If I Can Vote: Express Your Opinions & Build Connections

If I can voteIf I Can Vote is a new service launched from Dubai to give people from all around the world a chance to voice their opinions on elections and causes from around the world, that they’re not necessarily eligible to vote in.

In an ever so interconnected world, the results of an election in one part of the world, a referendum in another, or a policy change somewhere or the other, can have a ripple effect throughout the world. It’s not to say that the whole world should have the right to vote, but it’d at least be interesting to have their voice be heard and their opinion known.

To that extent this simple service hits the nail straight on the head, giving people around the globe the chance to be heard. The current vote that is open for the world to voice its opinion on is of course the US presidential elections, and the choice between Barack Obama and John McCain as the next president of the United States of America.
In fact, recently I’ve been reading many articles on who’d be better for this or that region among the two contenders, and this website is pretty much an effective way to know that.

An interesting choice that was taken by the team behind the service is that the person voting must explain why he chose one side over the other, which should offer even more insight into what the world thinks.

After the US elections are over, they aim to extend it to cover any future elections or causes: elections in India for example, debates about causes like environment and world peace, …etc.

The service also aims to build an online community, focused on enabling opinionated people to connect with like-minded people or others with opposing views; to that effect people can choose to connect with other people around the world depending on their votes and opinions, and also invite their friends and contacts to the service to let their voice be heard as well. More social features are being added to the site to drive feeds from and into major social platforms.

If I can vote screenshot

The site shows the percentage of votes that each side got, the number of votes from top voting countries, and also rotates the votes of some random people, helping you find people you can connect to and read their different opinions.

The site is available in English only for the time being, although I think it’d be interesting to enable other languages as well, so as to open it up to more people, and as the interface is pretty simple and light, it shouldn’t even be a big fuss to add major languages.

# If I Can Vote

Ras2Ras, Arabic Online Comparison Research Tool

ras2rasRas2Ras, which means “Head to head” in Arabic, is a new Arabic service from Yemen, which is built around a very simple yet really interesting idea: putting any two comparable things against each other, and letting people vote on which they like best.

These comparisons are called ‘battles’, and competing against each other we can find products, services, websites, people or anything really; and then through user voting we can find out which one the people prefer.

Users can also leave their comments on the battle, which can provide more insight into what people like about a certain ‘competitor’, or what they find negative about the other.

Anybody can register for free and start a new battle between two things for the people to vote on. Battles can be tagged for easier search, and users can also view all battles started by the same user.

Now, even though the idea is very simple in principle, it is very useful and really helps in a number of situations, some serious ones and others that could be for fun, which makes it all the more interesting.

The most obvious and interesting use is as a research tool; for example it can help businesses get people’s feedback on them with regards to their biggest competitor and understand why through the comments to better identify ways to build on their strengths and fill in their weakness gaps; The tool can also come in handy for a person wanting to buy a certain thing and not knowing which is best, and hoping that the community can help them out. And the list of examples where it can help in research can go on.

ras2ras screenshot

Ras2Ras was built by Yemeni internet solutions company Yemen Server. The design is pretty simplistic and straight-forward, focused on the battle and the vote, just like it should be. The service is available in Arabic only for the time being and is still in beta mode, as they’ll be rolling out more features.

# Ras2Ras

eMapia Location Based Marketplace Launched

eMapiaA couple of days ago at the Swalif Think Day event in Dubai (UAE), a new interesting online service was launched, which is eMapia; brought to us by the same people behind Darrb, the community powered shipping and delivery service, previously reviewed here; eMapia aims to be a usable location based marketplace.

eMapia hopes to make shopping online an easier experience, integrating Google Maps technology to enable sellers (businesses or individuals) to add their items and link them to specific locations on the map, where they are available for sale (shop or person’s home).

It’s very much like the classifieds systems we’ve gotten used to where people post items they have for sale and set their own prices, and others get to contact them if they’re interesting in buying them from them. But eMapia tries another take at it through a new interface concept, focusing more on the location side of things, letting users zoom into specific areas to search for products in those areas or checking out all products being sold in their area.

It’s pretty obvious that the team behind eMapia and Darrb will slowly start building bridges between the two services as it’s clear that they’re a great match; after all, if someone finds something they’re interested in, and they want to buy it, they’ll certainly also want it delivered to them as cheaply as possible too, if the seller is not near enough for them.

eMapia screenshot

The interface is pretty simple and straightforward to use; there’s a big map that users can zoom to different locations with, in search of items available for sale in those areas; and there’s a list of available products on the left that gets refreshed automatically as locations change or as the user zooms in further.

