA),

Mali (.ML) and Central African Republic (.CF) have already jumped on

the bandwagon and made their domain extension available to everyone for

free, both in their respective countries and abroad.

The free revolution of the last decade has enabled billions of people

to go online and express themselves. Free search, email and social

networking have dramatically changed the digital landscape. Free SIM

cards have created an new model for the entire telecommunication sector

and transformed the ICT landscape in Africa. Now, free websites and

free domains will enable Africans to increase their web presence and

make the continent a truly indispensable part of the global digital

economy.

With a smart phone or computer, users can register a domain name,

create or choose a web site design and change their free website to

adopt it to their wishes. For this, Freenames will use an innovative

website builder that works with smart phones, tablets and PCs. This

will allow even novice users to obtain an online presence.

"Providing a basic free hosting package with an African free domain

makes good business sense", says Mouhamet Diop, Managing Director of

Kheweul. "We want to empower all Africans to take an active role

online, not only as consumer, but also as content creator and as online

business entrepreneur".

Freenames will encourage all its users to build their free online

presence further with additional services, such as script programming,

SSL certificates and e-commerce solutions. The income derived from

these extra services will pay for the users that continue to use the

basic services for free. Freenames expects to convert 1 to 2 percent of

its user base into users requiring paid services.

"The African top level domains are very popular outside Africa

already", says Joost Zuurbier, CEO of Freenom. "We firmly believe that

more and more users from the African community will start to use

African domains if a free hosting package would be offered."

Freenom has teamed up with three African Top Level Domain Registries,

but expects that many more African countries will follow. Thanks to a

new innovative business model free domains generate exposure and

revenue for the partner countries, making a real impact locally and

abroad.

The Freenames services will be launched during the next ICANN meeting

on March 24th 2014 in Singapore. To prepare for the launch and to have

a local presence in Africa Freenom has opened an office in Dakar,

Senegal.

About Kheweul

Kheweul.com SA is an ICANN accredited registrar based in Senegal.

Kheweul offers hosting solutions with a variety of packages, script

programming, SSL certificates and e-commerce solutions. Kheweul offers

its services throughout Africa. Kheweul has been awarded with the

Africa Domain Name Industry Award 2013 by AFTLD, the Internet Society,

the DNS community and ICANN.

About Freenom

Freenom is a Registry Operator for top level domains. With a secure and

stable DNS AnyCast Cloud, fast Registration System, and unique business

model built around free domain names Freenom provides a complete

solution for all top level domains. Freenom operates more than 20

million active domain names and is the largest Registry Operator after

.COM. Freenom, previously known as Freedom Registry, is headquartered

in Amsterdam, Netherlands, but has satellite offices in Palo Alto

(U.S.A.) and Dakar (Senegal).

About Freenames

Freenames is a joint venture between Kheweul and Freenom and empowers

African individuals and businesses to get an online presence with a

free domain name. From March 2014 onwards an innovative website builder

will be available on www.freenames.com, allowing everyone with a smart

phone, tablet or PC to create a free online presence.

Contacts

Editors only:

Press contact:

Marcel Trik

Phone: +31 20 5315726

Email: mtrik@freenom.com

A logo pack can be obtained at http://www.freenames.com









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