Month: February 2010

What major obstacle did you face while looking to fund your project? [Poll Results]

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In the latest poll on StartUpArabia, the question that was addressed to the entrepreneur readers was:

What major obstacle did you face while looking to fund your project?

The result of reader voting came out as follows:

Major obstacles getting funding

Out of 89 readers who responded to the poll:

– 37% of them responded that it was initiating contact with potential investors
– 29% said it was allocating and finding the right investors
– 18% think it was measuring the seriousness of the investors
– 8% believe it was the cost of connecting with investors (traveling and attending conferences …etc)

The remaining 7% cited other obstacles.

What do you think? Do you share the same view? What solutions do you see for these obstacles?

Arab World: Current State Of The Internet & Future Growth

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Over the past few days, a number of articles sprung up about reports and predictions that have been announced by various parties, analyzing where the Internet stands today in the Arab world, and where they see it a few years from now.

Here is a quick straight-forward round-up of these opinions, reports and projections:

Present day:

  • At present there are roughly around 56 million Arab internet users in the Arab world, representing only 17% of the 337 million population. [Madar Research]
  • There is not enough Arabic content on the internet to take full advantage of newly built broadband networks in the region. [Ali al Ahmed, chief strategist, Etisalat]
  • More people are getting online in the Arab world, and are relying more and more on the Internet for their news, videos, social interactions and more, but only 1% of all content online is in Arabic, not offering them much choice. [Arab Media Outlook report]
  • Online news consumption is gaining ground with 22% to 34% of the people using internet at least as much as print media to read news. [Arab Media Outlook report]
  • On average, 70% of the people in the four main Arab markets researched use social networks in some capacity and about 15% use social networking sites at least once a day. [Arab Media Outlook report]
  • About 6 million internet users in the Middle East – or about 12% of the total online population in the region – have access to broadband networks. [Arab Media Outlook report]
  • People in the Arab world are spending about three hours per day on the internet on average, which is already on par with the amount of time spent on TV. [Arab Media Outlook report]
  • About $56 million or 1% of the total media advertising spend is online in the Middle East. [Arab Media Outlook report]
Looking forward:
  • The number of Arabic internet users in the Middle East and North Africa is expected to grow by nearly 50% over the next three years, rising to 82 million users by 2013. [Vint Cerf, Chief Internet Evangelist, Google]
  • Broadband usage in the region is expected to grow at an annual rate of 25% until 2013. [Arab Media Outlook report]
  • Broadband growth around the region over the next five years will stimulate the media industry, driven largely by Egypt and Saudi Arabia. [Arab Media Outlook report]
  • Internet advertising spend in the Middle East will rise to at least 4.5% by 2013, to around $266 million. [Arab Media Outlook report]

[Sources: The National, Zawya, BI-ME, Arabian Business, AMEInfo]

Wajhy, Create Your Own Arab Avatar

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WajhyOver the past years, every now and then a new avatar creation tool would pop up from somewhere, to let internet users create avatars of theirs in the form of South Park characters, Lego men and women, and the list continues; each time people would flock to the new service, create their avatars, and they’d spread them like fire across social networks and all sorts of other online services.

A new tool called Wajhy has been launched, in Arabic, for Arab users, that allows them to create avatars that actually look a bit more like them, and that they can dress in traditional dress too.

The user can choose whether they want to create a male or female avatar, then go in and start setting the options one by one, from shape of face, ears and nose, to what they’re wearing, what their head dress is, and the accessories they’re sporting.

The main differences between Wajhy,which means ‘My face’ in Arabic, and other such services are in the choices of clothing available for men and women, their head dress, the facial hair options for men, and such small details that give a small Arab touch to the avatar.

Wajhy

The service was launched by Remal IT (Saudi Arabia) and SOCOOOL Entertainment (United Arab Emirates), and is still in Beta, but is quite stable and smooth to use.

Saot Al Arab, What Would You Do If You Were The Leader?

