Category: United Arab Emirates

Cobone Now Powering Etisalat’s More Rewards Daily Deals Site

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CoboneIn a move to introduce exciting new offers to its customers, Etisalat’s ‘More’ loyalty rewards program has teamed up with Cobone to provide them with daily deals and more ways to gain more value.

This is being introduced as a new feature on Etisalat’s ‘More’ Rewards website, giving ‘More’ loyalty program members the opportunity to make significant savings as well as gain ‘More’ reward points when visiting the site for “special deals”. The deals on the exclusive site are powered by Cobone’s deal-of-the-day platform.

This is an interesting move for Cobone, who it seems have worked on some redevelopment and redesign to be able to support such integration, to expand their reach beyond their site and onto partner sites and platforms such as the Etisalat one.

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CareZone: A New Mobile Check-In Service For Social Good

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Online services that push us to check-in and share the places we’re at, what we’re doing, what we’re eating, what we’re watching and pretty much every other daily activity we could possibly be engaged in are all around us these days, urging us to over-share our every single move with the world, in many cases for nothing but the sake of over-sharing.

CareZone is a new check-in service that aims to make a difference and add purpose, by creating a link between users’ check-ins and spending at different places on one hand, and channeling benefits to those in need on the other.

The platform offers a location-based mobile app that suggests and rewards users for choosing and checking in at a CareZone partner (shops, restaurants, …etc.) Users earn CareZone Coins for their check-ins; spending money at the CareZone partner’s business will earn them even more Coins.

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Logta Expands And Launches Online Mall With Retailer Stores

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Logta the online service that provides shoppers with a one-stop shop for promotions, that was previously covered here, has expanded and released what they’re describing as an online mall.

They’ve gone ahead and launched a new section under their portal called Logta Mall, with a wide range of online stores for a number of retailers covering various sectors and offering their products for sale online through Logta’s new platform.

So to build up towards a B2C model, Logta’s sales team get in touch and work with a variety of retailers in order to put together partnerships, through which Logta sets stores for them on the platform with all the products they want to put up for sale, and then handle all the order processing, online payments and shipping follow-up.

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Planet of the Apps Arabia 2011 – April 18-20th 2011 – Dubai (UAE)

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There’s no arguing that we currently live in a mobile world, and since the launch of the iPhone a few years ago and all the developments that have followed in the smartphone space, contributing to the spread of such devices around the world, mobile apps have taken over as the hottest innovation area in tech.

Planet of the Apps Arabia 2011 is an event that will be taking place at Dubai’s The One & Only Royal Mirage Hotel from 18th to 20th of April 2011, aiming to cover this fast growing and exciting space. It is organized as a two day strategic conference, dedicated developer masterclass and a technology showcase exhibition.

The aim of the event is to bring together the mobile application ecosystem in one location, and get insights into what the spread of mobile applications means for business from some of the industry experts.

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MasterCard Survey: Jump In UAE Online Shopping Growth Rate

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The percentage of respondents in the UAE accessing the Internet for shopping increased from 29% in 2009 to 42% in 2010 according to the results of a recent MasterCard survey on online shopping.

Results of the fourth survey on online shopping conducted by MasterCard also revealed that growth in the UAE is led by consumers within the age group of 25-44 years, while those in the 35-44 years age group also purchased more items and more frequently than others.

Involvement with online shopping also increased among women in the UAE, with 40% of respondents accessing the internet for online shopping in 2010, compared to 33% in 2011.

Categories leading the growth in the UAE in 2010 include airline tickets (74%) and hotel bookings (66%), followed by home appliances and electronic products (32%), clothing & accessories (34%), restaurants/home delivery of food (32%) and supermarkets/superstores (32%).

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Dubai Silicon Oasis Technology Incubator To Support Startups

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Dubai Silicon Oasis, the integrated free zone technology park, has launched a new big project in the UAE, the ‘DSO Technology Incubator’.

The incubator’s goal is to support new start-ups and encourage entrepreneurs in the field of technology by stimulating the development of successful companies, and chart a new avenue for investment in technology in the Arab region.

The incubator comes as part of DSO’s hi-tech ecosystem and the six technology sectors that remain the focus of the technology free zone.

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Dubai Internet City To Host Next DemoCamp Dubai On Nov. 24th

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DemoCamp DubaiDubai Internet City just announced that it is preparing to host another edition of DemoCamp Dubai, the event enabling tech entrepreneurs, students, professionals and engineers to showcase and launch their new products in front of the tech community, and obtain valuable feedback from a like-minded audience comprising venture capitalists and angel investors.

This next edition of DemoCamp Dubai will be held on November 24th, from 6.30pm – 9.00pm, at Dubai Internet City; probably at the Knowledge Village Auditorium as usual. It is planned to include six demos from entrepreneurs.

Applicants will be screened by a panel of industry experts, including the organisers and business partners of DIC. Shortlisted applicants will be required to demonstrate their product and highlight its market opportunity, stage of corporate development, and identify the competitors. Demonstrations need to convey working software, hardware, network services and other features.

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GoSolo Entrepreneurial Workshop: Raising Capital for Your Startup

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Tandem, the Dubai-based business advisory company, will be hosting a 5th installment of GoSolo at The Shelter in Dubai, today Wednesday October 13th, 2010 at 7PM.

GoSolo is a series of entrepreneurial workshops organized by tandem and that aim to help and guide aspiring entrepreneurs through the different challenges of launching a startup and give them answers to all their various questions.

This month’s session, titled ‘Raising Capital for Your Startup‘, will include a discussion led by the founders of tandem, Rabih Brair and Amir Farha on the industry, and insights on what investors are looking for in today’s market. The topics include the regional investment landscape, the selection criteria that investors look at and a Q&A session with one of the founders of Duplays.

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Du Launches Anayou A Central Social Platform For The Arab World

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Du, UAE’s second mobile operator, has just launched a new big online project branded Anayou, which seemingly aims to position itself as a central destination for users. Some are describing it as a social networking service, and even though that’s the biggest piece of it, there are other pieces to this puzzle that Du seems to be putting together.

The first thing that you’ll notice from Anayou, before even getting to know what it does and doesn’t do, is how slick and neat it looks; it’s a well designed service that stands out from many of the other services that were previously launched in the region in the same area of focus.

Anayou offers a variety of features, covering the different functionalities you’d expect from a social network like finding and connecting with your friends, following their updates on Anayou as well as on services like Twitter and Facebook, leave comments (shout outs) on their profile pages, as well as messaging them in private.

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Win Free Incorporation & Online Advertising With Falcons’ Lair Business Competition

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Virtuzone, a virtual UAE-based free zone, in partnership with Dubizzle, the UAE’s leading online classifieds service, have launched a new business competition under the name of ‘The Falcons’ Lair’, offering entrepreneurs an opportunity to make their business dreams a reality.

Entrepreneurs whose ideas are chosen at the end will get an offer from Virtuzone to set up their company for free, including all the costs for the first year of incorporation; and they’ll get the equivalent value of that in online advertising on Dubizzle for free. The competition’s official site claims this amounts to an accumulated value of over AED 100,000.

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