Category: Startup News

Online Multiplayer Games Account For Over 60% Of cashU Revenue

MMM 6 Comments

cashURecent numbers from Maktoob’s cashU service, the largest internet payment system in the Middle East and Africa, show that user payments for online multiplayer games account for over 60% of their revenue.

cashU was launched some years ago to provide an easy online payment system for people without access to credit cards. At first they used to provide a credit card number that people could use on all sites, even those that weren’t affiliated with cashU, but that option was stopped after some time, and now users can only pay on cashU affiliated services.

Apparently some of the people who use the service the most are young Arab online gamers, who use it to make payments on the biggest names in online multiplayer gaming – World of Warcraft, Maplestory, and Runescape, which have a multi-million user base globally, and a loyal fan base in the Middle East.

Multiplayer games have been surging in popularity throughout the world in general, and the Arab world is no exception, which is making it a target for expansion for a number of established games, like Maplestory which has a Middle East version planned for Q4 of this year, and Travian that supports Arabic.

We also reported a couple of days ago on how MBC Group is launching a new project with Chinese CDC Games, which consists of an online Arab gaming portal, in an attempt to lure online Arab gamers and get a share of the rising market.

Massively multiplayer games have explored many different distribution models, and many of them can be freely downloaded and experienced for a trial period. Typically the user only pays for a subscription fee, but there exists a third party market for virtual gold, which can be used to buy armor, weaponry, and spells.

# More: Maktoob Business

Leading Arab Job Site Bayt.com Crowdsource New Design Online

MMM 9 Comments

Bayt.comBayt.com, the leading job site in the Arab world, are looking to give their website a facelift, and instead of fully doing it in-house or going to some design company to work on it for them, they’ve decided to try and crowdsource the design online.

From their side, they’ve done a lot of thinking and benchmarking internally, and their staff came up with a preliminary design, that they’re now opening up to different people online to get a fresh perspective on it all, and how everything can be laid out and designed.

They’re doing this through 99designs, where they’ve posted a contest asking people to submit their designs and the way they see the website.

The initial mock-up files featuring Bayt’s own ideas and the elements they want included are provided, with a number of guidelines, what they’re looking for and need in the design, and the no-nos that designers should avoid.

The winning design gets a $500 prize.

It’ll be really interesting to see how this experience works out, and what comes out of it in the end. Really nice move from Bayt.com to try and explore different ideas and artistic directions.

The contest details, how to take part in it, as well as the already submitted designs can be found here: Bayt.com Homepage Facelift.

meOwns Launch New Version, Redesign & More Features

MMM

meOwnsmeOwns, the social web application that enables users to publish personal collections of the different things they own, that was previously reviewed here, just launched the new version of their service, with a new design and a set of new features and enhancements.

The new layout and design, brings increased usability throughout the website and its different sections and functionalities, looks a lot nicer, and just feels more organized.

meOwns screenshot

But the new version doesn’t stop at the aesthetics, it brings a number of interesting additions as well:

  • More options to navigate the website, by going through the lists of recently added stuff; recently wished for items; hot, beloved or interesting stuff; and the enhanced search and tagging systems.
  • Users can now also rate items they own or that other people own.

Other features that we should be seeing on the website soon are:

  • The listing of related and similar items that you might be interested in on item pages.
  • Knowing who else owns a certain item that you own or someone else owns; or who wishes to get that item.
  • Integration of microformats.

# meOwns

Dwwen Arab Blog Aggregator To Launch API Soon

MMM 4 Comments

DwwenDwwen, the popular Arab blog aggregator, almost shut down recently due to financial and resource burdens. Luckily a flow of supportive messages, and a generous offer by an Arab blogger to help the service out with the necessary server resources changed the aggregator’s destiny and gave it a new lease on life.

Now Dwwen are working on an API that they’ll be releasing very soon, in a move to open up their service and make the information aggregated in it more available and usable to everyone.

We got to play around with the inside beta of the API, and it’s really easy and simple to use. The API currently allows the pulling of articles directly from Dwwen; it provides the possibility to specify the number of articles you want to pull, the language of the pulled posts (Arabic, English or both), and whether you want to get the latest articles or the most popular ones.

A number of applications are also being built around the API, one of them using Adobe AIR, which is proving to be a pretty popular choice for internet applications on the desktop.

# Dwwen

Accelerator Technology Holdings (ATH) Invests In ShooFeeTV

MMM 5 Comments

ShooFeeTVAccelerator Technology Holdings (ATH) announced its investment in ShooFeeTV, a Jordan based interactive entertainment portal that will be targetting satellite television viewers across the Arab world.

ShooFeeTV will be boosted in its aims to combine mobile, online, and satellite technology in order to become this region’s original multi-platform TV guide.

ShooFeeTV haven’t officially launched their service yet, and typing in their domain name ShooFeeTV.com gives you a simple splash page, even thought they’ve been working on a beta version that has been available online for months now here.

