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More Arabic Websites From The Gulf, But Few Visitors?

April 5, 2009April 5, 2009 MMM 7 Comments

Arabic websites based in the Gulf are increasing in number but the locals are not using them much, according to experts discussing “Investing in Future Media” at the TMT Finance and Investment 2009 forum that was recently held at Sharq Village hotel in Doha, Qatar.

The opening presentation at the forum expressed concern over the fact that although the number of Arabic websites was increasing, these were rarely visited by those who know the language because they were not satisfied with the contents of the sites.

“This is still an open question,” said Mohamad Murrad, Principal, Vice President and Partner of Booz & Company, when asked if Arabic websites from the region can compete successfully with English websites.

Based on the study explained in the presentation, although there are now more Arabic websites in the region than before, their number is still small compared to that of English websites. Another fact is that most people in the Gulf access the popular sites such as Google, Facebook and Yahoo.

The same study highlighted the growth of the mobile platform, on which it is believed Arabic content can get a market share since 99 percent of the sales in the telecommunications industry are derived from it.

Mobile content is already on the rise and has high penetration in the region but the online network infrastructure for Arabic is still very limited, the study disclosed. It said SMS/MMS-based advertising offerings, although still small, showed strong growth.

Online ads are not very effective in the region, fetching just $2 per user, which is way behind the worldwide average of $27 per user and $59 per user in the United States. “The problem with online ads is very much skeptical, that is how to reach and capture the audience,” said one of the speakers.

[Source: The Peninsula]

Meedan Cross-Language Dialogue Platform Launches Open Beta

April 4, 2009April 4, 2009 MMM 2 Comments

Meedan has officially launched its online service into open beta. Meedan is a non-profit social technology company which aims to increase cross-language interaction on the web, with particular emphasis on translation and aggregation services in Arabic and English.

Through its use of Machine Translation (MT), Machine Augmented Translation (MAT), and distributed human translation, Meedan’s goal is to increase dialogue and exchange between Arabic and English speakers primarily by launching a cross-language forum for conversation and media sharing, in an attempt to foster understanding and tolerance between the Arab and Western worlds.

Meedan means ‘gathering place’ or ‘town square’ in Arabic, and it reflects the service that was designed to stand as a digital town square for a linguistically, culturally, and geographically diverse community of Arabic and English speaking Internet users, coming together online to discuss current events taking place all over the world.

Everything that appears on meedan.net is mirrored in Arabic and English; whether it’s the published headlines, the posted comments, or shared articles; so as to ensure an open two-way conversation.

Meedan was founded by Ed Bice in 2005 and incorporated as a nonprofit charitable organization in 2006.

For more information about the service and to try it out, go to: Meedan.net

Ehsaeyat, Open Free Survey Service Around Technology Topics

April 2, 2009April 2, 2009 MMM

Ehsaeyat is a new Arabic service that was launched a couple of months ago by Bluemeel as an open and free service holding and publishing results of surveys, mainly around technology topics.

Surveys done by Ehsaeyat are open and free for everyone to access and make use of, in an attempt to help academic researchers as well as business people find the numbers they need for their research and businesses.

The service is aimed at everyone, but mainly at people who don’t have the budget to go to one of the market research companies out there for the numbers and details they need.

Anyone can suggest surveys to be launched and then shared through the site. The surveys done by Eshaeyat are managed through SurveyMonkey, and then their results are published for everyone to access.

The service should come in handy for a number of people, and I think it could be used by internet startups to try and collect more information to help them with their first steps.

Ehsaeyat is still at its beginnings, and a good start it is, I just think they should try to put more focus on their ongoing surveys, and on getting them out there to more people from different backgrounds, incomes, …etc., in order to have a better and more significant result set.

Content Syndicate Announces Investment By IV Holdings

February 18, 2009February 18, 2009 MMM 2 Comments

Content Syndicate has officially announced that it has received strategic investment from Interactive Ventures Holding Company (“IV Holdings”), a leading venture capital firm, focused on internet and interactive companies, and based out of Amman, Jordan.

The funding will be used to support Content Syndicate’s rapid growth and development of its content services platform.

“In its private beta alone, Content Syndicate, with its unique and disruptive business model, as well as its dynamic management track record, impressed us. More importantly, the strong validation the company has received from major customers and publishers, combined with our investment strategy focused on the development of content syndication in our region, made Content Syndicate a great fit. Very few early-stage companies have this kind of amazing traction and robust business model,” said Fawaz H. Zu’bi, Chairman of IV Holdings.

Content Syndicate’s patent-pending platform helps publishers to commission, buy, sell, syndicate content in more than 200 languages. With no entry-level costs, coupled with its ‘pay for performance’ model, Content Syndicate helps publishers to monetize their content further and minimizing the inefficiency, thereby generating additional revenues and cutting costs. The company intends to extend its service to support other media – audio, video and mobile content in 2009.

Du Launches Full Track ‘Music on Demand’ Service In The UAE

February 9, 2009February 9, 2009 MMM 4 Comments

Du, the integrated telecom operator in the UAE, just announced the availability of Music on Demand, an online music service which allows du customers to download full track music content.

