Tag: Arabic Content

Areeb: A Free Arabic E-Learning Project Providing Video Lessons

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Areeb School is a new non-profit educational project for the Arab world, which aims to provide good education for all Arabic speakers, at different stages of their lives and covering various topics and natural sciences.

The site aims to  explain the various scientific subjects of mathematics, physics, chemistry and others in a simplified and easy to understand manner, all in the form of short video clips that do not exceed 15 minutes, that should be enough to simply deliver the information and get it across to the learners.

The goal of the site is to build and provide an extensive library of tutorial videos that cover hundreds of explanations and lessons in various fields of science; this is to facilitate access to information and clearly explain all these topics to a large number of people from around the Arab world, whatever their financial situation is or how advanced the  educational system is in their countries.

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Mobily Launches Developers Community To Enrich Arabic Mobile Applications & Content

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Saudi Arabia’s second mobile operator Mobily (Etihad Etisalat) has launched a new project dubbed “Mobily Developers Community” that aims to help developers build mobile applications and software that support Arabic content.

It’s been a hot topic in almost every web or mobile event in the region that there is a big lack in Arabic applications and content, and Mobily hopes this project will play a role in enriching the offering of Arabic content available.

The program is focused on encouraging developers, both professionals and hobbyists, as well as software companies, to unleash their talents and develop quality apps with valuable content for the different smartphone platforms. They also wish for it to become a club for Arabian software talent where members can get their hands on all the resources they might need to create innovative mobile apps.

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Arab World: Current State Of The Internet & Future Growth

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Over the past few days, a number of articles sprung up about reports and predictions that have been announced by various parties, analyzing where the Internet stands today in the Arab world, and where they see it a few years from now.

Here is a quick straight-forward round-up of these opinions, reports and projections:

Present day:

  • At present there are roughly around 56 million Arab internet users in the Arab world, representing only 17% of the 337 million population. [Madar Research]
  • There is not enough Arabic content on the internet to take full advantage of newly built broadband networks in the region. [Ali al Ahmed, chief strategist, Etisalat]
  • More people are getting online in the Arab world, and are relying more and more on the Internet for their news, videos, social interactions and more, but only 1% of all content online is in Arabic, not offering them much choice. [Arab Media Outlook report]
  • Online news consumption is gaining ground with 22% to 34% of the people using internet at least as much as print media to read news. [Arab Media Outlook report]
  • On average, 70% of the people in the four main Arab markets researched use social networks in some capacity and about 15% use social networking sites at least once a day. [Arab Media Outlook report]
  • About 6 million internet users in the Middle East – or about 12% of the total online population in the region – have access to broadband networks. [Arab Media Outlook report]
  • People in the Arab world are spending about three hours per day on the internet on average, which is already on par with the amount of time spent on TV. [Arab Media Outlook report]
  • About $56 million or 1% of the total media advertising spend is online in the Middle East. [Arab Media Outlook report]
Looking forward:
  • The number of Arabic internet users in the Middle East and North Africa is expected to grow by nearly 50% over the next three years, rising to 82 million users by 2013. [Vint Cerf, Chief Internet Evangelist, Google]
  • Broadband usage in the region is expected to grow at an annual rate of 25% until 2013. [Arab Media Outlook report]
  • Broadband growth around the region over the next five years will stimulate the media industry, driven largely by Egypt and Saudi Arabia. [Arab Media Outlook report]
  • Internet advertising spend in the Middle East will rise to at least 4.5% by 2013, to around $266 million. [Arab Media Outlook report]

[Sources: The National, Zawya, BI-ME, Arabian Business, AMEInfo]

Taya IT Launches Beta Of Yajeel Content Discovery Portal

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YajeelTaya IT, a regional specialist in Enterprise and internet search applications, has announced the beta launch of Yajeel, a new content discovery portal which aims to play the role of an independent gateway to some of the best online content from Arabia.

The portal is in Arabic only, and uses Taya IT’s advanced search technologies to provide Arabic internet users with a new tool to easily discover and share Arabic content online,

Through the Yajeel homepage, users will be able to find the highlights from Arabic content around the web, search through content, as well as navigate through content specific web channels that serve as dedicated portals to the most popular topics available from third-party web publishers. With the beta launch, the only channel available now is a football news service containing the latest news and fixtures from Middle Eastern and international football.

The service also integrates a ranking tool, that allows users to rate the content they view and push it up or down in the listing of “most popular” pages.

Yajeel

The technology behind Yajeel intelligently classifies Arabic internet content, giving users access to a continuously updated stream of relevant web pages categorized according to topics of interest. Users can then customize the stream controlling what they see and how they see it, as well as share content from all web channels with their friends.

The official release is expected to be sometime in February 2010, with a number of new extra features and additional web channels products.

# Yajeel

More Arabic Websites From The Gulf, But Few Visitors?

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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]

eSpace Integrating Yamli Transliteration Technology In Popular Online Text Editors

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eSpaceeSpace, the Egyptian software company behind services like meOwns and weNear, has been a supporter of the advancement of Arabic content on the web, through contributing to Wikimania2008 in Egypt and other various activities, in their attempt to realize the true potential of one of the World’s most spoken languages.

The company is currently taking another step to try to promote and simplify the use of the Arabic language on the internet, and that is by integrating Yamli‘s award-winning transliteration technology, that enables users to type Arabic using Latin characters by converting their words in real time into Arabic text, as a rich text formatting option in a number of the most prominent and popular online text editors, such as FCKeditor, TinyMice editor, as well as in popular forum software like VBulletin and PHPBB.

YamliBy bringing Yamli’s technology directly into the tools people are using to write on the web, publishing Arabic language content becomes even easier and more straight-forward, eliminating the fuss of having to keep going back and forth between the Yamli website and whatever other website or tool is being used to write and publish content.

It’s great to see Arab startups and companies working with each other’s technologies and tools to advance a common goal like promoting Arabic content on the web. I certainly wish we see more efforts like this in the future.

Google Launches Knol In Arabic As One Of The First Languages Worldwide

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KnolGoogle has just launched their service Knol in Arabic, as one of the first languages supported by the language worldwide. Knol is a new service from Google that in some way competes with Wikipedia, it is a free tool encouraging people to write articles about the things they know about most, and that they’re considered experts on.

So whatever their area of expertise, the service lets users write, share and participate in a community of information and knowledge.

Arabic is one of the first languages that Knol is launching globally, showcasing the importance of the Arabic market to Google.

Mohammad Gawdat, Managing Director for Emerging Markets explained: “The Arab region is a high priority for us at Google and we are excited to provide more tools in local language such as Blogger and now Knol.”

For more information and to start writing on your subject of expertise in Arabic or English, or explore existing knols (articles and posts), all you have to do is visit the website at: knol.google.com

Knol screenshot

‘The internet is huge, but still a lot of expert knowledge remains untapped,’ said Ahmed Gaballah, spokesman for Google. ‘Knol provides a way for people to share their expertise with others–and get credit for their contribution. In the same way that books have authors’ names right on the cover, knols have authors’ names–and links to their other articles–right there on the page.’

Knols are a great way to tackle the lack of Arabic content on the internet. ‘We are delighted that beyond providing a forum for Arabic speakers to share their knowledge, readers can now access information they are searching for that they otherwise could not get in Arabic,’ Gaballah stated.

Knols allow authors to include references, link to additional information, and interact with readers. And readers can easily submit comments, rate, or write a review of a knol.