Category: Directory

Edufina: A University Research Portal For The Arab World

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Edufina is a newly launched startup that aims to fill in an empty space providing comprehensive, accurate and up-to-date information about universities around the Arab world.

The portal targets both students and parents, and enables them to access very detailed university data and statistics, as well as use a set of comparison tools in order to compare between all options that match their needs and interests.

What’s great about Edufina is that it collects all this information that is freely available from universities but still cumbersome to get a hold of into one place, in a clear and structured way, through a simple and really nice interface, that enables users to run and filter searches on, run comparisons between different universities on, and come to their final decision on which university better suits them.

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Tasree3 Expand Their Food Delivery Search Engine To Riyadh

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Tasree3 is a simple and straightforward search engine that enables its users to search for and find the delivery numbers and menus for the different restaurants around town.

The design of the site is very simplistic, centered around a search box that enables users to search for the restaurant they want. There also is a Random button that randomly picks and suggests a restaurant for you, which should come in handy at times when you’re having a hard time picking what to have.

Suggestions are shown as you type your search query, and when you submit your search the results appear directly under the search box without loading another page, showing you the delivery number and providing a link for you to view the menu if you need to. The menu pops up as a layer on the page for you to browse through.

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YallaWain: A New Kuwaiti Social Dining Out Service

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YallaWainYallaWain is a new social networking service that was launched in Kuwait, and that revolves around the experience of dining out; helping people pick what places to go to and what to have.

The service describes itself as a new way for people to mix and tip-off each other about the finest restaurants and top dishes in Kuwait; which sums it up quite nicely.

Basically, the site is built around user reviews and ratings of the different restaurants and eateries in the country, their ratings of the different dishes those places serve on their menus, and tips they leave for other fellow diners.

The service also integrates a social aspect that enables users to follow their friends and contacts on the service, in order to get a more personal touch and receive their different tips and reviews, as well as what restaurants are their favorite ones.

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N2V Announces Investment In Emirati Startup Yebab

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YebabNational Net Ventures N2V, one of the top internet groups in the Middle East just announced its investment in Yebab.com, the Arab portal specialized in organizing wedding celebrations in the United Arab Emirates.

Rashid Al Ballaa, CEO of N2V, stated that the project comes in line with the group’s current and future plans to expand its presence at the regional and the international levels. The plan is obviously to enhance the portal’s growth and presence, expanding it into other Arab Gulf countries, and the rest of the Middle East region, establishing it as the most trusted wedding directory in the Arab world.

Yebab.com, which was launched from the UAE in 2009, has proven really successful in the UAE, becoming a leading portal providing a directory of wedding services in the country; including listings for the various suppliers and services from caterers to dressmakers, artists, photographers and traditional musicians. The site shows strong potential to perform just as well and more in other markets around the region.

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Jeddah Food, The Online Restaurant Guide Launches iPhone App

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Jeddah FoodJeddah Food, the English language online restaurant guide to restaurants in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, recently announced the launch of their new iPhone mobile application.

The application enables visitors to Jeddah, as well as locals, quickly find restaurants around the city, based on your current location, while on the go. It provides a search functionality to look for specific restaurants and cafes around Jeddah, as well as quick categories that enables users to click through directly and locate places by type of cuisine (e.g. Lebanese, Japanese, Burgers etc.)

For each venue, the application provides the venue details, phone numbers, website details, photo galleries, and maps.

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Businessbuyandsell.me, Middle East’s First Business & Franchise Marketplace

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Businessbuyandsell.meDubai-based RichWeb, a member of Tharaa Holding, has just launched the beta version of BusinessBuyAndSell.me, the region’s first portal dedicated to buying and selling businesses and franchises, in a move that aims to cater to and boost company acquisitions and expansion activities by business establishments in the Middle East and North Africa (including Turkey and Iran).

BusinessBuyAndSell.me offers a number of services, such as listing businesses for buying and selling with the option to search by category and region; listing and finding global franchise opportunities available for the Middle East; receiving auto-updates on new listings based on saved search criteria; advertising opportunities; with a number of other value-added services that will be launched with the non-beta version within the next 6 Months.

The directory of listings on BusinessBuyAndSell.me is a free service for buyers, which will enable them to search opportunities by location, category and size of businesses. Potential buyers can also have their search criteria saved and regularly receive listing updates, based on their specific requirements. Owners who plan to sell their businesses or franchises can register online and list their offerings on the website and find potential buyers in a much faster, easier and convenient way, as opposed to traditional methods of newspaper advertising.

As an introductory offer, all listings are free of cost during the trial period and huge reductions in advertising rates are available.

