Feedoor, Central Feed Management Service

FeedoorFeedoor, is an interesting feed management service that aims to give users complete control over their feeds, and the flexibility to do whatever they want with them.

The service is quite simple and straightforward, packing a number of features in its corners. Some of the most important and interesting of these features are the following; it gives users the possibility to:

  • Combine and splice several feeds of different formats (RSS, ATOM, RDF) into one feed.
  • Easily add individual items such as videos, photos or audio directly into existing feeds.
  • Create feeds of random items such as videos, photos and audio; thereby creating podcasts or media channels.
  • Customize the look and feel of their feed page by using available themes or creating their own themes.

And for the created feeds, the service provides detailed statistics including: Subscribers, hits, visits, and referrals.

Feedoor screenshot

A developer API was launched recently enabling developers to pull content from hosted feeds, statistics of a certain feed, or the number of subscribers. The API also gives the ability to build and add themes, widgets and doors (small interactive applications that can be integrated into the feed to enhance reader interaction with feed content).

For people hosting their websites on their own domain names and who want to have their feeds hosted under the same domain, the option is offered for free.

A number of publishing and publicizing options are available as well, making it easier to integrate or show off a feed’s content on several places on the web.

Feedoor currently has an English interface only, although it supports different languages in the feed content.
The service was initially launched in 2007 from Jordan by Mahmoud Mehyar.

# Feedoor

Shoof TV, Arab Media Group’s Video Sharing Service

Shoof TVShoof TV is an Arab video sharing website, which was intially launched by Arab Media Group, one of the largest media companies in the UAE, back in April 2007.

The site’s content is user-generated, with videos submitted from users all over the Middle East.
Users can upload files in several popular video formats, with file sizes up to 50MB. For larger files they can be sent via regular mail to Shoof TV for inclusion on the site.
Uploaded content is screened for objectionable content before appearing online.

The site visitors can vote on the videos using the ‘Applause’ feature, and also leave their comments on them.

As well as hosting user-generated media content, Shoof TV also hosts a number of competitions, with various prizes, to encourage more talented people from the Middle East to submit and share their content. Winners are selected by a panel of judges and by public SMS voting.

Shoof TV Screenshot

Khadeeja Al Marzooqi, the General Manager of Shoof TV, recently talked about the future plans for Shoof TV, and how a TV station will be launched towards the end of 2008, with 100% user generated content, relying on the clips people uploaded on their website.

# Shoof TV

Syraty, Online Professional Resume Builder

SyratySyraty is a new Saudi-based Arabic online service that provides job seekers with the possibility to easily create and maintain a professional resume that is hosted online, available for download in Word or PDF format, or printing, and that can easily be sent to companies.

Users can build and customize their resumes online through an easy straight-forward interface, that allows them to add as many sections as they wish and input content for them through a rich text editor.
They can then either publish their CVs or keep them for their personal use; and even when published, they have the choice to either make them public and have them submitted to search engines or to password protect them so as to control access.

Instant email and SMS notifications can be enabled to allow the candidate to know exactly when and from where potential employers viewed their resume. A detailed statistics and graphs interface provides even more details about the resume’s distribution and where viewing visitors came from.

A list of Saudi and International employers is provided as well, enabling users to quickly send their hosted CV address to a number of these companies by simply selecting them and clicking send.
Of course job seekers can also send their CVs to other companies either by downloading one of the formats and sending it by email, printing the CV, or by sending the link to the online version of it.

Employers can use a contact form on the user’s resume page to get in touch with them, ask questions and eventually schedule an interview.

Syraty screenshot

The service is available through three paid plans, ranging from $5.33 to $39.7 per year, providing different options and possibilities, like the number of themes that can be used for the created resumes, whether it’s hosted on a subdomain of Syraty or on the user’s own personal domain, the number of SMS notifications they can receive, …etc.

Syraty is generously offering StartUpArabia readers, the first 1000 at least, a free account under the Silver plan; Register for your free account.

The service’s interface is in Arabic only, but it allows users to create their CVs in English, as most companies in the Middle East region require English-language resumes.

