Tunisia – Page 3 – StartUpArabia

Tunisia Internet Users And E-Commerce Survey Report 2008

August 27, 2008August 27, 2008 MMM 10 Comments

A new Arab Advisors Group major survey of Internet users in Tunisia revealed that 36.4% of Internet users in Tunisia use e-commerce. Based on the survey results, the Arab Advisors Group estimates that Tunisia’s Internet users spent US$ 132.7 million during the past 12 months in e-commerce transactions.

The survey report, ‘Tunisia Internet users and e-commerce Survey 2008’ was released on August 20, 2008 and provides the results of a major comprehensive online survey of Internet users in Tunisia. The survey covered the Internet usage, e commerce and cellular usage and habits of the Internet users in Tunisia. The survey field work was conducted between May and July 2008.

Respondents were randomly targeted by receiving an email shot in their inbox to ask them to fill the survey in cooperation with reputable mail list providers in Tunisia. The survey report includes online replies from 1,093 respondents. Quality control checks and personal validation were conducted by Arab Advisors Group’s team. The survey was conducted on the general Internet population, including both genders and all age groups across Tunisia. The online survey yields a confidence level of 99% with a margin of error of less than 4%.

According to the survey results, 84.0% of Internet users in Tunisia have Internet access at home, 75.8% use Internet at work, while 24.0% use public hot spots. Naturally, access methods overlapped.

While the survey covered Internet users, it also probed the reasons behind why other members of the same households surveyed do not use the Internet. Based on the feedback of Internet users, computer illiteracy, lack of interest, lack of a perceived need to use the Internet and being too young to use the Internet are the main reasons for keeping non-Internet users in Tunisia from using the Internet.

The survey also revealed e-commerce adoption in Tunisia. 36.4% of Tunisia Internet users shop online or through their mobile phone. The Arab Advisors Group estimated the number of e-commerce users in Tunisia to be over 416000 and total e-commerce expenditure during the past year to be US$ 132.7 million.

“The majority of e-commerce users make electronic payments through credit cards. 64.8% of e-commerce users use credit cards as their e-commerce method of payment. Following credit cards, 27.4% of e-commerce users use prepaid Internet shopping card for their payments. ” Mr. Hussam Barhoush, Arab Advisors senior research analyst wrote in the survey report.

This survey report can be purchased from the Arab Advisors Group, who can provide a copy of the report’s Table of Contents and the survey questions. The survey report includes 70 pages and 82 detailed exhibits.

Cinéma Tunisien, The Portal For Tunisian Cinema

August 1, 2008August 1, 2008 MMM

Cinéma 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.

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

Resto Tunisie, Community Powered Directory Of Restaurants in Tunisia

May 27, 2008May 27, 2008 MMM 3 Comments

Resto 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.

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

Waleg & Ikbis Launch ‘The Online Arabian Star’ Contest

May 26, 2008May 26, 2008 MMM 18 Comments

Waleg, the first and largest blog network in the Arab world, and Ikbis, the popular Arab video and photo sharing service, have teamed up to launch a new online contest under the name of ‘The Online Arabian Star‘.

Talent TV shows; like Star Academy, SuperStar and a bunch of others on a bunch of Arab TV stations; have proven to be very popular with viewers all around the Arab world. This contest aims to capture some of that success online.

All contestants have to do is upload a video of themselves singing a song in Arabic, and then wait for the votes to roll in. The top 20 winners move to the second phase, and another round of voting is launched to select the winner according to user voting. The final winner gets a $500 cash prize.

For more details on the contest, you can visit the contest’s page on Ikbis or on Waleg.

It’ll be interesting to see how successful this contest is in terms of number of contestants, quality of the submitted material, and how much interest, attention and traffic it generates.

PixiPost, Digital Photo Printing

May 19, 2008May 19, 2008 MMM 2 Comments

PixiPost is a Tunisian startup, that was launched back in June 2006, specialized in digital photo printing, and aiming to provide customers with quality photo prints at good prices.

