Analysis: Dwwen Blog Aggregator Almost Shut Down
A few days ago, Arab blog aggregator service Dwwen announced they would be shutting down on June 15th this year due to financial and resource burdens.
The announcement came on the blog of Tareq Abu Zeid, the founder of Dwwen, where he said that the lack of financial backing for the service doomed it and made shutting it down inevitable.
After the announcement, a number of comments flowed in, with some people proposing that Dwwen start a donations campaign to raise money to keep going on, while some others offered to help in any way possible, and others asked how much they needed, showing readiness to help financially.
Yesterday, only a couple of days after the initial announcement, a little announcement was put up on the Dwwen homepage telling users that the service wouldn’t be shutting down and that further details would be communicated later.
It’s great news that Dwwen managed to find the backing or means to keep going on, they’ve built a really good service since they launched, and have managed to gain many an Arab blogger’s respect.
But now that things have worked out for the best, I think we should take a step back to study and analyse their case a little bit, because I think it more or less gives us some insight into the rather short life cycles of Arab startups of this kind, and how they end up having to take the decision to shut down.
To state the obvious, the problem is a financial one, they ran out of money to support the project and keep it going on. But why? and were there any solutions they didn’t try?
Dwwen launched from Jordan back in 2006, and have been growing their database, enhancing the service and launching new features over the past two years; they also teamed up with Al Jazeera to launch Al Jazeera Talk, an Arabic citizen journalism project; they also partnered up with Al Jazeera Talk on the “Bloggers Without Borders” community initiative; so as a product or service, it’s a really healthy and active one.
Still, they were unable to build an effective revenue model that would be sufficient to sustain the service; they did add a link inviting people to advertise on Dwwen, but personally I can’t say I remember having ever seen banners on their website, so it’s pretty clear that wasn’t very successful; but why? is it because online advertising isn’t mature enough a market in the Middle East? or is it because Dwwen didn’t work hard enough to reach out to advertisers and sell their ad space?
If we take a look at other Arab blog aggregators out there, it doesn’t seem like any of them are doing much better or have figured out how to turn all their page views and visits into money either; other than some Google Adsense ads scattered here and there, there’s not much else.
Toot tried to leverage their access to a big number of Arab bloggers by launching the Toot Advertising Network, with which they hoped to act as an intermediary between advertisers and bloggers, selling ad space on a network of affiliated blogs, which I think is a very interesting approach, but it doesn’t seem to have been the success they wanted it to be. Still, I think it’s worth pushing forward with the idea, and trying to convince more and more advertisers to use blogs as a new advertising channel.
An idea I don’t think any Arab blog aggregators have tried is to have sponsored content, where companies can publish sponsor posts that are featured eminently on the aggregator’s website. It’s yet another form of advertising that could be interesting to some companies or content providers.
What is obvious though is that until these aggregators, that are very useful tools, and that potentially reach many people, are able to open doors and windows for financial income to flow in, they will burn the initial money they started with, or outgrow the capacity of personal financing the founders have, and face an inevitable end. Thoughts to define these income sources should also start early on in the life of the project, so as to have a clear destination that drives development and helps in decision taking.
What are your thoughts on this? How do you think blog aggregators can survive? What solutions do they have to support themselves financially?
This is a tough nut to crack. Many Aggregators are providing community service for the most part. Adsense income isn’t really something anyone can depend on for many reasons as you know.
However, most major companies are reluctant to support or push forward any site mainly because it really doesn’t provide them with the kind of return they expect. Which makes them decide to go with other more established methods of advertising.
The Arabic Internet is still at it’s infancy (after 13 years, it’s still at it’s infancy), the Arabic consumer still doesn’t trust online ads or products so they would be reluctant to even click on ads.
The best approach is to have such services piggy back on top of other successful services. At least for the time being
This is a tough nut to crack. Many Aggregators are providing community service for the most part. Adsense income isn’t really something anyone can depend on for many reasons as you know.
However, most major companies are reluctant to support or push forward any site mainly because it really doesn’t provide them with the kind of return they expect. Which makes them decide to go with other more established methods of advertising.
The Arabic Internet is still at it’s infancy (after 13 years, it’s still at it’s infancy), the Arabic consumer still doesn’t trust online ads or products so they would be reluctant to even click on ads.
The best approach is to have such services piggy back on top of other successful services. At least for the time being
Hi ,,
Dwwen has not teamed up with AlJazeera to launch AlJazeeraTalk..
AlJazeeraTalk team in Qatar, not related to dwwen, but we have a partnership with Dwwen Regardens to our community “Blogeers without borders” “مدونون بلا حدود”
Muhammad Basheer
AlJazeeraTalk Team
I agree with Qwaider, the internet in the Arabic world has not grown up. A service like Dwwen is ahead of the Arabic internet mainstream, where the majority of internet users are still not familiar with blogs, and use forums instead.
In addition, it seems like the Arabic internet is fragmented there is no community to support new entries, and there is a very small if not negligible percentage of early adopters.
The internet in the Arabic world needs organization, and while blog aggregators like Dwwen or Toot are great tools to do so, they are still ahead of the game.
The fact that the largest internet portal Maktoob is acquiring forums in the Arabic world rather than developing new applications or acquiring interesting ones (like Yamli) proves the point, which is just sad.
Hi ,,
Dwwen has not teamed up with AlJazeera to launch AlJazeeraTalk..