# Syraty

Travel Yolk, Travel Industry Online Recruitment Portal

travelyolkDubai-based travel industry technology solution provider TechTuners recently launched a new online recruitment portal named Travel Yolk that aims to address the staffing requirements of the Middle East’s travel industry.

Travel Yolk is built much like you’d expect a career website to be, providing the possibility for job seekers from the travel industry to build their CVs online, look for new job opportunities in the industry throughout the Middle East, get email notifications of interesting job vacancies and apply directly through the website.

On the other hand, employers can post their job offers and search the database of travel professionals to find people who best suit their vacant job positions.

As with most job sites, the service is free for job seekers, while employers will have to pay for posting their career opportunities. Different plans are provided to suit employers’ needs and activity.

travelyolk screenshot

An online forum where employees can meet their potential employers and vice versa should be added to the portal soon; making it easier and more effective for both sides to connect.

The website is available in English only for the time being.

# Travel Yolk

Dine In UAE, UAE Restaurants Guide And Reviews

Dine In UAEDine In UAE is a service that aims to be a comprehensive United Arab Emirates’ restaurant directory on the web, serving as a central point, introducing people to good restaurants all over the UAE.

It also helps restaurant owners promote the new and unique aspects of their restaurants while providing diners with an effective way to find and try new restaurants.

Users can search restaurants by name, by area or by cuisine, or go through the highest rated restaurants and most popular ones, to find details about these restaurants, their addresses, telephone numbers, opening hours, ratings, user reviews and comments.

Registered users can rate restaurants they’ve gone to and post their personal reviews of them.

A forum is integrated in the website to add more interaction between the community of users on several food related subjects like dining at home, sharing recipes, special offers and more.

Restaurant owners can add their restaurants and menus to the website by filling out an offline form. Restaurants have to pay AED 2,000.00 (~ $540) to be included in the directory. Obviously, it’d be much more practical if they could take this process online soon.

Dine In UAE screenshot

Dine In UAE was launched by Siankar Comm LLC.

# Dine In UAE

meOwns, A Social Tool To Publish Collections Of What You Own

meOwnsmeOwns is a new web application that helps people complete another bit of their public personal profile on their blogs, social networks and other personal web pages by publishing personal collections of things they own.

The idea behind the service is that you might not be able to tell what kind of person someone is just by the way they look, but that you can get a better idea by knowing what they own.

As a user you can use the service to build and maintain collections of the items you own, create a personal wish list or import one you already  have on Amazon, as well as add items from other people’s collections and wish lists to your own.

It’s also possible to get in contact with other users directly through the site, by sending them a message and choosing which of your contact details you’d like share with them for the reply (Email, Yahoo ID or Windows Live ID).

The meOwns blog talks about the possibility of launching a garage sale for items you want to sell, as well as the ability to request to buy items from other people. It seems these features still haven’t been officially rolled out, but they sound really neat. It’ll be interesting to see how the whole buying/selling/price details will be handled.

meOwns allows users to integrate many of the service’s basic functionalities into their personal blogs and websites through a customizable widget, which lets them directly maintain their collections and items, and also lets other users interact with it and the items in it. The widget is also available as a facebook application that can be added to the user’s profile.

meOwns screenshot

Items from other users can be found through popular tags, popular types of items, or searched for using the quick or advanced search options. You can also check out other user’s pages and see what collections and items they own by searching for them or browsing the top users list.

meOwns was launched from Alexandria, Egypt by eSpace Technologies.

# meOwns

Anasheed MouslimTube, Online Islamic Nasheed Repository

Anasheed MouslimTubeAnasheed MouslimTube is a new service that is currently in beta that aims to become a repository for Islamic nasheeds, a form of Islamic song that is currently surging in popularity around the Muslim world.

The website users can find nasheeds by going through available albums, viewing work by different nasheed artists, picking tags that describe what they’re looking for best, check out the most popular nasheeds with other users, or try out the randomly selected nasheeds album. There also is a search engine that enables more advanced searches for nasheeds.

Nasheeds can be listened to online through streaming real audio, or downloaded in several formats for later listening. Lyrics are also provided for a big number of these nasheeds.

The website currently has 152 albums by 154 nasheed artists, grouping 912 nasheeds.

