Sharing – StartUpArabia

Du Launches Anayou A Central Social Platform For The Arab World

October 10, 2010October 10, 2010 MMM 11 Comments

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.

DuShare: A Simple P2P Direct File Transfer Service

August 17, 2010August 17, 2010 MMM 4 Comments

duShare is a simple P2P direct file transfer service that aims to make the act of sending files between people as easy and effective as possible.

The service enables users to send files of unlimited size to one another though the system, and without having to go through uploading the file to a central server in the process. File transfers are handled through a peer to peer, secure direct transfer connection between the sender and the receiver.

Also as connections are direct between users and don’t go through any central server, files and chats aren’t monitored or viewed by duShare, which gives users a bit of extra privacy.

Revisiting Arabic Social Bookmarking And Content Discovery

June 23, 2010June 23, 2010 MMM 2 Comments

A bit over two years ago, I wrote a post about the Arab social bookmarking services out there, listing the existing options, how good they looked and how well they seemed to be doing, identifying the top ones at that time.

If anyone were to pull up that same list today and go check on each one of the sites, they’d find that some have shut down, others have become useless and spam ridden, some others have become pretty much inactive, and only one or two are still holding on. What’s clear though is that these social bookmarking services never caught on with Arab web users, and never achieved their founders’ initial dreams for them.

However there are some new kids on the block, who are here to take another stab at social bookmarking and facilitating content discovery for users in the Arab world.

Tweet To Email, Share Your Tweets With Your Friends Via Email

June 14, 2010June 14, 2010 MMM 1 Comment

Tweet to Email is a service that was recently launched from the UAE, that aims to make it easy for twitter users to share tweets of their choice directly with groups of their friends, who aren’t on twitter yet, through one of the oldest and most established sharing mediums online: email.

The concept is very simple and the tool is as simple and easy to use; the user signs up to Tweet to Email, inputting their twitter username while doing it, and then they get to create groups in which they can add their friends and contacts who they want to share with.

They get to choose a hash tag for each group they create (currently pre-defined and limited to five options), and when tweeting they can use that hash tag in their tweets if they want it sent to the people in that group, directly to their email inboxes.

Loomni, A Knowledge Sharing & Educational Platform

June 8, 2010June 8, 2010 MMM 2 Comments

Loomni is a new service that’s being launched today for the region that promises to reshape and transform continuing education, making it more accessible and affordable to everyone.

The problem Loomni is trying to solve is that of education outside of public schools and universities being out of reach for most people as it takes the form of limited, relatively long and expensive courses offered up by training institutions.

The idea of the startup is to fill the existing gap and provide learning opportunities for people who can’t afford expensive courses, nor have the time to spend locked up for long hours in a training venue somewhere. It aims to do this by providing focused practical courses delivered in 90 minutes, at a fraction of the price available in the market.

To be able to provide these lower prices, Loomni goes after another profile of instructors, mainly experts on certain fields who can share their knowledge and experience, educating people about their areas of expertise, but also helping market themselves and their services along the way.

Loomn.it, A New Quick Online Sharing Service

June 6, 2010June 6, 2010 MMM

Loomn.it (pronounced Loomnit) is a new easy to use, online sharing service that will be launching today and aims to provide users with a simple way to share anything with anyone; whether it be links, email addresses, images, videos, documents or any other digital content.

Through a very simplistic interface, users will be able to input the link for what they need to share or upload it directly to the cloud and then start sharing it with their friends on Facebook, twitter, google buzz or anywhere else on the web.

Users do not need to register for an account on the site to be able to use it, and don’t have any usage limits or quotas they have to keep within. They can start sharing right away and have their shared items live for 14 days to pass among their friends.

Once a person opens up a loomn.it link (e.g. http://loomn.it/c8); the shared page, text, image or file is displayed in a framed page with the top loomn.it frame providing stats on how many times the shared item was viewed, as well as options to share the item with others.

Talasim One Of Six Winners At Seedcamp Week 2009

September 26, 2009September 26, 2009 MMM

Seedcamp has announced the six winners of this year’s edition of Seedcamp Week, after an intense week of mentoring in London by a diverse mentor, investor and entrepreneur network.

Among the six winners is Jordanian startup Talasim, an online social network and photo sharing service for comedy/funny content, which was founded by Zeid Koudsi and Sabri Hakim, and is one of the projects leading Arab UGC portal Jeeran invested in and incubated.

Each of the six winning teams will be receiving a €50k investment from Seedcamp and active support over the next three months to help develop their products and companies. In return Seedcamp should be taking a stake worth between 5-10% of each company.

These next three months will be spent in London, with the winning teams working with the Seedcamp team on building the product and company together, and with the teams provided access to services worth 2-3 times the invested €50K, with the goal of helping grow and nurture the teams, and putting in-depth focus on developing the product and business.

During the course of these three months, the groups will also have an opportunity to take advantage of the same group of experts that participated in the Seedcamp week through weekly dinners, topical lunches, conferences, and continued mentorship on various issues. They’ll also get to demo their products to other groups from Seedcamp as well as potential investors in two events along the way.

The other 5 winners are: Boxed Ice (UK), Brainient (Romania), Codility (Poland), Erply (Estonia) and Patients Know Best (UK).

Talasim One Of Top Teams For Seedcamp Week 2009

September 10, 2009September 10, 2009 MMM 2 Comments

The team at Seedcamp just announced the top 21 teams who made it as finalists for Seedcamp Week 2009, an intensive week-long event held in London every September, that targets young entrepreneurs from across EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa).

Among this year’s finalists is Jordanian startup Talasim, an online social network and photo sharing service for comedy/funny content, which was founded by Zeid Koudsi and Sabri Hakim, and is one of the projects leading Arab UGC portal Jeeran invested in and incubated.

The focus of Seedcamp week is around providing an incredible experience for the selected teams, with a diverse mentor network helping the teams put together the foundations of a viable business. The aim of this week is to collapse the time it takes startups to make and develop these critical relationships from months to a week and establish an unrivaled foundation on which the business can be built.

With this selection, Talasim joins another 20 startups from around Europe, the Middle East and Africa, to compete to receive one of the 5 investments worth €50K that will be made at the end of the Seedcamp week.

The three months following Seedcamp Week and the investment, is when the winning teams with the Seedcamp team begin building the product and company together in London, and provided access to services worth 2-3 times the invested €50K, with the goal of helping grow and nurture the teams, and putting in-depth focus on developing the product and business.

During the course of the three months, the groups will have an opportunity to take advantage of the same ecosystem of experts which participated in the Seedcamp event through weekly dinners, topical lunches, conferences, and continued mentorship on various issues. They’ll also get to demo their products to other groups from Seedcamp as well as potential investors in two events along the way.

Previously, the only other startup to make it to Seedcamp from the Arab region was Content Syndicate, that participated in Seedcamp Week 2007, and was nominated as one of the top 10 startups out of 260 participating startups from 40 countries.

Talasim was also selected as one of the Arab world’s top ten investment ready startups at the 6th Investing in Technology Forum that was held in Cairo, Egypt, earlier this year.