Category: Publishing and media
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10.10.10 One Day On Earth!
One Day on Earth Participant Trailer from One Day On Earth on Vimeo. On 10/10/10, the entire world is being documented as part of an ambitious project called One Day on Earth (www.onedayonearth.org). Through their website, filmmakers, students, teachers and everyday inspired citizens representing EVERY country in the world have all coming together to film…
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Wamda: it started with a spark, now in beta!
For the past seven months, our company duo, SYNTAX and Spring has been working on their most revolutionary web project to date. What was just a sketchy idea by early 2010, has become a groundbreaking, living, breathing web venture: Wamda.com, a hub that, for the first time, creates a focal point for the Middle East’s…
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Wamda, a hub for the region’s entrepreneurs and change-makers will go into private-beta soon
Nothing like being able to start showing people what I’ve been immersed in the past few months! It’s been a crazy journey for the team at SYNTAX and Spring and it will only get crazier. What was a sketchy idea a few months ago has turned into a full fledged project with a powerful vision:…
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Brands in translation: Are Arab consumers oversensitive wimps?
Can someone please explain this to me: brands and slogans that totally loose their edge when introduced into Arab markets. Here are three examples: I bought this shaving cream the other day. The tagline/product identifier say “Cool Kick” in English. The Arabic translates into “Cool Touch”. Oh how soft and nice! Arab men can’t take…
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TootCorp launches ZOOFS: what Twitter is watching
TootCorp, makers of Toot, Ikbis and Watwet, have launched their fourth product and the company’s first aimed at the global market. It’s called ZOOFS. Here is what TootCorp cofounder Kareem Arafat had to say about it: Zoofs is a new way to discover YouTube videos that people are talking about on Twitter. Zoofs swallows millions…
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6 interesting usages of Ikbis.com
Over the past few years, Ikbis.com has grown in size and in depth. Ikbis Channels, in particular, have been multiplying in number and are being used by a wide variety of users and organizations: from people sharing a an interest to global broadcasting organizations reaching out to Arab audiences. Here are 6 examples of what…
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ArabNet, Beirut and ‘Being Arab’
Visiting Beirut is always a bitter sweet experience. My last trip to Beirut to attend ArabNet, the region’s first web business conference was my third trip to the city in 8 years, each of which had the duration of 48 hours. Each time I visit beirut I leave with a book, always from Librarie Antoine,…
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ArabNet 2010, Day 1: the Arab web industry emerges
Photos stolen from Andfaraway With a ballroom full of participants during all sessions, buzzing networking activity during coffee breaks, inspiring talks from both older web hands and young ones, startup demos from all over the region, not to mention very active tweeting and live blogging, we can say that day 1 of the ArabNet conference…
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ArabNet: Ten years late, the Arab web industry gets its conference
Here is one of my favorite anecdotes about the Arab web industry: the web advertising spending of the whole Arab region, including the rich Gulf region and Saudi Arabia is less than the revenue of a single niche web marketing agency (which you never heard of) in Seattle where one of my friends works. Now…
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NewThink Theater: Infecting Jordan with the virus of positive action [with VIDEO]
Here’s something that keeps Jordan interesting: there is always someone or some group initiating something. Regional politics might be depressing. Local politics too. The economy is not doing great. There are setbacks, deterioration, and the “I don’t care” attitude all around us. But at the same time, someone is launching a new initiative.. startup.. band..…
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The NYTimess writes about Amman (and my fellow bloggers and tweeps complain)
I really love my fellow Ammani bloggers and tweeps. I really think that they are one of the best things that happened to us in the last ten years. I love that many of them have give a voice to Amman’s urban issues and urban activism. But sometimes they have me shaking my head with…
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Who can revolutionize Arabic music? A bunch of people from Finland and their friends, perhaps?
I really wish I had a time machine in my basement. Here is what I would do: pay a visit to Cairo in the 1950s or 1960s. Here is one time destination I would travel to: 24 February 1966, Cairo. I would key-in time and place on the machine’s touch screen and seconds later would…