The service gives users the possibility to upload their digital photos, organize them in photo albums and order prints of them. The photos are then printed and sent through the post according to the chosen delivery mode.

Payment for the print orders can be done either online with all major credit cards, using the Monétique Tunisie secure payment platform, or using cashU payment accounts, or for people in Tunisia through transfer of mobile phone prepaid credit.

The user interface is available in both English and French.

I think digital photo printing services are pretty interesting and could come in very handy for the shutterbugs among us who would like to get their photos printed quickly and simply. What would be even greater though would be to see partnerships formed between photo sharing sites like Ikbis and such photo printing services, providing an added-value to both site’s users and making their lives a tiny bit easier.

# PixiPost

Chkobba Popular Tunisian Card Game Online

May 11, 2008May 11, 2008 MMM 17 Comments

Chkobba is one of the most popular card games in Tunisia, mainly played by men at coffee shops around the country, but also played at home by men and women alike.

Tunisian web agency Web Carré have successfully captured the Chkobba coffee shop experience and brought it online through Chkobba.net; the game, which is implemented in Flash, gives you a full coffee shop setting, with the small square tables, the coffee cups, cigarettes, hookah (Shisha), in addition to the ambient noises of a coffee shop, all its hustle and bustle, and the songs playing on an old radio in the corner somewhere.

You can also chat with other users while you’re playing, just as you would be doing if you were sitting with them playing in some coffee shop.

You can play solo against the computer, with the ability to choose your competitor’s level, or invite your friends and play with them in a multi-player game. In both solo and multi-player mode you can choose to play in an online championship and win prizes.

The game is in its second version, even though still in beta and might have some little quirks here and there, but it is very well implemented and really nice to play.

An interesting feature they’re adding is the possibility to find users to play with who are from your same neighborhood or near you by displaying their avatars on a map.

There are a number of other little flash games available on the website, but none as well designed or well implemented as the chkobba card game.

# Chkobba.net

TN-Emploi: A Resource For IT Jobs In Tunisia

May 1, 2008May 1, 2008 MMM 2 Comments

TN-Emploi, a.k.a La Tunisienne pour l’emploi, is a new project that was recently launched in Tunisia by Mahmoud Gourar, and that attempts to use a simple blog format to bring job offers and opportunities to Tunisian job seekers, with a focus on IT-related jobs.

Job opportunities are posted daily, organized by category, and tagged with keywords, to make it easier for job seekers to find the jobs that match their goals and skillsets better.

It being a blog, people can access these offers directly through the blog, through the RSS feed or by subscribing to the email feed.

Recruiters and companies can post their offers simply and for free by sending them to a provided email address.

The blog is in French only, and is quite an interesting resource for Tunisian programmers, web developers, database administrators and so forth who need a place where they can find focused job offers for their respective IT fields.

Even though most posted job offers are for opportunities in Tunisia, some others are posted for opportunities in France or the rest of Europe, for those who might be interested in working abroad.

# TN-Emploi.com

Microsoft And LINKdotNET Launch New MSN Maghreb Portal

April 24, 2008April 24, 2008 MMM 5 Comments

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

Mezed, Product Auctions Differently

April 1, 2008April 1, 2008 MMM 1 Comment

Mezed is a Tunisian auction site that recently surfaced into the arena of online startups in Tunisia.

A number of Tunisian websites have already attempted to try and push through the idea of online auctions in Tunisia, get it popular, and attempt to make some money out of it. Examples off the top of my head are sites like: MoncefBay and EchriBay.
A lot of these services hang on for a while before fading away into Tunisian internet history. It just seems that the auction model just hasn’t taken off and worked up to now, for one reason or another.

Websites that approach the whole buying/selling thing through small classified ads seem to be doing a little better maybe, but nothing big enough to come close to real e-commerce yet.

Back to Mezed, they take on a new and different approach to the whole auctions system, taking out the sellers and auctioning off partner products themselves. Their system revolves solely around buyers competing to get the auctioned product at a cheap price.