Archive for the ‘Topics’ Category
Middle East Economic Slowdown To Boost Online Advertising
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | November 19, 2008 – 4:28 pm |
2 Comments
The economic slowdown in the Middle East is expected to accelerate the growth of online advertising in the region, reported The National, as companies opt for less expensive web ads over pricey traditional media.
Advertising online costs fractions of what it costs to advertise via traditional media, and makes it easier to measure the impact of advertising campaigns.
The market now accounts for up to 20 per cent of total ad spending in developed economies, and is the driver of virtually all growth in advertising spending.
On the other hand, spending on online advertising in the Middle East is estimated to be as low as US$50 million, translating into less than 1 per cent of total advertising spending, which is one of the main factors holding back the growth of startups and web businesses around the region.
Google, which has become a giant in the area of online advertising, and which has been pushing hard into the Arab market, say they are seeing faster growth in regional demand as advertisers look for ways to increase their reach while limiting their spending.
“In an economically cautious environment, people need to continue to grow their business, making people aware of their product while also cutting costs,” said Mohammed Gawdat, the managing director of Google for the Middle East and North Africa.
“Every technology adoption follows an ‘S’ curve: it starts slow, then grows exponentially, peaks and tails off,” he said. “The Middle East is definitely in the hockey-stick part of that curve right now. Our numbers show that it is growing at a tremendous pace.”
Mazen Halawi, the corporate sales manager of Ayna, an Arabic search engine, recently said that large corporate advertisers in the region planned to put a larger percentage of their advertising budget into online media next year, with some planning for almost 10 per cent of total ad spending to go to the internet, up from just 5 per cent last year.
Globally, total advertising spending is predicted to grow by approximately 5 per cent next year, driven almost entirely by the online market, which will grow by 15 to 20 per cent according to some estimates.
# Source: The National
Mecca.com Releases More Features And New Design
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | November 17, 2008 – 1:51 pm | 3 Comments
Mecca.com, the Muslim community portal, that also integrates a social networking and user generated content platform, has just rolled out a new look, unveiling a new logo and a re-design for their whole website.
The new design is more colorful and looks more hip; it also feels better organized, optimizing the use of screen real estate.
This new design, comes just a short while after Mecca.com rolling out their new Videos section, where members can upload and share their videos with friends. As with other online video sharing services, friends have the ability to comment, rate, edit, and share videos with other users.
Mecca.com had also enhanced their Photo sharing feature by improving the user interface, and adding the possibility to import photos from Facebook and Flickr.
Stardoll And Maktoob Bring Avatar Fashion To Arab Market
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | November 16, 2008 – 3:09 pm | No Comments
Stardoll, the world’s largest online entertainment destination devoted to girls interested in fame, fashion and friends, has announced a partnership with Maktoob, the world’s largest Arabic online community, to launch an all-new Arabic-language version of Stardoll.
The partnership, which was announced at the Dubai World Game Expo, introduces the Stardoll community to Middle Eastern fashion enthusiasts exclusively on the Maktoob network at stardoll.maktoob.com. The site is now available in 13 countries in the region including Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria and United Arab Emirates.
Users who join Stardoll’s interactive global community can enjoy the full Stardoll experience; they can create customized ‘MeDoll’ avatars in their own likeness, be able to use Stardollars, the site’s virtual currency, to shop for virtual fashions in the Starplaza, and purchase virtual décor to furnish their personalized suites–all while navigating the site seamlessly in Arabic. Other features of the site include the recently launched Stardoll Magazine, member-created clubs and StarDesign–a virtual design studio.
“Maktoob is proud to partner with Stardoll to bring this one-of-a-kind fashion community for girls in Arabic,” Ahmed Nassef, Vice-President and General Manager of Maktoob, said in a statement. “Teen and Tween girls already make up a huge segment of our audience, currently mostly focused around our casual gaming channels. By partnering with an international leader like Stardoll, we are bringing a whole new level of fun and interactivity to this online-savvy audience.”
