Category: Jordan

Questler Content Available Under Creative Commons License

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Questler LogoQuestler, the online learning and knowledge network, announced that they have finally been able to license all content on their website under a Creative Commons license.

The chosen licence is the Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License: which means anyone will be able to copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works out of it; as long as they attribute the work, not use it commercially, and make it available under the same license or a similar one.

All existing content on Questler, as well as all newly user submitted content to the website will automatically be available under this license.

The license has been added to all the site’s pages signalling the change, and the terms of use are currently being updated to reflect this as well.

Sahritna Unveils Site Redesign And Launches New Features

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SahritnaPress Release: Sahritna.com Unveils Next Evolution of Site feature and Design
Amman, Dec. 1st, 2008

Sahritna.com today released a new, cleaner and simpler new design, along with the opportunity for users to preview the next-generation features and functionality. The company is inviting people to use the new design and try out the improved features and engage with the community. The new design is available to all of Sahritna’s more than 50,000 Arabic users and the new registered users over the coming days.

“Based on our vision to create a unique interactive Arabic community and the demand of our loyal users, we have launched a simpler and cleaner design in order to highlight the most recent and relevant information that users value” said Sahritna founder and CEO Bashar Shannak. “Sahritna’s new features make it a lot easier for users to share information and engage in the community.”

The company has been developing the new design since four months. Over the past two months, more than 3,000 Sahritna users offered constructive suggestions on the layout and features, many of which were included in the final version.

Public Profiles: Sahritna allowed its users to create their personal unique pages to deliver their information in a social context. The evolution of the public profiles focuses on user’s identity, their friends, post comments, mutual friends, rating and more. The profile now surfaces more current and pertinent information, about a user and their friends’ on Sahritna.

Profile Comments: Users have complete control over the comments published on their profile. Users are able to delete unwanted comments. And they can post comments on their profile and friend’s profiles.

User Rating: Located on the right hand of the user’s profile, the users are able to rate other users profiles in simple way. This feature enables users to know the popularity of their profile and how their friends think of them.

My Mood: It’s a mean for the user to express his/her current mood and tell his friends how he feels currently. Upon user login he will be able to express his/her mood.

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3alaRasi, A Portal For Comedy Entertainment Content

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3alarasi3alaRasi is a Jordanian entertainment portal that features a mix of funny cartoons, caricatures, articles, videos, photos and audio.

The portal’s content comes both from in-house productions, as well as content generated and submitted by the site’s users.

The site integrates all the regular sharing and social networking features that allow users to create their profiles, connect with their friends, and share all supported kinds of content with them.

In addition to all the kinds of content mentioned above, users can also upload and share games in Flash and Shockwave format.

The cartoons and animations currently produced by the 3alaRasi team are currently inspired by the Jordanian (Awad Abu Shifa, Jaber Kawanes, 7awa)  and Palestinian (Falla7) society and culture, but there are plans to expand and add Egyptian and Gulf inspired characters and content soon.

The site’s interface is currently in English only, although an Arabic version should be expected soon.

3alarasi

3alaRasi also distribute their content through a number of mobile channels in Jordan and the GCC, and are looking to expand to other countries in the region.

Other distribution channels have been through Jordanian radio station Mazaj FM airing Audio clips from 3alaRasi, as well as Nourmina TV which aired 3alaRasi cartoon episodes in Ramadan. A new deal with Jordanian daily Addustour, will also see a daily cartoon from 3alaRasi cartoonist Omar Abdallat published in the newspaper.

3alaRasi was launched by ERUM Creative Productions L.L.C, which was founded by Amer M. AbuLaila, Omar Abdallat, Rajai Qawas, and Fahd Oweidat.

# 3alaRasi

Jawaker, Online Multiplayer Card Games For The Arab World

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JawakerJawaker is a new online multiplayer card games website that was launched recently for the Arab world, by the same team that is behind the online career network Akhtaboot.

The service is focused on delivering an entirely browser-based version of the most popular card games in the Arab world to an Arab and international audience.