AlJazeeraTalk team in Qatar, not related to dwwen, but we have a partnership with Dwwen Regardens to our community “Blogeers without borders” “مدونون بلا حدود”
Muhammad Basheer
AlJazeeraTalk Team
I agree with Qwaider, the internet in the Arabic world has not grown up. A service like Dwwen is ahead of the Arabic internet mainstream, where the majority of internet users are still not familiar with blogs, and use forums instead.
In addition, it seems like the Arabic internet is fragmented there is no community to support new entries, and there is a very small if not negligible percentage of early adopters.
The internet in the Arabic world needs organization, and while blog aggregators like Dwwen or Toot are great tools to do so, they are still ahead of the game.
The fact that the largest internet portal Maktoob is acquiring forums in the Arabic world rather than developing new applications or acquiring interesting ones (like Yamli) proves the point, which is just sad.
C’est peut-être le business Model qui est défaillant…
Je pense en tout état de cause que les aggregateurs de blogs n’ont plus d’avenir à l’heure des pages personelles.
C’est peut-être le business Model qui est défaillant…
Je pense en tout état de cause que les aggregateurs de blogs n’ont plus d’avenir à l’heure des pages personelles.
@Qwaider: It is true that many aggregators approach this as a community service, especially those oriented towards blogs from a certain country or from a certain niche. But if you’re a community project, then you have a bigger reason to do your best to survive for that community. And you can do that either by trying to find a commercial income source or by reaching out to the community to donate and keep the project alive.
As for the Arabic internet still being stuck in its infancy, well I think many people are quick to blame users or advertisers for it; but I think that online services hold an equal part of the responsibility. How will the Arabic internet evolve if no Arab startup lives longer than the few initial years the founders can finance it in? Why will advertisers work with a startup that doesn’t know where it’s going or who its customers are? What added value are these startups bringing to users from the region for them to use them instead of international services? How are a couple of IT guys in a garage for example going to talk to businesses and convince them to buy ad space? There is a lot of work that Arab startups have to do too to get things moving from their side.
@Ashraf: I don’t think all services should necessarily appeal to all users; services like Toot and Dwwen for example already have a good following from around the Arab world; plus as an easy access point to blogs, one of their main activity points could be to get more people interested and familiar with the whole concept. Part of building a business sometimes is building the market.
@Muhammad Basheer: Thanks for correcting my information on the Al Jazeera Talk / Dwwen collaboration; I have updated the post with the correct info.
@Mehdi: Well the problem I think is that many of them haven’t clearly defined their business model in the first place. I don’t agree that personal homepages will kill aggregators though; on your personal homepage you add your favorite blogs, the ones that you know and like. On an aggregator you find a bunch of content from all over the blogosphere, allowing you to be introduced to new content and new blogs all the time. It’s a different approach.
@Qwaider: It is true that many aggregators approach this as a community service, especially those oriented towards blogs from a certain country or from a certain niche. But if you’re a community project, then you have a bigger reason to do your best to survive for that community. And you can do that either by trying to find a commercial income source or by reaching out to the community to donate and keep the project alive.
As for the Arabic internet still being stuck in its infancy, well I think many people are quick to blame users or advertisers for it; but I think that online services hold an equal part of the responsibility. How will the Arabic internet evolve if no Arab startup lives longer than the few initial years the founders can finance it in? Why will advertisers work with a startup that doesn’t know where it’s going or who its customers are? What added value are these startups bringing to users from the region for them to use them instead of international services? How are a couple of IT guys in a garage for example going to talk to businesses and convince them to buy ad space? There is a lot of work that Arab startups have to do too to get things moving from their side.
@Ashraf: I don’t think all services should necessarily appeal to all users; services like Toot and Dwwen for example already have a good following from around the Arab world; plus as an easy access point to blogs, one of their main activity points could be to get more people interested and familiar with the whole concept. Part of building a business sometimes is building the market.
@Muhammad Basheer: Thanks for correcting my information on the Al Jazeera Talk / Dwwen collaboration; I have updated the post with the correct info.
@Mehdi: Well the problem I think is that many of them haven’t clearly defined their business model in the first place. I don’t agree that personal homepages will kill aggregators though; on your personal homepage you add your favorite blogs, the ones that you know and like. On an aggregator you find a bunch of content from all over the blogosphere, allowing you to be introduced to new content and new blogs all the time. It’s a different approach.
I think what many online Arab startups need is originality. This is not a phenomena that is exclusive to Arab online ventures, but we definitely need to fix it in Arabia.
The reason, in my opinion, that many Arabian online startups fails is that they fail at differentiating themselves from the other alternatives out there. Providing an Arabic interface and catering to an Arabic audience is not enough, they have to go above and beyond.
That differentiating factor can be in terms of service, something about the community, or the technology. There are many ways to differentiate yourself, but until you do .. your business does not stand a good chance to succeed in my opinion.
I think what many online Arab startups need is originality. This is not a phenomena that is exclusive to Arab online ventures, but we definitely need to fix it in Arabia.
The reason, in my opinion, that many Arabian online startups fails is that they fail at differentiating themselves from the other alternatives out there. Providing an Arabic interface and catering to an Arabic audience is not enough, they have to go above and beyond.
That differentiating factor can be in terms of service, something about the community, or the technology. There are many ways to differentiate yourself, but until you do .. your business does not stand a good chance to succeed in my opinion.