Users can click through from the map or the list of products to view more details about the item and the seller. Seller and buyer rating functionalities haven’t been integrated yet, but they’re obviously really important features that should be integrated soon, just like they are in Darrb.

eMapia offers users the ability to add up to 5 items for free. To be able to add more items, users will have to upgrade to a premium member account, which they will be announcing soon.

# eMapia

Cinéma Tunisien, The Portal For Tunisian Cinema

Cinema TunisienCinéma Tunisien is a recently launched portal dedicated to Cinema in Tunisia.

The portal aims to be an online database of information on Tunisian movies, directors, actors, critics, producers and associations involved with cinema making in the country.

It also provides details about the history of Cinema in Tunisia, and how it has evolved over the years; Also listing the different cinematic festivals and gatherings taking place throughout the country.

Cinema fans can also find the latest news, interviews, upcoming movie openings, as well as what movies are currently being shown in cinemas around Tunisia. They also have the possibility to connect with each other in the discussion forum, and to rate and review their favorite movies.

Cinema Tunisien screenshot

The portal is in French only for the time being. Hopefully it will keep growing into a very interesting resource documenting all sides and aspects of Tunisian Cinema.

# Cinéma Tunisien

Qatar Living, Community Portal About Living In Qatar

Qatar LivingQatar Living is an online community portal that was founded in 2005, and that has grown over the years to become a central point for information on everything related to Qatar.

The portal was built around the goal to facilitate connection, participation and sharing of knowledge and experience between members of the community; in order to enrich the content and provide more useful information for everyone, whether they already live in Qatar, or will be moving/visiting there.

Among the features that Qatar Living offers to community members are a free classifieds system, a Q&A system, a guide to Qatar and a forum; all to help users connect to find the different things they need, as well as answers to their questions, and helpful information about living in Qatar.

The portal tries to cater to users’ interests by providing details about the different events taking place in Qatar, as well as a directory of groups of people who share similar interests.

Qatar Living is also behind the Qatar Blogs Project, which aims to group all blogs about Qatar in one place; and then maybe start aggregating their content to help people find interesting stories.

Qatar Living screenshot

The portal is powered by Drupal, and has a well structured design, that makes it pretty easy to navigate and find information. The site currently has around 43000 registered users, and generates an average of 6 millions page views a month.

# Qatar Living

Next: The Simple, Intuitive And Limited To-Do List Application

NextA couple of days ago, as covered here, the teams from SpinBits and CloudAppers launched a really interesting and exciting experiment called Zero2Beta, focused on intense design and development of a useful web application from concept to launch in a couple of days, and releasing it to the public.

The first application in this experiment, code-named “App1″, was named “Next“; The idea behind developing Next was to attempt to approach the old-and-tried to-do list web app in a simpler, more intuitive and limited way; to address short-term task management to handle usual day-to-day stuff.

After 2 days of hard design and development work at the SpinBits offices, sticking to the bare basics, and killing some features: Next was launched moments ago.

The interface is very clean, simple, and usable; and the idea is very straightforward: 1 task at any time, 140 characters per task, 20 tasks maximum; you can set priorities by dragging and dropping tasks into order; and you just start getting things done.

Next screenshots

A very good result for something that was built in only a couple of days time.

You can all play around with Next here: movetonext.com

Tvosz.com, New Egyptian Video Sharing Service

TvoszTvosz.com is a new Cairo-based online video sharing service, which aims to be an alternative video sharing website for Egyptian and global internet users alike, and a place for family-friendly content.

Anyone can have access to upload, download, view, share and experience everything from short clips captured on mobile phones all the way up to full-length, high-definition feature films.
However all videos are submitted for approval by the website’s team to ensure that all posted content is family-friendly non-offensive material.

Every video available on Tvosz is compatible with over all major manufacturers’ consumer electronics devices, making it easy to play back videos anytime anywhere.

Videos can be made public to be shared with the whole world or private for sharing with family and friends, whom they can invite and connect with through the websites social networking functionalities.

Finding interesting videos to watch is really easy by navigating through the several channels and groups; surfing through the different tags; checking out the latest, most watched, top rated or some randomly chosen videos; and of course also by searching the website using the built-in search engine.

