Category: Morocco

Hyde Park, Group Blog With Social Networking Features

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Hyde ParkHyde Park is a new interesting Arabic project, currently under development, and which has been wrapped in a veil of secrecy up to now. We at StartUpArabia have been able to get our hands on some information about the project that we’d like to share with you.

Hyde Park is a group blog with integrated social networking features, enabling bloggers to publish freely and as easily as possible.

The main goals behind Hyde Park are to simplify the process of blogging as much as possible and to create more and more connections and interaction between bloggers by bringing them together on one collective blog where they can write about a range of common topics.

With Hyde Park there won’t be any complicated or obligatory steps to blog; a blogger can just enter his name and a password to create an account and start blogging right away, using a simple and clear visual interface. Every blogger has a personal dashboard to publish their blog posts from, get in touch with other blogges, follow comments, …etc.

All blog posts can be voted on (both positively and negatively), with the possibility of showing the blog’s content in the same way used on social bookmarking services.
Content on the blog will be categorized using tags and channels, and can be displayed according to this categorization, date of publishing, or number of votes. Comments on posts can also be followed on an independent page. 

Hyde Park screenshot

As for the social networking side of things; every blogger will get their own personal page to share their personal details and list their blog psots; this page can be totally personalized and redesigned according to the blogger’s taste. Other users can comment on the blogger’s page, much like they can do on a person’s wall on Facebook and other social networks. Bloggers can also build up their list of friends on the site.

A public beta version of the service will be released on October 1st, as a number of standard features continue to be added and completed, before the official launch of the site.
The service will be available in Arabic only at the beginning, with the possibility of more languages in the future.

Hyde Park is a project that was launched by well known blogger Mohammed Said Hjiouij from Morocco.

# Hyde Park

Synergos Middle East & North Africa Social Innovators Program

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SynergosIn October 2007 Synergos launched the Middle East and North Africa Social Innovators Program, with funding from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and other donors. The three-year initiative seeks to identify and support twenty individuals from Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco and Palestine who are implementing successful social projects.

In order to be considered for selection, a candidate must be implementing an idea that has demonstrated positive social change and impact at a local level with the potential for replication in other communities and expansion to a national level. Social innovations will be considered which have as a focus one or more of the following fields; economic, social, or sustainable development; health; education; and culture.

The Program will invest in these Social Innovators through professional development and financial support to better enable participants to transform their small-scale projects into sustainable programs and organizations.

The selected Social Innovators will have access to training, mentoring and peer learning through a network of professionals and social entrepreneurs to help build financial and organizational sustainability for your innovation; as well as facilitation of connections to business, government, philanthropic and other civil society leaders in the area and across the world to leverage their innovation and make a greater impact. Financial awards of up to $17,000 per year, for two years, are also offered to help develop the winner’s social ventures.

The application period for the Social Innovators program began in early May 2008 and goes on until mid-September.

For more details about the program and project submission, check out the official program website: Synergos Social Innovators Program.

Jmami, Online Community For Moroccans Around The World

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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

Microsoft And LINKdotNET Launch New MSN Maghreb Portal

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Microsoft has launched a new French-language portal for its MSN service, called MSN Maghreb, geared towards the Arab Maghreb region which will provide the latest news and entertainment for users in Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria.

The project is a joint venture with LINKdotNET, a subsidiary of Orascom, with which they already launched MSN Arabia in the past, and who currently operate that portal and will operate this new one too.

MSN Arabia, which was launched back in October 2001, attracts around two million page views a day and 2.7 million Hotmail subscribers; and with MSN Maghreb, Microsoft and LINKdotNET are hoping to tap into the rest of the Arab population from the mainly Francophone North African Maghreb region, and of course by doing that, consequently get into local advertisers’ pockets.

The announcement was made by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Orascom board member Khaled Bichara at a press conference in Skhirat, Morocco, earlier today.

The new portal is accessible at www.maghreb.msn.com