March 2009 – StartUpArabia

Google Ventures, Google’s New Venture Capital Fund

March 31, 2009March 31, 2009 MMM 13 Comments

Google, which has invested in many startups over the years, just announced the launch of Google Ventures, its new venture capital fund.

Google Ventures is expected to invest up to $100 million over the next 12 months. It will be overseen by David Drummond, who will continue in his role as senior vice president of corporate developing and chief legal officer at Google. Investments will be vetted by William Maris, who joined Google about a year ago, and Rich Miner, a co-founder of Android, a mobile software startup that Google acquired in 2005.

At its core, Google Ventures is charged with finding and helping to develop exceptional start-ups, focusing on early stage investments across a diverse range of industries, including consumer Internet, software, clean-tech, bio-tech, health care, as well as other areas.

Google says it will mainly be tapping into the connections of its employees and its ties to the venture capital world to find promising startups.

Google Ventures has already made two investments: Silver Spring Networks, a company that makes technology to help manage electric grids, and Pixazza, which links online images with related products that can be purchased.

On another note, executives from Google have been travelling around the Arab region these past days, meeting with government officials, people from development programs and entrepreneurs in a set of private networking events.

Ruwad: The First Entrepreneur Focused Publication In Oman

March 30, 2009March 30, 2009 MMM

To promote entrepreneurship in the Sultanate of Oman, a new publication titled ‘Ruwad’ will be launched as a special presentation of Alam Aliktisaad Wala’mal, the leading Arabic business magazine of Oman.

United Press & Publishing, the publisher of Alam Aliktisaad Wala’mal signed an agreement with Intilaaqah (the social investment programme of Shell) and Sharakah (owned and operated by the Fund for the Development of Youth Projects) to launch Ruwad, with Intilaaqah and Sharakah as founding partners.

The bilingual (Arabic, English) publication will be launched in the first week of May, and will be the first and only publication targeted at startup small and medium businesses, providing information on the latest industry statistics, opportunities in the market and relevant business trends.

It will also provide matchmaking opportunities by bringing young entrepreneurs and industry experts on a common platform to share information and identify business opportunities.

The publication’s overall aim is to provide pertinent content to make a meaningful contribution in the growth of entrepreneurial culture in Oman.

Restaurant Review Service Qaym Releases New Version

March 24, 2009March 24, 2009 MMM 4 Comments

Qaym, the Arab website for user generated restaurant and coffee shop reviews, that was previously reviewed here, recently celebrated the launch of it’s new redesigned interface and additional features.

Qaym is an online project through which users rate and review restaurants and coffee shops, in addition to uploading pictures of them and their food items, discussing their positives and negatives and posting relevant information about them.

Each restaurant has its own page that contains information about it (including location, branches, type of offered food, etc.) and reviews of the people who visited it and tried its food, which can range from enthusiastic delight to obvious disappointment. There’s a gauge in each page showing the average user rating of the restaurant.

The new version includes a re-branding for the service, introducing a new logo, and a new more simplistic and organized design for the homepage, as well as some other design tweaks for the inside pages.

An important new feature that has been introduced is the ability to pinpoint the location of a restaurant and its different branches on a map; to make it easier for people to find them. This is done through the integration of Google Maps.

Other than that the site’s rating system has been enhanced and extended to allow users to rate each other’s reviews, posts and photos.

The site currently focuses on food and drink establishments, and intends to expand so that the community can rate and review any charged service or product, ultimately aiming to provide an honest, user- and consumer-driven community in which people’s real experiences are shared and published so that they can be the basis of people’s decisions to buy or use a product or service, instead of attractive advertisements and ubiquitous billboards.

Filaty Arab File Sharing Service Launches Mobile Version

March 22, 2009March 22, 2009 MMM

Filaty, the Arab direct file sharing service, which was previously reviewed here, has just launched a mobile version of its service, making it possible for users to upload and share files directly from their mobile phones and devices.

By introducing this service, Filaty hopes to make it easier for people to use the service from anywhere, helping to grow usage of the service and extend their user base.

Users can upload photos and files of up to 100MB through a light, quick interface; and have the link sent to their email address or the email addresses of the friends they want to share with.

The mobile version is available at: http://m.filaty.com (filaty.mobi and filaty.com/mobile work as well.)

On another note, Filaty is now also one of the upload options available in Mrrha, the file mirroring service, previously reviewed here.

Ayna Launches Free Mobile Mapping Service For The Arab World

March 17, 2009March 17, 2009 MMM 6 Comments

After launching their online mapping service last year, Ayna has gone on and launched the first locally produced Arabic and English mobile mapping service as promised.

The application, unveiled this month, uses GPS technology on the latest-generation mobile phones to give directions and maps to points of interest from the user’s location.

According to Mazen Halawi, the corporate sales manager for Ayna Corporation, it contains detailed information about all major Arab cities and capitals, with numerous points of interest which are searchable, and that will be updated regularly.
It works in a similar way to Google Maps but has the added advantage of routing, or step-by-step directions to a destination, something unavailable for the Middle East through Google Maps.

The service is available for all types of phones except the iPhone and can be downloaded in two formats, for keypad and touch-screen phones, free from the Ayna website.
Users can also send directions to their favourite spots to friends through SMS.

Ayna is also presenting this as a value-added medium for advertisers who seek local advertisements, like banks, restaurants, points of sale, and others.

The application will soon add satellite images, which will allow users to view areas in maps, satellite and a hybrid view.

According to numbers released by the company, the application has been downloaded 12,800 times in its first week.

Ayna launched its online version of its mapping service in November and has more than 50,000 points of interest logged into its Arabic maps so far.