The initial launch of Music on Demand features over 2000 songs from Rotana’s leading Arabic artists, such as Husain Al Jassmi, Amr Diab, Elissa, Najwa Karam, Shireen and many more, made available for du customers to download on their mobile handsets or personal computers. All du customers who register for Music on Demand will receive free full track music downloads worth AED18.

du plan to grow their full track music library soon, to allow customers to download music from other genres and regions of the world through partnering with leading content providers.

Rotana, the leading provider of Arabic entertainment content in the region, signed an exclusive agreement with du in 2008 to offer all content from its library to du’s customers in the UAE. For as little as AED 6, du customers can purchase full music tracks via 3 new exciting channels – a web portal, a Mobile client, or a PC application. Once songs are purchased, customers can download the same song on any of these 3 channels mentioned above, making this an industry leading “Music on Demand” offering.

All the customer needs to do is to register at the website to get access to the service and start downloading music, streaming audio and video from Rotana channels and have access to the latest buzz and gossip in the Arabic entertainment world.

Al Jazeera Goes Mobile In Both English And Arabic

January 16, 2009January 16, 2009 MMM 1 Comment

Al Jazeera today announced the beta launch of its Arabic and English Mobile websites. The websites will work on any mobile handset that has web browsing capabilities.

Users can access the websites through their mobile phones and devices at the following addresses: for English news http://m.aljazeera.net and for Arabic news http://ma.aljazeera.net.

The mobile websites will provide Al Jazeera headline news, business reports, sports coverage and more.

This is yet another push by Al Jazeera to make their content more accessible and to get it out there through all existing channels, in order to broaden their reach and pass the information to as many people around the world as possible.

This move is also part of the ongoing Al Jazeera New Media initiative, which includes delivering video and other content over interactive platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and iTunes as well as other popular services.

Just a few days ago, Al Jazeera launched their Creative Commons Repository for video footage of ongoing events around the world, and only days earlier a service mapping the war on Gaza.

For more details about Al Jazeera’s other new media projects, you can check Al Jazeera Labs.

Al Jazeera Launches First Creative Commons Video Footage Repository

January 14, 2009January 14, 2009 MMM 1 Comment

Last night, Al Jazeera Network launched the world’s first online repository of broadcast quality video footage released under the ‘Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution’ license. Select Al Jazeera video footage – at this time footage of the War on Gaza – will be available for free to be downloaded, shared, remixed, subtitled and eventually rebroadcasted by users and TV stations across the world with acknowledgement to Al Jazeera.

The repository is available online at http://cc.aljazeera.net, and through it Al Jazeera will release its exclusive Arabic and English coverage produced by the Network’s correspondents and crews in the Gaza Strip, that should make it a key resource for anyone producing content on the current situation especially with the scarcity of news footage available.

This step makes Al Jazeera the first news organization to release its footage under the ‘Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution’ license which allows for commercial and non-commercial use.

Mohamed Nanabhay who headed New Media at Al Jazeera and launched the project stated, “As one of the only international broadcasters in Gaza, our coverage of the war has been unsurpassed. The launch of Al Jazeera’s Creative Commons Repository means that our Gaza footage will be made available under the most permissive Creative Commons license (CC-BY). With the flexibility of the license we expect to introduce our outstanding coverage to an even wider audience across the world. This means that news outlets, filmmakers and bloggers will be able to easily share, remix and reuse our footage.”

Lawrence Lessig, the founder of the Creative Commons organization and Professor of Law at Stanford University, stated, “Al Jazeera is teaching an important lesson about how free speech gets built and supported. By providing a free resource for the world, the network is encouraging wider debate, and a richer understanding”.

Joichi Ito, CEO of Creative Commons and a world renowned Web 2.0 entrepreneur, added, “Video news footage is an essential part of modern journalism. Providing material under a Creative Commons license to allow commercial and amateur use is an enormous contribution to the global dialog around important events. Al Jazeera has set the example and the standard that we hope others will follow”.

Ishki, A New Portal For Arabs To Post Their Complaints Online

January 6, 2009January 6, 2009 MMM 4 Comments

Ishki (which means ‘complain’ in Arabic) is an interesting new portal that was recently released from Jordan, giving Arab users the chance to post their different complaints online and get their voices out to the world.

Other than just complaining, the portal lets users start petitions on several issues and collect signatures for them; They can also ask other site visitors for help on certain problems or situations they’re facing.

In addition to all that, the website also gives users the possibility to do the very opposite of complaining, by blowing someone’s horn and singing their praises.

A special imaginary character, humorously called “Dr. Shakib Tanash” (which translates into Dr. Shakib Careless), has his own section where people can share their problems and get his feedback and advice.

Each complainer gets their own page grouping all their submissions to the website, that they can either make private or keep public. Other visitors can vote on the submitted complaints, requests for help and praises; as well as sign whatever petitions they agree with.

The site is still new and not much content has been submitted yet by users, but the idea is a really good one, and it should be interesting to see how well it goes, what kind of reaction it’ll get from the people, and what role it’ll play in helping spread freedom of speech.

The portal was founded and put together by a talented team consisting of Wael Attili, Mohamed Al Razem, Ahmad Kharbat, and Wahid Barghouthi.

# Ishki

Questler Content Available Under Creative Commons License

December 4, 2008December 4, 2008 MMM 4 Comments

Questler, 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.