Startups – Page 2 – StartUpArabia

YallaWain: A New Kuwaiti Social Dining Out Service

September 23, 2010September 23, 2010 MMM 1 Comment

YallaWain is a new social networking service that was launched in Kuwait, and that revolves around the experience of dining out; helping people pick what places to go to and what to have.

The service describes itself as a new way for people to mix and tip-off each other about the finest restaurants and top dishes in Kuwait; which sums it up quite nicely.

Basically, the site is built around user reviews and ratings of the different restaurants and eateries in the country, their ratings of the different dishes those places serve on their menus, and tips they leave for other fellow diners.

The service also integrates a social aspect that enables users to follow their friends and contacts on the service, in order to get a more personal touch and receive their different tips and reviews, as well as what restaurants are their favorite ones.

DuShare: A Simple P2P Direct File Transfer Service

August 17, 2010August 17, 2010 MMM 4 Comments

duShare is a simple P2P direct file transfer service that aims to make the act of sending files between people as easy and effective as possible.

The service enables users to send files of unlimited size to one another though the system, and without having to go through uploading the file to a central server in the process. File transfers are handled through a peer to peer, secure direct transfer connection between the sender and the receiver.

Also as connections are direct between users and don’t go through any central server, files and chats aren’t monitored or viewed by duShare, which gives users a bit of extra privacy.

Cobone, A Group Buying Venture From Jabbar Internet Group

August 13, 2010August 13, 2010 MMM 3 Comments

Cobone is a new startup that is looking at using the power of group purchasing in order to offer its users the best deals, allowing them to save on the things they want.

Cobone aims to offer online shoppers in the Middle East region one deal everyday from every city’s best hotels, goods, services, meals, spas and more; with savings they say will start at 50%.

Shoppers are encouraged to invite friends, colleagues and family to join in on daily deals so as to increase their own chances of successfully making a purchase. Customers will also be given the flexibility to purchase coupons for themselves or their friends using a selection of online payment options, from credit cards to other options like CashU (another Jabbar company) and PayPal.

Otlobmall.com: A New Online Shopping Destination For Egypt

August 11, 2010August 11, 2010 MMM 1 Comment

Otlob.com, the online food ordering service, is building on their success and experience, by making a new push into online shopping through their recently launched portal called Otlobmall.com.

Otlobmall.com allows users to shop online for a variety of products in different categories, including electronics, mobile phones, beauty products, sports, jewelry, apparel, books and magazines and gifts.

Purchased products are delivered directly to the purchaser’s home or designated delivery address and can be paid for either online or by cash on delivery.

Dakwak: A Tool For Website Localization Into 60+ Languages

July 27, 2010July 27, 2010 MMM 4 Comments

Dakwak is a new startup that was recently launched from Jordan that aims to provide a solution for website localization into 60+ languages.

The site makes it easy for webmasters to integrate Dakwak’s localization and translation service right into their sites; instantly providing their visitors access to content in the language they’re most comfortable reading in.

All it takes is a bit of javascript code that needs to be integrated into the site pages, and to flag the content that needs to be localized/translated; and the rest is taken care of by Dakwak.

The service automatically detects the country a visitor is connecting from based on their IP address, and changes the language of the content to the visitor’s language, switching all the text without breaking the design of the page; unless the visitor chooses to switch back to the base language.

Tadarrab.com: An Internship Portal For The Arab World

July 11, 2010July 11, 2010 MMM 2 Comments

Tadarrab.com is a new service that was launched from Jordan and that aims to be an internship portal / guide for the Arab world, linking companies and interns.

This is made possible through a platform that was built to enable companies to post and promote their available internship opportunities, and on the other hand make it easy for fresh graduates and students to find these opportunities and apply for them as interns.

The goal of the service is of course to try and help youth to find interesting internship opportunities in different companies, in order to start gathering work experience and begin paving their career path. It also helps companies open up their internship positions to a wider group of people enabling them to find and pick better candidates who might go on to become full time team members in the future.

Video: Book Trader For Buying And Selling Text Books At DemoCamp Dubai

July 2, 2010July 2, 2010 MMM 2 Comments

Book Trader is a project that was launched by two students at the American University of Dubai, Alexander Fuchs and Jamal Al Bloushi. It’s a website that allows students to buy and sell their used textbooks, the idea being to enable students to save some money on books and make some money out of their used ones.

The website is only available within the AUD (American University of Dubai) campus for the time being, but the founders hope to be able to expand it to other universities and publicly for all students.

As is the case with other online trading services, students can go onto the site and add the books they have and want to sell, putting in all the details for them and how much they want to sell them for. On the other hand, users can search through the site for books they have to buy for their courses and find what available options exist, what their prices are and pick what they need..

Monaqasat, An Online Tender Process Management Platform

July 1, 2010July 1, 2010 MMM 4 Comments

Monaqasat is an online tendering service that covers all middle eastern markets, and aims to be a central hub for all tendering activities, from sharing of documents to online bidding.

The idea is to enable users to manage their tendering and procurement process in an easy, efficient and secure way; catering to the needs of all types of institutions of all sizes and industries in the Middle East region.

Monaqasat aims at offering a full experience to the institutions using it, by implementing the complete tendering process, allowing its users to create tenders, invite stakeholders, submit and review tender documents, submit their online bids and automatically generate tender reports the instant the tender is completed, all from the confort of their own offices.

Video: Twtrtales Collaborative Story Writing Through Tweets At DemoCamp Dubai

June 30, 2010June 30, 2010 MMM 2 Comments

Twtrtales is a new project that was launched out of the UAE, which aims to enable collaborative story writing through tweets.

Users would basically get to start a new hashtag for a story, and then they’d start contributing to writing the story one tweet at a time by appending that hashtag. On the site, readers would be able to say whether they like a specific contribution or not, and through that decide what goes into the story and what doesn’t.

So in essence, it’s a new kind of publishing platform that hopes to unite tweeters/writers of all kinds, to create and tell stories, which could be general stories or written for a specific cause.

Video: AdGoing Online Ad Marketplace At DemoCamp Dubai

June 27, 2010June 27, 2010 MMM 6 Comments

AdGoing is a Saudi based company that bills itself as an online ad marketplace, aiming to make it easy to buy and sell advertising online, giving advertisers and publishers a platform to find each other.

The service supports both banner and text ads, as well as their variations. The system is mainly targeted at smaller publishers and bloggers who want to make money out of their advertising spaces, as well as advertisers who want to tap into the system for cheaper advertising rates and to have their ads go on a variety of sites and blogs.

Ads served up on the system are on a CPC (Cost per click) basis, and the system displays ads on a real time auction basis.