D1G Appoints Ex-Yahoo! Vice President Usama Fayyad As Executive Chairman

Social Networking and video portal site D1G, which allows users to share, discuss, and distribute rich online content, has tapped into the knowledge and expertise of online data mining and data strategist, Dr. Usama Fayyad, to help catalyze the company into its next stage of growth.

Dr. Usama Fayyad served as Yahoo!’s Chief Data Officer and Executive Vice President of Research & Strategic Data Solution. Dr. Fayyad was responsible for Yahoo!’s overall data strategy, architecting Yahoos data policies and systems, prioritizing data investments, and managing Yahoos data process infrastructure which processed and mined over 25 Terabytes of data per day resulting from Yahoo!’s over 500 million users globally.

Fayyad was also responsible for the advanced technology arm of Yahoo! in Yahoo! Research — the group that is driving innovation in social systems is Search Technology, in Microeconomics and in monetization technologies. He was also responsible for user targeting and grew ad targeting at Yahoo! by 20-fold from when his company was acquired by Yahoo! in 2004 till he left Yahoo! in later 2008.

Fayyad invested into d1g.com, and has become the company’s new Executive Chairman. His entry into the company should provide great value in helping scale the company’s infrastructure to accommodate increased users’ activity and to grow the business to the next level.

“Arab audiences are really thirsty for new-generation rich content and social media represented by the Web 2.0 offerings of d1g.com. I am very excited about d1g.com. I have been informally advising the firm since its early days, and I am very bullish about their potential to grow and provide some of the most dynamic experiences for their audiences and marketers alike.” said Dr. Fayyad. “Since my departure from Yahoo! in the autumn of 2008, I have been evaluating various investment opportunities in the regional online space, and I was very impressed with the skills, expertise and dedication of the company’s leadership.” added Dr. Fayyad.

The company and Fayyad are hoping that he will play a particularly crucial role in helping the d1g.com management team better monetize the company’s inventory through more targeted ad offerings that allows marketers to dynamically generate ads that target various audience criteria such as geography, demography, and browsing behaviour. He will also help expand the offering to our rapidly growing user base across the entire Arabic speaking world.