The first game that is available through the service is ‘Trix‘ (a.k.a Trex), a card game that is very popular in many Middle Eastern countries, including Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Syria and United Arab Emirates. More card games like ‘Tarneeb‘ and other Arab favourites are planned to be added to the website in the future.

Players can join an already existing game, or from the game lobby, set up multiplayer games with their friends or with other visitors to the site. Unfinished games can be saved for completion later. 

Jawaker screenshot

Jawaker was one of the startups at DemoCamp Dubai 3, where Mohamed Haj Hasan and Fouad Mardini presented the service, and talked about their vision for it.

 

“The model is social interaction – the web is about networking, and cards is very ingrained in Arab culture,” said Mohamed Haj Hasan. “It’s a ‘build it and they will come’ approach. Once you get the users you can monetize it however you want, advertising, sponsorships, subscriptions or selling it to another company.”

They also plan to host tournaments and ranked competitions, where users pay to enter and can win prizes. Advertisers will be able to sponsor the backs of each card, an interesting adaptation of traditional online banner advertising. 

“When we couldn’t find a single website that would let us play online together, we just thought ‘lets make it’,” said Fouad Mardini. “This was something we wanted for ourselves, so it really has been a very fun project to work on.”

# Jawaker

Mecca.com Releases More Features And New Design

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Mecca.comMecca.com, the Muslim community portal, that also integrates a social networking and user generated content platform, has just rolled out a new look, unveiling a new logo and a re-design for their whole website.

The new design is more colorful and looks more hip; it also feels better organized, optimizing the use of screen real estate.

This new design, comes just a short while after Mecca.com rolling out their new Videos section, where members can upload and share their videos with friends. As with other online video sharing services, friends have the ability to comment, rate, edit, and share videos with other users.

Mecca.com

Mecca.com had also enhanced their Photo sharing feature by improving the user interface, and adding the possibility to import photos from Facebook and Flickr.

Third Queen Rania National Entrepreneurship Competition Winners Announced

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QRNEC LogoThe winners of the third annual Queen Rania National Entrepreneurship Competition (QRNEC) were announced just a few days ago in Amman, Jordan.

HRH Princess Sumaya, who was deputising for Her Majesty Queen Rania at the award ceremony, said that Jordan’s large pool of graduates “represents a tremendous value that Jordan creates every year”, and that the participants in this year’s competition represent “job makers rather than job seekers”, adding that their success is “important to Jordan as role models for the next generation of entrepreneurs whom they will inspire, as future employers and as innovators who are solving valuable problems for society”.

The competition, which aims to encourage a business culture among Jordanian youths, focuses on launching new competitive products and services in various technical sectors, including the environment, information, communications, water desalination, energy and agricultural technologies. It also hopes to promote the spirit of creativity and innovation among young people and highlight the significant role citizens play in social and economic development.

In her address, the Princess stressed that Jordan’s human capital is needed at home to build the country’s economy and advance society. “If we are to examine the numbers of Jordanians abroad, we learn that more than 500,000 live in the Gulf states alone, and nearly one million worldwide,” she said, adding that if the figures are examined “on how much it costs Jordan to educate these expatriates, Jordan is in fact a donor to the global economy in the form of billions of dollars worth of human capital”.

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Araby Search Engine Launches Redesign And New Features

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ArabyArabic search engine “Araby“, which is a subsidiary of Maktoob Group, just launched a new design and a number of new functionalities and services to make it easier for users to reach what they’re looking for faster.

Among the new services is a thematic search feature, where the most used keywords on Araby are grouped and categorized by theme; these themes cover all tastes and interests, from sports, to technology, to Islam, to women’s issues, to art and celebrity news, to finance and business related topics, and more. The themes are displayed on the homepage with their most popular keywords, that are clickable, enabling users to directly access their search results.

Araby screenshot

Other new features include auto completion of search keywords as the user types in the terms he’s looking for, refreshing the list with suggested popular user searches with every typed letter.

Another new addition is the search help section that displays a number of searches that are related to the one entered by the user, to provide other options for them to take their search further and find results of interest to them.

