We broke the news back on the 19th of October about the launch of Kzalek the first Arabic desktop client for Twitter, but we did not update the post in a timely manner that Kzalek was launched under private beta and the download link was available only for a short period of time, because there was miss understanding in the communication with Kzalek Developer.

However today Kzalek is out of Private Beta with a new version that is available for download via its official website here ( see Kzalek profile on ArabCrunch.NET if you have an invite.)

As we said before Kzalek main value is in solving the Arabic problem for twitter users on Mac and Linux that other AIR based Twitter apps failed to solve ( Kzalek runs on Windows too). and in solving Arabic right-to-left (RTL) specially when you add a latin word to the Arabic tweet.

The new version of Kzalek now 0.2 beta has the same great features we mentioned here before, such as the ability to view the shortened links original long link without leaving the app via the Untiny untiny api. Though the new version also adds some more: custom sound notifications for replies and direct messages or all received tweets, and latest received messages quick search.

The following video explain more about Kzalek :




Google announced yesterday that it has added a new feature to its contextual online advertising platform Adwords, for advertisers targeting Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

The new feature allows advertisers in both countries to target ads only to specific region, city or geographical location. Google is able to deliver regional targeting because it knows the IPs that are coming from each city as such it can target ads based on that.

Geo-targeted ads are an efficient way to reach more qualified prospects. Narrowing it to a region or city level means, Google is targeting small and mid size businesses such as restaurants and caffe shops who would more likely advertises locally at the city level than nationally.

City level advertising is no doubt effective for small businesses, but Google can draw more small business crowds to its Adwords, if it can target ads targeted  to city neighborhoods.

The vast majority of Google revenues comes from adwords, whose main customers at the global level are small and mid sized businesses, as such Goolge managed to keep making profits despite the global recession while competing companies such as Yahoo! has been struggling to stay relevant because Yahoo! for instance relies on advertising from big brands, an advertising segment that cuts ads when faced with financial problems.

As an estimated three million pilgrims have gathered yesterday on the plains of Arafat in Mecca for a key rite of Hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage. Worldwide, around two billion Muslims are celebrating the holiday known as Eid Al Adha.

In this occasion ArabCrunch greets every Muslims worldwide: Eid Mubarak and may God bless you. For our readers who are not Muslim, we say: Happy Friday and may God guide you and us for the best.

You’ll find interesting information about the holiday of Eid-ul-Adha and about the Hajj at the following links.

-Eid-ul-Adha (the Festival of Sacrifice) is celebrated throughout the Muslim world as a commemoration of Prophet Ibrahim’s (PBUH) willingness to sacrifice his son for God. Eid-ul-Adha is celebrated on the tenth day of the month of Zul-Hijja.

-The Hajj, or pilgrimage to Makkah is a central duty of Islam whose origins date back to the time of Prophet Ibrahim (PBUH). It brings together Muslims of all races and tongues for one of life’s most moving spiritual experiences. For 14 centuries, countless millions of Muslims, men and women from all over the world, have made the pilgrimage to Makkah, the birthplace of Islam. In carrying out this obligation, they fulfill one of the five “pillars” of Islam, or central religious duties of the believer.
(source:�Ummah 2.o)

For more detailed explanations of the rich history and traditions of Islam, feel free to visit the following sites:

Islam Guide.

Islam Web

Islamic Tube

Just Quran

Best Islamic Sites

Sisters Magazine

#pic from Aljazeera English.

Do you love Arabs and the East? Do you want to help your nation excel in technology? Do you Tweet and use Facebook all the time? Are you passionate about startups, web apps, social media and mobile devices? Do you know Arabic Fus7a and English very well?

If you answered yes to all the above questions, then this position might be perfect for you. We, at ArabCrunch, are looking to hire a Social Media Community Manager–someone to stay connected and engaged with the ArabCrunch readers and members across all its subsidiaries: ArabCrunch En, ArabCrunch Ar, ArabCrunch DEMO and ArabCrunch.NET and across other social media outlets.

As a community manager you will communicate with the company’s users/ customers, partners, development team, executives, and other stakeholders in order to clarify and amplify the work of all parties. You will Blog : small;”> daily in English, Arabic, provide customer service, highlight best-usage cases of a product, suggest new features, reply to users feedback, make first contact in some potential business partnerships and increase the public visibility of ArabCrunch.

Your responsibilities to our readers/members (the people we serve) would include:

· Blog every day in Arabic and English on ArabCrunch English and Arabic, and coordinate with our growing list of contributors.

· Act as a liaison for our readers/ members with our partners or potential partners.

· Minute-by-minute participation in conversations that surround our content and brand by answering comments and being a mediator.

· Ignite discussion that draws our members to join and discuss.

· Identify and engage customer advocates who are just as passionate as you are about our business.

· Handle all PR communications with the Media online and offline.

· Help in organizing ArabCrunch events and promoting them through social media.

· Help in managing social media campaigns for us and our partners.

Important Skills and Characteristics:

· Excellent verbal and written communication skills in Arabic and English.

· Tech savvy and passionate about Arab startups, web app, social media, mobile devices and technology in general.

· Ability to work individually on a project or in a team environment.

