The Domain Name Commissioner released her monthly statistics on .nz domain names for September 2011, the details and summaries are below including my commentary.
.maori.nz / māori.nz
642 registered .maori.nz names with 118 renewals, 15 new registrations
.iwi.nz
76 registered .iwi.nz names with 17 renewals and no new registrations.
Summary
.maori.nz / .māori.nz is still the 5th most registered domain from the total of 14 .nz (2LD) domains. The most popular is, .co.nz with 396,018 registrations. The least popular is .parliament with only 8 registrations of which all 8 were renewed in the month of September.
Posted in .iwi.nz Maori Online by .
Using word frequency lists including: a Māori predictive text list, lists of common Māori words in New Zealand English and common Māori words used in Māori. I discuss and analyse which words would be most beneficial in a Māori predictive text database for Māori and introduce the need to update New Zealand English databases used for predictive texting and spell checking.
Māori are higher users of mobile devices than non-Māori in New Zealand. Yet, the only support for Māori language is an outdated predictive word list that was offered in 2009 by Telecom New Zealand. I have complied a new and updated list and am freely distributing it.
It is unclear to me how the original list was compiled as it does not have any major commonality with other published lists of both popular Māori words in the English language or in any high frequency Māori words as used by Maori speakers.
I have compiled an updated list by combining several well-known popular Māori words that appear in New Zealand English Language lists, which has produced a list of 456 Māori words that should be included in any New Zealand Language predictive and spelling database due to their commonality.
Furthermore, the word frequency list as compiled by Mary Boyce (2006) and a high frequency word list of Māori words used in Twitter (Indigenous Tweets), I recommend that a new predictive list for Māori speakers be considered using frequently used words by Māori speakers.
The updated predictive list can be downloaded here.
The research paper can be downloaded and read here.
Posted in Maori Online by .
Oct 11
16
Stop promoting FaceBook and your ISP – Start promoting your organisation and your products.
The popularity of FaceBook and the easy option to have an organisation or product page has made many organisations create a FaceBook page and do away with a web site. Other organisations will also use their free ISP email as their primary email address to save costs.
Many organisations today advertise their FaceBook page and not their own web site losing their organisation branding and online identity. A .nz domain name costs between $28 and $50 per annum with hosting ranging from $50 to $500 per annum for branded web sites and email. .com addresses are much cheaper and can be purchased sometimes for less than $12 per annum.
Whatever the size of your organisation and required web-site, you need to brand it in part with your own domain name. A domain name is the equivalent of a phone number or name, and is used is used for all of your internet communication such as web site or email. The part of the domain name you register should be used for all of your social media usernames and Instant Messaging.
Everyone, especially your current and potential customers will recognise you by the name you choose for your domain name.
If you use a FaceBook address or your ISP’s address or email address such as:
- Facebook.com/yourBusinessName
- yourBusinessName@facebook.com
- yourlogin@ispName.co.nz
- www.ispname.co.nz/~yourLogin
- www.ispname.co.nz/homepages/~yourLogin
- http://yourname.ispname.co.nz
- Name.wordpress.com
- Name.blogspot.com
- Name.twitter.com
- Etc., etc., etc., etc.
You are putting your business or organisation at a number of financial and marketing risks including:
- Not presenting a professional image to prospects who may wonder if you really are an established business.
- Spending your advertising money promoting your ISP’s brand or social network by using their email address and web site.
- If you change ISPs then you will need to change stationery, signwriting, business cards and any other media that has your email and web address on, then advertise to your clients the change and lose any potential customers who know only your ISP addresses.
- It is not permanent and you are held hostage to the ISP or social network for your email and web address.
- The risk that your ISP ceases business due to financial difficulty, mergers etc., you will lose your email address and future emails.
- Lower search engine rankings as your default email address is not promoting your web site address.
Social Media pages
- Lower search engine rankings as it increases the social media search rankings.
- Lack of branding to your customers as the social network is the most prominent part of a social media page.
- Making your organisation look cheap and maybe not legit as you can’t afford a legit web site.
- As we have seen in the past with popular social media and even popular web browsers is that more often than not they are replaced with the next big and better service or product. Who remembers MySpace ?
- Social Media such as FaceBook constantly change their Terms and Conditions which you must agree to prior to signing up for a FaceBook Page etc.
- Often when using social media the Terms and Conditions make you sign away all of your legal rights to any information you place on the service.
- You have no control of who accesses your information when using Social Media.
- Your information and your customers will be used by the social media organisation for their own advertising and marketing.
If you choose to use a FaceBook page, you should first have a web site with your own domain name.
Secondly, create a sub domain of your web address that goes directly to your FaceBook Page or other social media page. An example is http://facebook.YourCompany.co.nz . This advertises your web site and FaceBook page without the need to advertise www.facebook.com/YourCompany .
Posted in Web Consultation by .
The first verse which is mostly sung when the All Blacks play Rugby is below. For the complete anthem, and more detailed discussion on the origins of the translation, the common mistakes and literal translation can be found at Folk Song .
The vowels with macrons indicate the vowel is pronounced longer.
E Ihowa Atua
O ngā iwi mātou rā,
āta whakarongo na;
Me aroha noa.
Kia hua ko te pai;
Kia tau tō atawhai;
Manaakitia mai
Aotearoa.
God of nations at thy feet
in the bonds of love we meet.
Hear our voices, we entreat,
God defend our free land.
Guard Pacific’s triple star
From the shafts of strife and war,
Make her praises heard afar,
God defend New Zealand.
I gladly accepted an invitation to participate as a practitioner for the on-line dialogue on Using Citizen Media Tools to Promote Under-Represented Languages from November 16 to 22, 2011 from New Tactics http://www.newtactics.org .
I am writing this post in the hope to raise more publicity of this key initiative which will allow anyone with a web connection to ask questions to a team of experts who use ICT to promote and revive under represented languages.
This is a chance to explore new ideas and seek guidance and maybe assistance on language projects whether they are a thought or already exist. Promoting under represented languages and engaging in language revitalisation is a new genre for ICT and web communications in an exciting new era of social media and more connectivity than ever before.
I have worked with some of the other experts and feel excited about the diversity of skills and knowledge that has been gathered together.
I envisage that there will be plenty of questions and answers and that there will be more support for those under represented languages that are in need of support and answers.
Posted in Indigenous Issues by .