“In keeping with the unique cultural traditions of the Middle East, the Arabic-language version of Stardoll has been tailored to reflect the values and sensitivities of the region, while ensuring the confidentiality of user identities as per Maktoob standards,” Nassef added.
“Stardoll is thrilled to partner with the highly regarded Maktoob to bring our content to the Middle East,” said Mattias Miksche, CEO of Stardoll. “As home to more than 20 million users worldwide, Stardoll prides itself on its global reach. We’re happy to connect young fashionistas throughout the Middle East to our global community of girls all over the world who share similar interests.”
Stardoll has about 20 million users worldwide and 8 million unique visitors every month - 94% of whom are teen and tween girls. Most users are girls between the age of 10 to 17 and online safety is a huge consideration. Stardoll adds a layer of anonymity to all accounts. Users can never reveal personal information such as their real name or city of origin on their pages.
Content Syndicate Wins Cool Start-ups Award At TiE-ISB Connect
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | November 13, 2008 – 11:29 am | No Comments
At the recent TiE-ISB Connect 2008 event jointly organised by The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) and the Indian School of Business (ISB), Dubai-based Content Syndicate (CS) emerged as the winner in the ‘Cool Start-ups‘ category.
The event took place at ISB Hyderabad from 5 to 7 November. Sponsors included Sun Microsystems, Microsoft, Times of India Group Satyam, Totem Infrastructure and the Indu Group.
This is the third year for TiE-ISB Connect and it is also one of Asia’s largest investor-entrepreneurial events. Tie-ISB Connect 2008 featured over 700 delegates, 30 venture capital firms and various media companies.
The event attracted over 200 business plans of which 149 executive summaries were short-listed for the next round. 30 of the short-listed firms were invited for a final presentation before a judging panel comprising of senior partners and management from Accel Ventures, Google, Canaan Partners, Helion Ventures, Venture East, Clearstone, PA, Virtusa, IDG Ventures, Nexus Capital, Sun Microsystems, Ojas Ventures, Totem and Kuruvindam.
The criteria for selecting the winners were based on the strength of business model, innovation, the team, maturity of business, track record, financials, long-term plans and scalability.
Commenting on the award, Content Syndicate’s Founder & CEO, Maddy Reddy, said: “We are honoured to be a part of this prestigious event. It was a great experience and provided us with a strong validation of our business. I would like to extend my gratitude to our clients, team, investors and partners for playing a vital role in making this happen.”
eSpace Integrating Yamli Transliteration Technology In Popular Online Text Editors
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | November 9, 2008 – 8:07 pm | 1 Comment
eSpace, 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.
By 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.
eMapia Location Based Marketplace Launches Full Screen Mode
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | November 8, 2008 – 10:38 am | No Comments
eMapia, the location based marketplace, which was previously reviewed here, and that integrates Google Maps technology to enable sellers (businesses or individuals) to add their items and link them to specific locations on the map, where they are available for sale (shop or person’s home), recently launched the possibility to view the site in Full Screen mode.
This feature gives users the ability to use the whole width of their screen to navigate through the world map and find products for sale near them; they can zoom by scrolling in and out.
By passing the cursor over the selected item, a little box shows providing a summary of that item’s details.
In this full Screen mode, visitors can also click on the “Show Items” link available in the site’s header to see all items within the current zoom level in the form of a left-side panel showing all the items’ thumbnails; allowing visitors to conveniently and quickly check out the available items.
SMELink.ae, Business Community Portal For UAE SMEs
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | November 7, 2008 – 12:26 pm | No Comments
The Mohammed bin Rashid Establishment for Young Business Leaders (SME) and Tejari, the leading online B2B marketplace for global emerging markets, has announced the launch of SMELink.ae, a new online portal specifically catering to small and medium businesses.
The launch of this portal marks yet another addition to the rapidly expanding portfolio of services provided to Tejari members. “This achievement is a big step for Tejari and we are convinced that e-commerce will only grow from strength to strength through our initiatives,” said Omar Hijazi, CEO of Tejari.