· Functional knowledge or some experience with HTML/CSS, and WP.

· Proficiency with office products.

· Ability to operate efficiently under minimal supervision

· Has a bachelor’s degree in any of the following; advertising,marketing, web development, communications, English, IT, anthropology, history, or related area.

· Has 2+ years of work experience in advertising, PR, online marketing, or similar field.

· Organizational skills and the ability to handle multiple projects simultaneously while meeting deadlines.

Your responsibilities to your co-workers (the people that make ArabCrunch) would include:

· Be the eyes and ears of our brand as if your own reputation depended on it.

· Provide internal education with team members to discuss the Web 2.0/social media landscape and how it works, as well as trends and issues that are cropping up among our own community.

· Create content for feeds in various social media sites.

· Participate in social media, as yourself and as white hat avatars, on our behalf.

· Work with other departments to help organize content that can be used in different social mediums.

· Identify threats and opportunities in user-generated content surrounding our brand, and report it to appropriate parties.

To apply send you CV to jobsATarabcrunchDOTcom with the Title: Community Manager.

PS: location is not important.

Ciapple a Jordanian startup artificial intelligence software for customer relationship management startup funded by the European Commission-SRTD program represented by its Founder and General Manager Eng. Hussein Al-Natsheh, has recently won the 3rd place award in a regional business plan competition“MENA 100” .

The final stage took place in Bahrain, Manamah, Nov 11, 2009. There were about 300 applicants, 33 of them were selected to participate in Bahrain to meet with investors , 15 finalists of them have the opportunity to present in front of an international jury, competing for 3 regional prizes totaling USD 55 thousand.  Evaluation criteria included business vision, quality of team, market potential, innovation, and robustness of financials estimates.

Ciapple won the best business plan in the Information Communication Technology (ICT) category among all participants and third place on all categories. However, the first place went to Turbo from Morocco in the Automotive Category and the second went to BioBusiness from Egypt in Manufacturing Category.

Turbo – Morocco: An innovative and high-tech after sales service centre concept for automobile owners led by two young ladies with extensive experience in the automotive industry.

BioBusiness – Egypt: Manufacturing of scanning systems and non-invasive blood glucose monitoring solutions led by a team of three young engineers graduated from the Biomedical Engineering Department of the Faculty of Engineering at Cairo University.

Abraaj Capital Group announced today that it agreed to acquire all of Riyada Ventures the leading venture capital firm in the MENA region. The acquisition is at the core of a major new push by Abraaj into the small and medium enterprise (SME) space, which is aimed at stimulating and supporting entrepreneurial activity in this vital segment of the MENA region’s economies.

Riyada Ventures, which was set up in the Jordanian capital, Amman, in 2005, this week won the ‘Venture Capital Firm of the Year’ award for a second straight year at the Private Equity World MENA 2009 conference in Dubai.

Riyada Ventures, whose track record encompasses more than 25 regional and international venture-capital transactions, also operates an office in Cairo. Its founder and CEO Khaldoon Tabaza has worked in the MENA venture-capital industry since 2000, prior to which he set up several high-growth entrepreneurial ventures. In 2006, the World Economic Forum (WEF) named him a ‘Young Global Leader’.

Riyada has previously invested in MediaScope, ArabAdvisors, and Kindisoft  flash security tools developer from Jordan.

Riyada Ventures will be integrated by Abraaj into its newly launched regional SME and Entrepreneurship initiative. Khaldoon Tabaza will continue as the CEO of the new business line of Abraaj.

Abraaj has enjoyed significant past success in the SME space, having been an early backer of Maktoob.com, the leading Arab language portal recently acquired by Yahoo! It was also the original institutional investor in companies of the caliber of Arabtec, Aramex and Amwal at very early stages of their growth stories, each one resulting in significant returns for the Dubai based PE firm.

Through the new initiative, Abraaj will invest hundreds of millions of dollars in SMEs across MENA with the aim of creating high-impact, high-growth, successful businesses to fuel innovation, job-creation, sustainable growth and economic diversification. At its core, the platform will give enormous support to the indigenous entrepreneurship that exists across the broader region.

Abraaj will work with governments, regional and international development and investment organisations, and Abraaj’s investor base to provide a pan-regional platform from which investments will be made.

In addition to the commercial objectives of the platform, Abraaj will also provide entrepreneurial support at the grassroots level in the form of business mentoring, training and technical assistance so as to stimulate the entrepreneurial spirit in business communities across the region.

For companies in which it invests, Abraaj will provide a dedicated back-office platform to offer both strategic support services and operational functionality to facilitate growth plans and provide mentorship to the young entrepreneurs in the SME space, which comprises more than 80% of economic activity across the MENA region.

As a further commitment to the countries in which it will invest, Abraaj will allocate a portion of the funds raised for a given nation to the development needs of its less fortunate communities by partnering with an established sustainable development fund that provides patient capital and that subscribes to the philosophy of sustainable philanthropic capital.

Founder and CEO of Abraaj, Arif Naqvi, said: “We are delighted to welcome Khaldoon and his team at Riyada Ventures into the Abraaj group, to spearhead our regional enterprise-development initiative. Abraaj is committed to creating the region’s largest dedicated platform to support entrepreneurship and innovation within the high-growth economies of the MENA region.”

