Month: December 2008

H2O New Media To Launch ‘Tiger Fish’ Social Media Advertising Platform

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H2O New MediaDubai-based H2O New Media announced plans to launch the region’s first dedicated social media advertising platform next month, allowing advertisers to target users based on their online community profile.

The platform, called Tiger Fish, is planned to offer advertising services similar in concept to those provided by Facebook and MySpace.

“The Middle East is the second-fastest growing market for social media behind Africa,” Steve Vaile, the chief executive and founder of H2O New Media, told The National. “I think the region needs its own online advertising platform, which is why we have been developing the Tiger Fish network. It will allow advertisers to target the users who want to view their ads.”

Although Tiger Fish claims to have access to more than 300,000 locally based consumers on both English and Arabic content platforms, Mr Vaile said the focus would be mostly on those who speak English. The new platform would offer businesses that previously would have taken products from the US or Europe the opportunity to have local support and consultancy. “There’s a lot that goes into an application like this.”

There isn’t much more detail out there about Tiger Fish yet, but my understanding is that it’s based around the different social media communities H2O New Media has built, leveraging the database of different user profiles in this network of online community services to offer advertisers the chance to target specific segments more precisely.

Soko Maroc Launches New Version With New Design & Features

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Soko.maSokoMaroc.com, a free Moroccan online classified ads website, has recently launched a new version of its service, introducing a new design and incorporating a number of popular Web 2.0 best practices.

Their aim was to present the content in an attractive way with very little advertising to help users maximize their sales online, while retaining the concept ”results in 1 or 2 clicks”.

The service is now available in three languages: English, French and Spanish; and has integrated a number of new features like: simple and fast single page ad posting, optimized search tools, and two options to display ads (list or photo gallery).

Another new interesting additiong is the concept of user galleries; Users with a SokoMaroc account can now setup a personal space “gallery” to present their items for sale and details of their activities. They can personalize this space with their logo / photo, contact info and a unique url for it to share with friends and potential buyers.

A Facebook application is also being developed and should be released soon.

SokoMaroc.com has been active since November 2007 and is run by Soko tech, which is based in Boston US.

SokoMaroc.com is a central network of online communities in Morocco featuring free classified ads organized geographically and by categories (Jobs, Real Estate, Auto-Motorbikes, Personals, For Sale, Services, Community, and Resume categories) and forums on various topics in Morocco. The site currently serves over one million page views and 50 000 unique visitors per month.

Hijri Calendar Now Available Through Google Calendar

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Google Calendar (Arabic)Google just recently announced the availability of the Hijri Calendar in English and Arabic in their Google Calendar tool.

Google Calendar is a tool that simplifies keeping track of events, special occasions, and appointments — whether they’re on your own agenda or on the calendars of contacts who opt to share their schedules with you. Now users that prefer to use the Hijri Calendar can add this feature.

“Launching the Google Hijri Calendar showcases our effort to focus on the needs of users locally. Calendar is a great tool for organizing your life,” said Wael Ghonim, Marketing Manager. “It’s another of our efforts to provide users with fast, easy-to-use applications that help to simplify your life in a way that is locally relevant for users who want Hijri Calendar dates.”

Google Calendar Hijri

To add the Hijri Calendar you need to sign in to your Google Account and go to your calendar. Once there click on settings. Under the General tab you can scroll down to Alternate Calendars and select the Hijri calendar of your choice.

There are three types of Hijri calendars available: Standard, Kuwaiti and Saudi Hijri calendars.

# Google Calendar

Tools4Com Launches Facebook Application For Their Online Invoicing System

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Tools4ComTunis-based Tools4Com just released a new Facebook application for their online invoicing system Tools4Com OIS; that was previously reviewed here.

The Facebook application enables all Facebook users to generate invoices, quotations, pro forma invoices, and delivery notes in PDF format easily and directly from inside Facebook.

Users already registered with Tools4Com OIS can also access their list of documents and download them from the application as well.

Tools4Com OIS Facebook App

The Tools4Com OIS facebook application is available in French only for the time being. The full service through the Tools4Com website is currently available in French and German, with English on the way, and Arabic planned for the future.

# Tools4Com OIS Facebook Application

Royal Jordanian First Middle Eastern Airline To Offer OnAir Mobile & Internet Services

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Royal JordanianRoyal Jordanian and OnAir signed an agreement whereby RJ, a oneworld member, will provide passengers with OnAir’s in-flight Internet and mobile phone services, including email, SMS and voice calls, making it the first airline in the Middle East to offer such facility.