Members registered with the Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid Establishment For Young Business Leaders automatically become a member of this portal, gaining access to an online community of over quarter million members. In addition to this, all members of the community are eligible for an eExhibit package, whereby they can set up an online showroom to display their products and services.
“The new portal will without doubt benefit members of the establishment and will open up new windows of opportunity for existing and new small and medium size enterprises,” said Adbul Baset Al Janahi, CEO of Mohammed bin Rashid Est. for Young Business Leaders (SME).
# Source: Khaleej Times
Wikeez, A New Social Entertainment Platform
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | November 6, 2008 – 2:00 pm | 2 Comments
Wikeez, is a new Lebanon-based startup, focusing on user generated content around entertainment topics, which was founded by Kuv Capital with a seed investment of US$250,000.
Wikeez aims to allow people to publish and exchange on their favorite subjects centered on entertainment topics (tv shows, movies, celebrities, music and sports).
Each topic is fragmented into 3 tiers:
- Top Stories: Information on the subject; latest news, Bio,…
- Blog Stories: content produced by Wikeez members
- Micro Stories: reactions shared by Wikeez members
Wikeez will also enable people to create their own blogs, fan clubs, get the latest news centered on their passions, as well as socialize with other fans.
The site is still in alpha, with a beta version coming pretty soon.
The company is currently looking to recruit in Lebanon; You can check out their open job vacancies on the StartUpArabia Job Board.
Update: Wikeez is offering invites to their alpha version to all StartUpArabia readers; if you’re interested, just send an email to: invite@wikeez.com.
# Wikeez
Mrrha, A New Arabic File Mirroring Service
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | November 5, 2008 – 12:17 am | 5 Comments
Mrrha is a new simple Arabic service that was just launched a few minutes ago from Egypt, and that aims to make the process of uploading files to the internet for sharing purposes and mirroring them on the most famous file uploading services a lot easier and faster.
The service allows users to upload a file and mirror it directly to five popular uploading sites of choice, from a list of twelve most famous ones, saving them time and effort, and cutting down by five the necessary time to upload the file to all these services.
Mrrha depends on a parallel uploading mechanism to make this possible, which means that the file will be uploaded to Mrrha and sent to the other uploading sites at the same time, meaning that the user won’t have to wait until it’s uploaded to each site.
The name is basically, an adaptation of the English word “Mirror” to Arabic, making it into a verb form; and so “Mrrha” basically means “Mirror it”, which refers to the process of re-uploading the file to other services.
The service is in Arabic only for the time being, and is mainly targeted at the Arabic market. An English version will be released soon though.
# Mrrha
Muxlim Pal To Be First Online Muslim Virtual World
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | November 3, 2008 – 1:47 pm | 1 Comment
Muxlim, the online Muslim social media community service, plans to launch “Muxlim Pal”, a Muslim-oriented virtual world pretty similar in principle to Second Life, complete with its own currency and culture.
The virtual world should be launched in a few weeks time and will allow, in addition to all the regular things that can be done in other virtual worlds, the opportunity to wear a hijab, and go to prayer rooms for example.
The service’s revenue model will be VIP accounts, virtual gifts, virtual furniture/clothes, themes/styles, profile applications, advertising, branded communities and physical merchandise like t-shirts.
Muxlim hopes that by launching a social networking sandbox tailored to the more than one billion Muslims throughout the world large companies such as Coca-Cola can be convinced to spend some of their vast marketing cash on advertising to this vast, yet nearly untapped cultural segment.
Muxlim Pal is meant to create an open community for Muslims and non-Muslims alike, enabling people from all over the world to explore Muslim culture. And while there will be religious spaces (as there are in Second Life), Muxlim Pal isn’t really designed to be a religious platform, it will be open to people who are religious and not religious.
Launched in December 2006 in Finland, Muxlim attracts 1.5 million unique visitors per month.
# Muxlim