Users can leave comments on videos, rate them, add them to their favorites, and even download them to their desktops, which is something other video sharing services don’t usually natively offer.
Users can also always go back and find videos they’ve watched by visiting their online playlists.

Tvosz screenshot

In the same spirit of sharing, videos from Tvosz can be directly posted to users’ favorite social bookmarking services; or embedded in users’ blogs or homepages easily using a provided bit of code.

The website is very well designed, organized and really easy to use. The interface is in English only for the time being.

Tvosz was launched from Cairo, Egypt, by Ahmed Samir, Osama Awwad and A. Abdel Aziz.

# Tvosz.com

Sukuk.net, Online Islamic Finance Portal

Sukuk.netSukuk.net is a new online financial portal dedicated to “Sukuk” (Islamic Bonds), and Islamic financing, that aims to be the definitive source of information on the global Sukuk market and the premier online destination for the Sukuk industry providing investors, financial services professionals, researchers and institutions with up to date market information.

It also hopes to go one step further by providing investors with all the tools necessary to understand the market and analyse the competition and market data; and assisting firms in developing strategies, market forecasting and identifying new business and investment opportunities.

Users can track global Sukuk activity, market data and register for market tracking analysis tools. The website’s Sukuk Wire also provides an up to the minute feed of the latest news and information on global Sukuk.

The launch of this portal is in response to a growing number of investors and enterprises seeking Shariah compliant funding and general public interest in Islamic finance; The Sukuk market, in particular, is seeing rapid growth and Sukuk paper has the advantage of competitive pricing as a risk-mitigation structure.

Sukuk.net

Sukuk.net is a Dubai and Jeddah based initiative formed through a joint venture between Siraj Capital Ltd., a leading Saudi based Islamic asset management company, and alClick Ltd., a leading provider of online advertising and marketing services in the Gulf region.

# Sukuk.net

Dahsha, An Online Arabic Encyclopedia

DahshaDahsha is an Arabic online encyclopedia and one of the serious efforts to enrich Arab content on the internet. A lot like Wikipedia, the encyclopedia relies on volunteers to write articles and publish content.

Volunteers can post books, reports, studies, articles and even video, audio and useful programs to the encyclopedia.

Even though I usually encourage Arab users to try and focus on enriching the Arab version of a global encyclopedia like Wikipedia instead of launching smaller regional or local versions, this project is still a pretty interesting one as it covers some types of content that Wikipedia doesn’t support.

The system isn’t as open as Wikipedia though, as users can’t change or edit articles by other users; they can only reply or comment on them. Which means that the site’s administrators have to be more involved in reviewing the submitted content, its quality, and whether publishing it violates any copyright laws.

It’s a good service overall, even though I think there should be some work done to enhance the usability of the posting, replying and commenting features. And as it’s an interactive service built on user contributions, it’d also be interesting to have more details about these user’s profiles, and some more social media features like content rating, bookmarking and suggestions according to the reader’s interests.

The encyclopedia already has a big volume of content published in it covering different categories and topics from computer science and technology related content to art, literature and religion.

Dahsha screenshot

The interface is Arabic only for the time being. The service was launched by Jordanian software and web development company Jordan Tek.

# Dahsha Encyclopedia

WeNear, Location Based Services Framework

weNearWeNear is a new framework for location based services, which aims to help connect users with their interests.

With the widespread use of mobile phones and other mobile devices in the Arab world, weNear comes to enrich the mobile experience even more, beyond just making phone calls and sending sms messages, by providing a platform for location based social and business services.

As an example of one of the social uses, based on a user’s location, the service will be able to identify other weNear users that were marked as friends, and locate them on the map; making it a lot easier to find and reach them. Of course, a privacy option is built in to hide a user’s location whenever they want.

Through weNear, users will also be able to socially interact and communicate with other nearby users, announcing interest-based information and sending tagged messages which will be received by those whose interests match these tags.

When it comes to business uses, weNear users can receive immediate notifications with information about interesting nearby services, events or products; creating new chances for advertisers to connect with potential clients based on their location and their interests.

Another example Implementation is “Almotawef”, which is an application for Muslim pilgrims, that helps them find their relatives and groups during Hajj, walks them through the Hajj rituals and points them to the places they have to go to.

weNear was developed by Egyptian company eSpace.

# WeNear