President/CEO Samer Majali, who signed the agreement with OnAir CEO Benois Debains, said that the OnAir service will enable Royal Jordanian passengers to use their mobile phones and BlackBerry-type devices to send and receive text messages and emails, and to make and receive mobile phone calls in flight, as well as to use their laptops to access Internet.

He indicated that the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) granted airworthiness certification to OnAir, testifying that neither Mobile OnAir system nor multiple mobiles cause harmful interference to any of the aircraft’s avionics systems.

Majali pointed out that phase one of the agreement stipulates installing the system by the Airbus company in two Airbus A319 that will be joining the fleet in February and March next year.  The second phase of the agreement includes implementing the Mobile OnAir Service on the airline’s single-aisle A320 family, installed with a standalone GSM/GPRS system at the end of 2009. 

Passengers will be able to use their own mobile phones during flights, above 3,000 meters, whereas during take offs and landings, the service will not be operative.  

Majali added: “Mobile OnAir will allow unlimited text messages and emails to be sent, and will allow up to 11 simultaneous voice calls. A central feature of the service is the crew’s ability to turn it off at any time, or switch it to “silent” – text and email only – mode, enabling the airline to customize the services to passengers’ preferences. For example, airlines could turn off the voice element, or even the whole service, during quiet times.”

He also said that the Mobile OnAir Service is one important move that will pave the way for airline mobile self-care services. This will allow the passenger to check the flight status, do his check in, view his itineraries and manage bookings, such as changing flights, selecting seats, requesting upgrades, booking bags and selecting meals. Additionally, it offers passengers information about their destination. “Royal Jordanian is at the forefront of e-travel. This includes providing passengers with the ability to plan trips, book online, issue e-tickets, make online seat reservations and use self check-in kiosks at the airport. We are now pleased to offer the latest technology: on board communications services, enabling our passengers to carry on with their travel planning, as well as to communicate with their colleagues, friends and families, in exactly the same way they can on the ground,” commented Majali.

OnAir signed roaming agreements with the world’s mobile operators, among which three Jordanian mobile operators: Zain, Orange and Umniah. The service is invoiced by the passenger’s home mobile operator at international roaming rates

OnAir was incorporated in February 2005 and is owned by Airbus, the aircraft manufacturer with the most modern and comprehensive product line on the market, and SITA, the world-leading provider of air transport focused applications, communications and IT infrastructure.

Jeeran Launches Web Statistics & Analysis Tool ‘Jeeran Visitors’

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JeeranJeeran, the Middle East’s largest UGC community, just announced the launch of a new web statistics and marketing tool called Jeeran Visitors that allows bloggers and users to get insights about the traffic on their blogs and content on Jeeran’s different services.

“Visitors”, features statistics and charts of the number of visitors each page/blog receives, with the ability to track number of pageviews, top viewed content, visitors’ countries, and much more .

Jeeran, Arabic for neighbors, is a pioneer Arab online community that offers a variety of web 2.0 services including blogging, photo and video sharing, as well as web hosting, aiding individuals to create their own presence on the internet, with minimum technical knowledge.

The launch of Visitors comes to complement Jeeran’s vision that aims to offer a unique and complete user experience to their users.

Commenting on the new tool, Laith Zraikat, Director of Innovation and Co-Founder of Jeeran.com, said: “We are so excited about Visitors as it puts our users in control, it’s very user-friendly and easy to operate, and it doesn’t need any installation or technical efforts.”

Mr. Zraikat also added: “With the growing popularity of user-generated-content communities such as Jeeran, bloggers and websites owners, as well as photo and video sharing enthusiasts, are in need for a free and reliable tool to evaluate their contribution to the web.”

Jeeran Visitors

Over the past few years, the community of Jeeran grew-up to host more than one million active users, in addition to 650,000 websites, and a growing community of bloggers that exceeded 120,000 blogs, the largest blog community in the Arab world.

Omar Kudsi, Jeeran’s President and Co-Founder welcomed the launch of Visitors, and quoted: “Our tracking system is user-friendly and comes in both Arabic and English, which offers a convenient Arabic-language tool to measure visitors and traffic.”

Mr. Zraikat pointed out that Visitors is already available for all users on Jeeran without the need of any installation, he also stressed on the fact that many features will be added to the system soon.

Kudsi concluded: “We strive to offer Arab users a top notch web experience that empowers them to contribute, communicate and interact, and Visitors is just the beginning of a series of features and products in the pipeline.”