Businessbuyandsell.me

Commenting on the portal’s launch, Mr. Shabeer Mohamed, RichWeb’s Managing Partner, said: “Buying and selling businesses and franchises is a key area of economic activity all over the world. However, until now, there has been no proper domain in the region for potential buyers and sellers to come in contact with each in a fast and easy manner, I am sure our service will come as a saviour to many establishments seeking to restructure their operations.”

Other related services that BusinessBuyAndSell.me plans to offer include providing details of available business loans, business-related services and other useful resources. 

# Source: Maktoob Business

Places.ae Dubai Location Based Directory Goes Mobile

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Places.aePlaces.ae, the Dubai location based directory, previously reviewed here, have taken their service one step further, officially launching the mobile version of their service at http://m.places.ae

The mobile version has been under development and test for a while now, and now that BlackBerry support has been integrated into it, it has been launched officially.

This mobile version also supports iPhone and Windows Mobile clients, with an even more optimized interface as their browsers and UI are better than those of the BlackBerry; as well as any mobile device that can read HTML pages.

Places.ae BlackBerry Home

However, if you have a BlackBerry equipped with GPS, it’s even easier to find places you’re looking for, as place.ae will use the information from the GPS satellites to know where you are and find a list of places that are closest to your current location.

If you click on one of the entries in the list, you will see a little static map of the place, and as phone numbers of the places are often detected, it’s easy to call a place to ask for other details or make a reservation if necessary.

For more details on how to use a GPS-enabled BlackBerry with Places.ae, you can check out the details and instructions on the Places.ae Blog.

Dine In UAE, UAE Restaurants Guide And Reviews

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Dine In UAEDine In UAE is a service that aims to be a comprehensive United Arab Emirates’ restaurant directory on the web, serving as a central point, introducing people to good restaurants all over the UAE.

It also helps restaurant owners promote the new and unique aspects of their restaurants while providing diners with an effective way to find and try new restaurants.

Users can search restaurants by name, by area or by cuisine, or go through the highest rated restaurants and most popular ones, to find details about these restaurants, their addresses, telephone numbers, opening hours, ratings, user reviews and comments.

Registered users can rate restaurants they’ve gone to and post their personal reviews of them.

A forum is integrated in the website to add more interaction between the community of users on several food related subjects like dining at home, sharing recipes, special offers and more.

Restaurant owners can add their restaurants and menus to the website by filling out an offline form. Restaurants have to pay AED 2,000.00 (~ $540) to be included in the directory. Obviously, it’d be much more practical if they could take this process online soon.

Dine In UAE screenshot

Dine In UAE was launched by Siankar Comm LLC.

# Dine In UAE

Places.ae Release Places Answering Machine (PAM)

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Places.aePlaces.ae, the cool Dubai location based directory, previously reviewed here, have released a new interesting feature called “Places Answering Machine (PAM)”, which acts as an interface for Places.ae with other communication channels on the internet, thereby enabling users to ask Places.ae for places directly through these channels without having to visit the website.

They’ve currently launched with Google Talk and Twitter support, and more channels should be added soon.

For Google Talk users, all you have to do is add places.ae@gmail.com in your contact list then ask PAM to find you something by sending a message in the following format:
find me <something> in <area> (e.g. find me pizza in jumeirah).
You can also use a search term without an area, using find me <something>.

If you’re using Twitter, you’ll have to start following the user places_ae, and once it starts following you back, you can send it a direct message to search for a place:
d places_ae <something> in <area> (e.g. d places_ae pizza in jumeirah).

PAM is still in the beta stage, and more work is currently being put into it’s communication skills and the layout of the sent answers. But it’s still a really nice feature, worth checking out and using for quick searches.

# Places.ae

Places.ae, Dubai’s Location Based Directory

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Places.ae is one of those simple, small, but very useful services that we really wish we had more of all around the Arab world.

In short, and using their own words which I think say it best, places.ae is a location based directory for Dubai.
Integrating Google Maps, the website helps you find, positioned on a map, anything in Dubai by simply asking you what you are looking for, and the neighborhood you’re looking for it in; from businesses to restaurants to clubs to hospitals to any other place you would want to go to in Dubai.

The interface is very simple and really easy to use; you start typing what you’re searching for and the website helps by giving suggestions, and then it delivers a list of nearby places sorted by how far they are from the location you typed in.

You get to click on each one of these places to see it located on a map, find how other people who have been there rate it and read their comments on it.

Users can also add other places that they know of to the website, thereby giving the community the possibility to further enrich the service.

Places.ae currently only covers Dubai, but should be adding other emirates soon. The service is free, both for users and for businesses for the time being.

This very cool service is a product of the collaboration of code.ae and spinbits.

# Places.ae