# Ayna Mobile Maps

Oman Internet Users Spent US$ 236 Million Online In 2008

March 16, 2009March 16, 2009 MMM 2 Comments

Flag of Oman A new Arab Advisors‘ survey of Oman’s Internet users revealed that 40.2% of adult Internet users in Oman have used e-commerce services, at more than 158,000 which is around 5.62% of the total population in Oman, spending US$ 236 million in e-commerce transactions in 2008.

The survey of Internet users in Oman was concluded by the Arab Advisors Group on January 29, 2009 and released on March 5th under the title ‘Oman Internet Users and E-commerce Survey 2009’.

The survey covered the Internet usage, e-commerce, cellular and Pay TV usage and habits of the online community in Oman. The survey’s online field work was conducted during January 2009.

Respondents were randomly targeted by receiving an email shot in their inbox to ask them to fill the survey in cooperation with Oman’s incumbent telecom operator, Omantel. The survey results encompass answers from 696 respondents that passed Arab Advisor’s quality control checks. The survey was conducted on the general Internet population that is above 18 years of age. Arab Advisors claim the online survey yields a confidence level of 99% with a margin of error of less than 5%.

According to the report, VoIP usage among Internet users reached 27.0%. 20.7% of total respondents use special software packages (Skype, GoogleTalk, etc) to make calls through the Internet. The majority of respondents (73.0%) do not make calls through the Internet.

The Arab Advisors Group divided the survey questionnaire into four main sections: Telecommunications, Internet, e-services and Pay TV.

Berytech Entrepreneurs Forum, BIEL, Lebanon (May 21-22, 2009)

March 15, 2009March 15, 2009 MMM

Berytech announced the launch of the Berytech Entrepreneurs Forum with the support of Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation (MBRF), to take place on May 21, 22, 2009 at the Pavillon Royal of the Beirut International Exhibition & Leisure Center (BIEL), Lebanon. The event is specifically designed to help existing or aspiring entrepreneurs make contacts, start a business or take an existing business to the next level.

The forum comprises of an exhibition area, free seminars and activities on entrepreneurial best practice from Lebanon’s leading business practitioners as well as International SME experts, providing entrepreneurs with the opportunity to attend presentations and meet with an array of business support institutions.

Mr. Maroun N. Chammas, President of Berytech declared: “The wide range of services and special packages presented will help entrepreneurs become more successful in starting or expanding their enterprises. This will definitely allow them to improve their productivity and connectivity and getting access to finance”.

Several activities will be held during the forum, offering the chance to seek the advice and knowledge of experts tackling specific challenges, such as Branding, Business Law, Business Plan, Business Tax, Cash Flow, Employment, Franchising, Media relations, On-line and Smart Marketing, Raising Finance, Sales Strategies, etc.

Dr. Nicolas Rouhana, Director of Berytech Technology Pole, emphasized: “Entrepreneurs will build a professional network, relevant to all sectors through the networking and business matching activities that we are planning. Investment facilities will also be proposed to selected projects through matching to Angels and VC Funds.”

For more information on exhibitors’ section and visitors’ profile as well as for updates on the event, visit the officiel site here: www.entrepreneurs-forum.org

Survey: Traffic Transparency Would Help Internet Advertising

March 13, 2009March 13, 2009 MMM 5 Comments

Web Traffic A recent survey by the market research company Real Opinions shows that 87% of those involved in advertising or marketing for their organisations in the Middle East said that transparency in website visitor numbers and profiles of visitors would be influential in increasing their usage of the Internet for advertising.

Put into perspective, 58% claim their budgets for marketing and advertising have decreased, but the current economic climate has encouraged them to look online for maximizing their impact, with 37% claiming their interest in the Internet has increased (50% claim no change).

Dan Healy, the CEO of Real Opinions who conducted the survey commented, ‘With decreasing budgets, organisations appear to be looking around for new paradigms in which to conduct their advertising and marketing activities to help them reach their goals. They are looking at the Internet advertising industry and websites to help them justify a new approach.’

‘As the Internet allows users to follow their special interests, websites have the ability to accurately show how unique their visitors are and how it can match an advertiser’s target market they wish to reach with communication. It’s shouldn’t just be how many visitors a website receives, advertisers want to know the profile of these people. This in turn can provide a very cost efficient advertising model for many organisations to achieve the return on investment they seek in this economic climate,’ Dan added.

Google Announces G-Pals Day 2009 In Palestine

March 12, 2009March 12, 2009 MMM 7 Comments

Google announced that upon invitation by the Palestine Information & Communications Technology Incubator (PICTI) and Palestinian IT Association (PITA), with support from UPP and USAID, it will be offering specialized training days in Ramallah (West Bank), aiming to spur economic development in Palestine.

The event will be held over a two day period (March 24 – 25, 2009); the first day targeted at software developers and the second at entrepreneurs.

The agenda is as follows:

Day 1: For Software Developers (March 24th 2009)

Day 1 will focus on pushing the boundaries of web applications using Google developer technologies. Google engineers and web development leaders will lead attendants through one full day of in-depth sessions on the latest Google technologies and hands-on codelabs. The day will also be about bringing brilliant developers together to share their own ideas. Registration form for Day 1

Day 2: For Entrepreneurs (March 25th 2009)
Day 2 will be full of Google product demonstrations for small or medium sized businesses to help spur innovation and entrepreneurship in the region. There will be a discussion on how to create Arabic content using online tools, how to market them and how to monetize. Furthermore there will be presentations of several tools to better manage businesses. Registration form for Day 2

The event will be held in Ramallah at the following venue:

Grand Park Hotel
Al Masyoon Heights
Rafat Road
Ramallah
Tel: +972 2 298 6194

For more information, you can visit the official site here: G-Pals Day 2009

[Via: Leaders of Tomorrow]