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Saot Al ArabSaot Al Arab (The voice of Arabs) is an interesting and ambitious non-profit project that was recently launched for the Arab world, asking visitors what they would do if they were in the leader’s chair, what would be the first project they would launch.

The idea of course is to give Arabs a space to voice their opinions and thoughts in an open and simple way that will let them get their ideas about different subjects and areas across to everyone. In a way, the site attempts to offer a platform for freedom of expression without making it a ground where people can openly criticize their governments, by framing the responses in a certain fictional context.

So basically, users from across the Arab world can go to the site and submit ideas for projects that they would implement and put in place if they were the leaders and decision makers; while other users visiting the site get to vote on the ideas and leave their comments.

Project ideas are categorized by topic: Security, Media, Economics, Education, Culture, Politics, Society, and Technology; and also broken down by Country.

Saot Al Arab

A very interesting goal and milestone for the project lies ahead, as the plan is that after a certain time collecting all these ideas, they will be compiled into a book, a copy of which will be sent to each Arab ruler; the book will also be made available in the market for everyone.

Unfortunately, in order to make sure that nothing that will get the site banned is published, submitted ideas do currently have to go through a screening process before being published on the site.

The project was launched by Hijazi Natsheh, a Palestinian entrepreneur currently based out of the United Arab Emirates.

DemoCamp Dubai 5 – March 8th 2010 – DKV Auditorium

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After over a year since its last edition, DemoCamp Dubai is back for its fifth edition, and hoping to be even bigger than its previous editions.

The Dubai-based launch event for new products, technologies and companies will be taking place at the Dubai Knowledge Village Auditorium on March 8th 2010 at 6:30PM.

DemoCamp Dubai 5

As usual attendance is open for free for everyone, offering up an opportunity for entrepreneurs, investors, consultants, students, and professionals to get together, see what the latest projects that have been cooking in the region are, meet and network.
To confirm your attendance, just fill in this simple form: Attendance form.

Entrepreneurs and developers can join and demo a web application, a piece of software, a tool or anything that is innovative, new and can be demonstrated.
To submit your project to be demonstrated at the event, please fill in this simple form: Demo Submission.
The last date for submissions is February 24th, 2010.

This edition of DemoCamp Dubai was made possible through the cooperation and support of Dubai Internet City, Argaam and StartUpArabia.

And finally, as usual, startups and web applications presented at DemoCamp Dubai, will be covered here on StartUpArabia.

Shofha.com, Arabic Movies & Series Online On Demand

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ShofhaLINKonLINE, a subsidiary of LINKdotNET (an Orascom Telecom Holding company), has announced the launch of a new entertainment service called Shofha, in collaboration with regional movie and series producers and rights owners.

The new service, which is available in English and Arabic, allows anyone from anywhere in the world, to legally watch the latest Arabic movies and television series online on the same day of their international release. Movies and series are provided in high resolution, commercial free, through online streaming or download; with the video files being all DRM protected,  most probably using Microsoft Windows Media DRM.

Shofha.com comes with a good back catalogue of movies and series, either on rental or purchase basis, that can be downloaded or watched online. TV series will be available in both full series form as well as sing episode form; even 5 minute episode highlights are provided for those without much time on their hands.

The available options are to: Buy the video, where a user gets to download the video to their pc and play it anytime they wish indefinitely, with the ability to download the movie up to 3 times; Rent the video, where  a user can download the video to their pc and watch it as many times as they want within a 48 hour time-frame; and finally there’s the Internet Cinema option where the user gets to instantly start watching the video through online streaming as many times as they wish in a 24 hour time-frame, with the quality of the video depending on the connection speed the user has.

The prices for each option seem to vary depending on the country, for example international users paying in US dollars would have to pay something like: $US 6 to buy, $US 3 to rent, and $US 9 to stream online; on the other hand, someone in the UAE would pay 9 Dirhams to buy, 5 Dhs to rent, and 7 Dhs to stream online, which is much cheaper.

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