MouslimTube Screenshot

The website has a very nice and straightforward design, making it really easy to use and navigate around. It is in Arabic only.

Anasheed MouslimTube was developed and launched from Egypt by Hazem Khaled, and designed by Muhammad Abdul-Shakour Arab (Division Designs).

# Anasheed MouslimTube

Resto Tunisie, Community Powered Directory Of Restaurants in Tunisia

Resto TunisieResto Tunisie, is a Tunisian website that aims to become a comprehensive directory of restaurants in Tunisia, aiding people to make their decisions on which eatery to pick.

The site’s users as well as restaurant owners get to suggest restaurants for addition, by filling out a contact form, specifying the address of the restaurant and why they think it should be included.

Site visitors can navigate through the restaurants in a number of different ways; either by specialty, budget, and top voted for example; or by searching directly for a certain restaurant or using the advanced search to combine different criteria to find the best restaurant for their needs.

On each restaurant’s page, visitors will find the restaurant’s details, specialty, its address, phone numbers, website, whether it servers alcohol or not, and a little description of it. The restaurant is also located on a map (using Google maps) to make finding it easier, along with other nearby restaurants.

Users can also use this page to cast their votes on the restaurant in the three areas of Decoration, Service and Food; as well as leave their reviews and comments on it.
By logging in to their accounts on the site, users can always come back to find the list of restaurants they favorited and reviewed.

A little zone in the website also provides a list of job openings at some restaurants.

Resto Tunisie Screenshot

The service was developed by Tunisian web agency WebCarré, and currently has 327 restaurants in its database.

The design is really nice; the site is pretty easy to use and to surf around. The only thing I think they should consider is opening up addition of restaurants by the users more, letting users fill in the restaurant’s details, position it on the map and all, with them going over all submissions later on, checking there are no duplicates and that the content is good. It should make the service livelier and easier for them to maintain.

# Resto Tunisie

Jmami, Online Community For Moroccans Around The World

jmami logoJmami, is a Moroccan service that uses the phrase “Moroccans of the world” as its tagline, and just that mainly explains what the website’s goal is, to create a central community place for Moroccans from all over the world to connect with old friends, make new ones, as well as write and share content with each other.

The service has all the major social networking features we can expect; enabling users to invite their old friends, search for and make new friends, establish connections with them, message them through an internal messaging system, and create private or public groups around their shared interests, where they can launch different discussions.

Jmami also provides a light integrated blog platform giving its users the possibility to publish their thoughts and news, share and start discussions around them.

Another feature is the event agenda, where users can post and promote events that might be of interest to Moroccans around the world.

jmami screenshot

The service is available in 3 languages: Arabic (Moroccan accent), French and English.

The website is mainly targeted at Moroccan youth inside and outside of Morocco, and the fresh design shows this clearly, even though it’s not limited to just them, and registration and use of the service should be just as easy and simple for older generations.

# Jmami

Logta, Online Service To Help Find Best Deals & Promotions

LogtaLogta is a new online service aiming to provide shoppers with a one-stop shop for promotions covering Electronics, food items, travel and leisure, real estate, beauty & personal care, clothing, and apparel amongst other categories.

The service also provides retailers and brand owners with a new channel to advertise & publicize their promotions, getting their message and products across to the site’s visitors, who will be able to search through these categorized promotions and pinpoint the location of the product they are looking for with the best deal.

Additionally, visitors can register for alerts and notifications by building special profiles for the products or services they are looking for; making it a lot easier for them to find what they’re looking for, but also building a rich database for Logta.com, with the community member’s preferences and details, making targeted advertising a strong opportunity for them.

Even though Logta is essentially just a place to find promotions for people to use at retailers’ stores; they plan to start providing retailers with online payment & delivery capabilities for certain categories and items in the future.

The service has built-in analysis tools that retailers and brand owners can use to measure the effectiveness of their promotions and advertising campaigns by analyzing traffic from the site vs. products sold at their stores.

Logta screenshot

Logta was developed by Dubai based Danat e-ventures, and is available in Arabic & English. The service mainly targets users in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, with future expansion plans to the GCC and other Middle Eastern markets.

# Logta