No further details were announced about the deal, its terms or the size of the investment.

A more detailed profile of ShooFeeTV and their service will be published on StartUpArabia soon.

# Source: Accelerator Technology Holdings (ATH)
# Related: Ajabni (AR)

Filaty 2.0 Now Open For Public Beta

MMM

FilatyThe Arab file and photo sharing service Filaty, which was previously reviewed here, has just launched a public beta of its new second version.

The new beta version can be accessed at: http://beta.filaty.com

The design used in the beta is really simplistic and neat, to rather put the emphasis on the functionality. The system was rebuilt from scratch based on a new Arab programming framework that was launched not too long ago.

The main focus for this second version was upload speed, so that was tweaked, optimized and tested rigorously to attain the best results possible.

The design will be changed a bit before the official launch of the new version, conserving the simplicity and ease of use of both the upload page and the file/image detail pages.

filaty beta screenshot

The beta goes on until June 25th. A quick form is integrated into the upload page for testers to send in feedback, faced problems, or suggestions directly.

# Filaty 2.0 Beta

Analysis: Dwwen Blog Aggregator Almost Shut Down

MMM 15 Comments

DwwenA few days ago, Arab blog aggregator service Dwwen announced they would be shutting down on June 15th this year due to financial and resource burdens.

The announcement came on the blog of Tareq Abu Zeid, the founder of Dwwen, where he said that the lack of financial backing for the service doomed it and made shutting it down inevitable.

After the announcement, a number of comments flowed in, with some people proposing that Dwwen start a donations campaign to raise money to keep going on, while some others offered to help in any way possible, and others asked how much they needed, showing readiness to help financially.

Yesterday, only a couple of days after the initial announcement, a little announcement was put up on the Dwwen homepage telling users that the service wouldn’t be shutting down and that further details would be communicated later.

It’s great news that Dwwen managed to find the backing or means to keep going on, they’ve built a really good service since they launched, and have managed to gain many an Arab blogger’s respect.

But now that things have worked out for the best, I think we should take a step back to study and analyse their case a little bit, because I think it more or less gives us some insight into the rather short life cycles of Arab startups of this kind, and how they end up having to take the decision to shut down.

Read More

Waleg & Ikbis Launch ‘The Online Arabian Star’ Contest

MMM 18 Comments
Waleg
Ikbis

Waleg, the first and largest blog network in the Arab world, and Ikbis, the popular Arab video and photo sharing service, have teamed up to launch a new online contest under the name of ‘The Online Arabian Star‘.

Talent TV shows; like Star Academy, SuperStar and a bunch of others on a bunch of Arab TV stations; have proven to be very popular with viewers all around the Arab world. This contest aims to capture some of that success online.

All contestants have to do is upload a video of themselves singing a song in Arabic, and then wait for the votes to roll in. The top 20 winners move to the second phase, and another round of voting is launched to select the winner according to user voting. The final winner gets a $500 cash prize.

For more details on the contest, you can visit the contest’s page on Ikbis or on Waleg.

The Online Arabian Star

It’ll be interesting to see how successful this contest is in terms of number of contestants, quality of the submitted material, and how much interest, attention and traffic it generates.

Ikbis Launches It’s First Comedy Channel “Ground Zero”

MMM 2 Comments

IkbisWhen Ikbis, the popular video and photo sharing service, launched their new design last week, there was a little teaser ad showing two primitives and a mosquito, promising a new surprise soon, without any details or hints.

Well now we know what that surprise is, it’s a new comedy channel called “Ground Zero” that was just launched on Ikbis yesterday.

Ground Zero is an online show created by Mike Derderian and Mohammed Jaradat.

The show has three segments:

1- Doblage (Dubbing): where they choose a scene from a classic movie and record a new funny conversation over it.
2- Lost in translation: which makes fun of translations with “Professor Eshmael”.
3- Pirates of down town Amman: which will take you on a trip to see the newest pirated DVDs in town.

Ikbis Ground Zero

# Ground Zero

Bayt.com To Host First Virtual Job Fair In The Middle East

MMM 2 Comments

Bayt Virtual Job FairBayt.com the leading job site in the Middle East just announced that they’ll be holding the region’s first virtual job fair. The event will be hosted on a new section of Bayt’s website and will run for five days between 15th and 19th June 2008.

The aim of the event is to offer employers and job seekers alike a chance to conveniently and effectively connect and interact online; thereby providing qualified job seeking candidates with interesting career opportunities; and giving local, regional and international employers access to professionals from around the region; pushing the online recruitment concept even further.

Bayt Virtual Job Fair ScreenshotThe virtual job fair will feature 3D booths of exhibiting companies, where they will be able to display company information and job vacancies. Visitors to the online fair will be able to leave CVs at the stands and apply for specific jobs. Companies can then connect to candidates through either video or online chat.

This is the first event of it’s type in the region and it will be sponsored by the Emirates Group.

# Bayt.com Virtual Job Fair