Every time you read or type a domain name eyebrows should not rise. If ICTs are part and parcel of people’s lives then website domain names becomes part of the system just like telephone numbers or street addresses. Once websites are taken, as part of life then investing in constructing them will be initiated as just basic needs for the sustenance of people and organizations.

Many a times African companies and organizations tend to turn a blind eye on building websites for their companies. Experiences have shown them they cannot get any direct profits through their websites. To some extend they are right about this because when the Internet hype was in its hey days they just felt having their brochures online would sale for them.

What they did not see is that the way they built websites only helped the visibility of their companies but the nature of the sites did not allow sales to be directly linked to their web presence. The main issue accelerating first African companies to build websites was as a global marketing tool. One thing these companies did not realize was the way in which global orders would be handled.

From the first brochure sites build in Africa they were just like print and radio/TV media adverts where sales and orders are done through available physical set ups. To this end we find African businessman now giving second thoughts about joining e-commerce initiatives.

Most of them have developed a negative attitude towards including websites for their companies. The message they are missing and which is getting popular with the young, inspired and well-informed entrepreneurs is that the INTERNET is not a marketing media.

The Internet is not a tool were you can market your products. In fact the Internet cannot be compared to print, radio and television medias. The Internet the whole concept of the World Wide Web is a society joining together all people of the world together.

All the services that are offered by radio are also offered more conveniently over the Internet. The internet even surpasses the radio because it allows broadcasting that is confined to the small coverage to be listened live over the world from anywhere to everywhere including on the top of Mt Everest.

You can read daily newspapers online but you cannot read the Internet from daily newspapers. Newspapers can be for reading, television for watching and listening the same way radio is listened but with the internet you got this and many more services all in once.

So African business man are now realizing the opportunities that lie in investing in e-commerce initiatives like Ecosandals.com they can sell their products online over the world. Imagine how that would have costed in telephone, fax and transport bills. Everything is found online that supports any business operation.

If there is something you think cannot be done online then that will be an opportunity for the emerging inspired programmers of third world countries like India. Africa we are now realizing that we need impossibities to prove our creativeness and innovative nature.

Imagine before the western world came to colonise we just lived well but without things that are called basics in the western world. Only because we were less informed then we have to wait for other people to come and discover us. Scientists in Germany knew what developments were happening in Britain and through that knowledge they could on similar adventures and once well informed always come out with brilliant discoveries.

We have some scientists who even chose to leave Germany for America or the United where their talents were appreciated and they could mix and mingle with people of the same mindset. Now for Africa and its people we have been put at a similar platform for doing business on the world.

With the internet you also see and know projects of importants being done by our counterparts anywhere over the world. With the Internet we are able to recognize and realize opportunities that matter to the world. We are able to check if someone else is working on our dreams or to asses if they were really raw and fresh.

Over the years our picture have been depicted to us by the world. Now with the Internet we can send out our own picture and the way we view our selves to the world. At times because some of us we live for information and actually see a lot of possibilities that can change people’s lives we are bound to want to place blame those in authority for not doing anything. Look long back western well wishers would bring in their concepts here after they have made a debut abroad.

Then when we start knowing what is going on around the world. Now with the Internet we are even able to know which ideas have been worked on or not, which ones are in pilot phase or not. So at the end of the day we are able to work on ideas from concepts at the same time they being implemented oversees.

So for now why should we website developers, media houses and marketing companies not come up with plans that will provide transparency and openness in the areas in which e-commerce, websites and online marketing can benefit local companies.

This of course is a concept that is already working oversees, we have companies like yahoo and google that depend on online adverts for their revenue. The question here is not only online adverts on junk portals but also we need to initiate creation of value on our portals. We need to come up with convincing ways of showing advertisers how online adverts would really work.

Remember advertisers s do not pay just for placing a banner on your portal, they are things like pay-per-click and feedbacks which actually shows how many people are actually visiting websites and also making orders after that.

We need our governments to look into legislation in as much as online payments are concerned on a local pespective. With a mind to go and surely go we will rise above standards set by the digital divide and come to realize that the Internet is a force to reckon with.