Businessbuyandsell.me, Middle East’s First Business & Franchise Marketplace

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Businessbuyandsell.meDubai-based RichWeb, a member of Tharaa Holding, has just launched the beta version of BusinessBuyAndSell.me, the region’s first portal dedicated to buying and selling businesses and franchises, in a move that aims to cater to and boost company acquisitions and expansion activities by business establishments in the Middle East and North Africa (including Turkey and Iran).

BusinessBuyAndSell.me offers a number of services, such as listing businesses for buying and selling with the option to search by category and region; listing and finding global franchise opportunities available for the Middle East; receiving auto-updates on new listings based on saved search criteria; advertising opportunities; with a number of other value-added services that will be launched with the non-beta version within the next 6 Months.

The directory of listings on BusinessBuyAndSell.me is a free service for buyers, which will enable them to search opportunities by location, category and size of businesses. Potential buyers can also have their search criteria saved and regularly receive listing updates, based on their specific requirements. Owners who plan to sell their businesses or franchises can register online and list their offerings on the website and find potential buyers in a much faster, easier and convenient way, as opposed to traditional methods of newspaper advertising.

As an introductory offer, all listings are free of cost during the trial period and huge reductions in advertising rates are available.

Businessbuyandsell.me

Commenting on the portal’s launch, Mr. Shabeer Mohamed, RichWeb’s Managing Partner, said: “Buying and selling businesses and franchises is a key area of economic activity all over the world. However, until now, there has been no proper domain in the region for potential buyers and sellers to come in contact with each in a fast and easy manner, I am sure our service will come as a saviour to many establishments seeking to restructure their operations.”

Other related services that BusinessBuyAndSell.me plans to offer include providing details of available business loans, business-related services and other useful resources. 

# Source: Maktoob Business

Abu Dhabi Authority For Culture And Heritage To Launch Online Poetry Encyclopaedia

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Poetry EncyclopaediaThe Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (ADACH) has announced that it will soon launch a website that serves as the latest issue of the poetry encyclopaedia, to coincide with the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair, held on March 2009. 

The fourth edition of the encyclopaedia, whose publishing rights are owned by ADACH, will include: 2,693 poetry collections (which mount to 2,890,301 verses or 138,641 poems). In addition, it will have 1,081 books on scientific, literary and historical heritage.

Many of the original poetry collections have been provided with huge additional content. For example, the third edition Ahmed Shawqi’s collection had 376 poems (11,724 verses), while the fourth edition includes 776 poems (16,517 verses). 

Work on the poetry encyclopaedia began in 1997 and the National Library launched the first edition in 1998, which included nearly 180,000 verses of 88 poets, in addition to the Arabic dictionary ‘Lisan Al Arab’ (the Arab tongue) of Ibn Mandhour. 

Jumaa Al Qubaisi, Director of the National Library, said ADACH was keen that the poetry encyclopaedia, in its new look, remains committed to the high refined taste of its Arab readers, in its collections of selected Arab poets – old and new. The poetry encyclopaedia did not set as a pre-condition of only including previously published poetry collections as its editors believe that many glorious poets, whose poems can be found in different places, did not have their poetry collections published, while not every poet whose work has been fully published means that his/her work is of a valuable significance. 

There are books that deal with the poetry of some of the Arab tribes, the poetry of a certain country or region, the poems of people belonging to certain religion or sect, as well as ones focused on female poets only.

The encyclopaedia also provides a search engine to help researchers. 

The fourth edition of the poetry encyclopaedia will be available online for all visitors of the ADACH website.

Undersea Cable Damages Disrupt Internet & Communication Services

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Damage to three major undersea cables located in the Mediterranean between Sicily and Tunisia seriously disrupted more than half of internet and phone services between Europe, the Middle East and Asia on Friday, with India, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates the worst affected.

France Telecom said initial estimates show 82 percent of service to India was disrupted, while 73 percent of service to Qatar and 68 percent to the UAE was affected. Around 50 percent of service to Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt was also disrupted.

The causes of the cut remain unclear. A ship set off in the early hours of Saturday morning to fix the lines, but it could take until Dec. 31 for normal service to be restored.

The cables are jointly owned by several dozen different countries. One of the cables is 40,000 km long and links 33 different countries while a second is 20,000 km long and serves 14 states. 

In January of this year, similar damages to five cables in the Mediterranean, north of Alexandria Egypt, and in the Arabian Gulf, caused major disruptions to internet and communication services around the Middle East and Asia.