Founder and CEO of Riyada Ventures, Khaldoon Tabaza said: “Abraaj’s groundbreaking initiative in the SME and entrepreneurship space will be a positive inflexion point in the development of high-impact, high-growth ventures in the MENA region. We are honoured and delighted to be part of the Abraaj success story.”

Update: The rumored price was for Maktoob Wslaat acquisition.

Launched last year, Mrrha which was founded by Mahmoud Elmasoudy and his brother from egypt right from there home, allows you to upload your files synchronously on the Internet and send (mirror) them to the most famous file uploading services, the site was acquired by the Emarati startup called Creative Solutions.

Emarati entrepreneurs Khamis Alshryani is behind Creative Solution, he is the ex-owner of wslaat.com which was acquired by Maktoob before (Now Maktoob Yahoo!.)

Mrrha, solves real problems for many internet users in the region, as forums are the most visited sites, uploading videos, pics and other files are very common across all Arabic forums. In many times, the download link gets expired or deleted by the file hosting provider, Mrrha saves time and effort by enabling someone to upload files once to a max of 7 file sharing sites.

According to Mahmoud the acquisition negotiations took around 3, the acquisition closed on 8 Nov 2009, around one year after Mrrha was launched.

Mahmoud added that Creative Solutions intends to do a lot of developing and start pushing advertising campaigns.

Update: The price of Maktoob Acqusition of  Wslaat which happened in January 2009 was not announced, but it is rumored to be around 750000 AED ( 204,207.21 USD).

This acquisition is another healthy sign in where the Internet and tech industry is going these days in the Arab world, as we see more funding rounds take place, we are seeing exists also taking place, these activities ( funding and exits) are essential to the creation of a startup based tech ecosystem, that we at ArabCrunch push with all our efforts.

Another Investemnt round made recently in the tech sector in Arabia as Intel Capital, Intel Corporation’s global investment subsidiary, announced yesterday an investment in NeuString, a UAE-based telecommunications analyst software company. With this investment Intel Capital total investment in Arab based companies this year, totals to six, from Jordan: Jeeran and ShooFeeTV and from UAE, Conservus International FZ-LLC, Pulse Technologies FZ-LLC, Vertex Animation Studio FZ-LLC.

The funding from Intel Capital will assist NeuString in pursuing regional growth and development plans in addition to extending the company’s product offerings. The amount of the investment was not disclosed.
NeuString is a billing software company dedicated to delivering predictive analytics solutions and consulting services to mobile network operators to help them achieve greater financial performance. With offices in the United Arab Emirates, Denmark, Russia, and Ukraine, NeuString has experienced teams who have been active in the telecommunications industry for more than two decades.

(via The National.)

Our friends at QRCE along with other partners have organized an entrepreneurship week. The week started this Sunday with interesting speakers including Joi Ito CEO creative common and early investor in Twitter, Reid Hoffman founder and CEO of LinkedIn , Mitchell Baker Chairwoman of Mozilla Foundation,, Laith Al-Qaem CEO, Arabian Business Consultants for Development, Sami Shalabi team leader of Friend connect at Google and Habib Hadad cofounder of Yamli.

Unfortunately I was not able to attend as I was in Dubai via an invitation from Nokia. I wish though I could attend, as the topics of the event looks interesting and I wanted to ask Reid the founder of linkedin if he has better justification for Linkedin blocking Sudan than what his communication director told AC before.

The event which is still in ongoing started with a reception , forum and speed networking, sessions for kids and a market place.

During the forum and the reception speakers discussed many topics that revolve around entrepreneurship, in his part Emile Cubeisy managing director of I V Holding, the most active venture capital firm in the region, stated that it is important to build an ecosystem to fund entrepreneurs, which will ultimately benefit Jordan and the region.

Japanese VC, Joi Ito spoke about how the Internet has created a huge reduction in the risk that entrepreneurs take when starting a company, because internet-based technology resources have reduced start up and overhead costs. He also compared the culture of the Middle East to that of Japan, in terms of risk-aversion and fear of failure due to societal pressures around shame, and the necessity of moving away from “wasta” based power.

The American open source guru, Mitchell Baker spoke about the open source approach to product design and openness and transparency in running a business. In addition, she addressed the reactions she encountered when she started the Mozilla project- people told her she was crazy competing against Microsoft’s 98% market share.

Entrepreneur turned VC, Reid Hoffman – “entrepreneurship is like jumping off a high cliff and assembling an airplane on the way down. Financing is an updraft; it will give you more time, but you still need to build a plane or you will crash.” He gave other nuggets of advice to would-be entrepreneurs.

Full event schedule can be found here .

Creative Commons (CC) the equivalent body to open source software foundations but for content has finally launched its Amman chapter.

The launch was part of CC first Salon in Jordan and in the Arab world which took place Talal Abu Ghazaleh business Forum.
The forum also focused on how CC could be applied to business, artistic, entrepreneurial activities in the Arab world by showcasing case studies as the CC AL Jazeera repository.