ShooFeeTV To Broadcast From Jordan Media City

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ShooFeeTVShooFeeTV has signed an agreement with the Jordan Media City (JMC) to transmit its free-to-air satellite channel from the JMC site in Amman.

ShooFeeTV’s state-of-the-art data center will link to JMC by a fiber-optic connection that will carry the signal from ShooFeeTV to the satellite platform ArabSat via JMC’s facilities.

After extensive market research, ShooFeeTV decided to go with JMC not only because of their experience and extremely efficient operations. “It’s a tightly run ship,” says Amjad Tadros, founder and CEO of ShooFeeTV.

The ShooFeeTV agreement with the JMC represents a company philosphy of quality and excellence. On-screen graphics and broadcast equipment come from The Harris Corporation, and provide flexibility and reliability for businesses that can’t afford to go offline. The Harris broadcast equipment can be easily integrated with ShooFeeTV’s online and mobile phone products.

ShooFeeTVShooFeeTV, the premier content provider of Arab satellite channel information on television, the web and third-party services, will air an around-the-clock scrolling guide of programs from more than 150 of the most popular satellite channels on the ArabSat and NileSat platforms. With original quality programs to supplement the channel such as ShooFee Aflam, ShooFee 7elo and ShooFee Riyada, the channel will serve as the only information portal continually updating viewers on the best films, series, sports and more.

The business has been built on a conceptually designed model that allows for a seamless transfer of content from ShooFeeTV’s data center to the final-content viewer.

In addition to the channel and a highly developed website, viewers will be able to access ShooFeeTV’s content through a variety of media, including mobile phones, podcasts and syndication services.

Jordan’s Internet Penetration Rate Grows To 21%

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Flag of JordanAccording to official numbers released by the Jordanian Telecommunications Regulatory Commission, the number of internet users in the kingdom reached 1.2 millions users at the end of the first half of 2008, which represents a penetration rate of more than 20.5% of the Jordanian population which currently stands at around 6 million.

The numbers show a growth of more than 1.5% happening in the second quarter of this year in comparison to the first quarter, as the rate back at the end of the first quarter was just under 19%. The penetration stood at 17% at the end of 2007.

According to the reported numbers, 16% of Jordanian households have internet access; with differences in the percentage between urban and rural areas, which is explained by the still relatively high cost of computers and internet services.

The national strategy for the telecommunications sector aims to reach an internet penetration rate of 50% by end of 2011. The government has actually lowered the sales tax on internet related services from 16% to 8% to help spread internet services and grow the internet user base in the kingdom.

# Source: Arabian Business

Watwet Launches New Version With New Cool Design

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WatwetWatwet, the Arab social networking and micro-blogging platform, launched in December 2007 by TootCorp, has just gone live with a really cool new design.

The new design reflects the maturing of the service, presenting the exisiting functionalities in a cleaner and more organized way, and rolling out a number of new features.

Among the base functionalities existing in other mini-blogging services that were added with this version of Watwet are replies, direct access to the public timeline, enabling and disabling SMS updates from certain friends and usage statistics.

Something really interesting Watwet has introduced with this version is the concept of ‘Channels’, which are micro-blogs with specialized content. The Watwet site says that they have signed up more than 18 radio stations, magazines and daily newspapers in Jordan to operate their own channels on Watwet; and that they have content from more than 10 international publishers and media companies around the world.

There are free and premium channels on Watwet. Premium Channels are clearly indicated as such, and thus are paid channels; otherwise the remaining channels are free. The amount to pay for subscribing to a channel varies from channel to channel. The paid channels obviously offer us some insight into one of the ways Watwet plans to monetize the service.

Watwet screenshot

Something they’ve also added with this design are badges that bloggers can use to display their watwets on their blogs, which is something that should get more bloggers on board the mini-blogging wave, and give Watwet more exposure.

Another nice little touch is the launch of ‘Waticons’, little badges that users can pin to their profiles and that something about them visually.

Subscribers with Mobily, the second Saudi mobile operator, can now use SMS to send and receive updates, just like the subscribers of Zain Jordan. All other users, on other networks and in other countries, can only send their updates to Watwet through an international UK number.