Google has launched recently gmail SMS chat  in many Arab and some African and Asian countries with a number of mobile operators.



SMS with Gmail enables users to send free text messages (SMS) to  their friends directly from their Gmail accounts.
if the user’s contact replies, the text message response will appear as a reply in Chat.  just like gmail chat gtalk.

Sending and receiving a message from Gmail to any phone is free.

When replying with an SMS from phone to Gmail, you will be charged a regular SMS rate by your mobile provider.



Google has partnered with a number of operators in the region to bring the service here is the list of Arab, African and Asian mobile operators that are supported:

 ( Syria and Sudan are not on the list due to US government sanctions.)

Afghanistan
: Afghan Wireless Communication Company



Algeria
: Nedjma


Angola
: Unite


Bahrain
: Viva, 
Zain


Cameroon
: MTN
, Orange


Congo, Democratic Republic
: Vodacom


Côte d’Ivoire: 
Orange


Ghana
 Airtel, 
Tigo

Guinea
: Orange


Indonesia
:Indosat
, Telkomsel
, Tri


Iraq: 
Zain


”Israel
:” orange
, Pelephone


Jordan
: Zain


Kazakhstan: 
Kcell


Kenya
: Airtel
, orange
, Safaricom,
Yu

Kuwait:
Wataniya, 
Zain

Liberia
: Cellcom


Malawi: 
L Airtel, 
TNM


Malaysia
: DiGi


Maldives
: Dhiraagu
, Wataniya


Mozambique
: Vodacom


Nigeria
: Glo
, Starcomms


Palestinian Territories
: Jawwal
, Wataniya Mobile


Philippines
: Globe
, SMART
, Sun Cellular


Saudi Arabia: 
Mobily, 
STC
, Zain


Senegal
: orange
, Tigo


Sierra Leone
: Comium


Sri Lanka
: Dialog,
 Etisalat, 
Mobitel


Tanzania
:Vodacom
,Tigo


Thailand
: dtac, 
True Move


Tunisia
: Tunisiana


Uganda
: Orange, 
MTN
, Uganda Telecom


United States: 
All operators


Uzbekistan: 
Ucell


Zambia
: Airtel
, MTN
, Zamtel





Traffic james is a major problems in condents Egyptian cities, there were several attempts to develop an application to tackle this problem.

Bey2ollak developed by a group of Egyptian developers tackles this problem at the heart it update users with traffic conditions in major egyptian cities and users themselves report conditions.

The site has an iPhone, BlackBerry، Nokia and Android app and is also available in web version and mobile web version. The app can get more useful if it can suggest alternative routs to jammed streets.

(Via ArabCrunch Arabic Edition)

If you are a developer then you should seriously think about learning one of the mobile programing languages and start developing apps for iOS, android, BB, Symbion phones. As there is a huge opportunity to make money and succeed not only in the international markets but also in the Arabian market specially with Arabic apps as a new study reveals.

If you want to develop mobile apps for the Arab world, you should start with a platform, but the questions is which one you should choose? based on the matrix you decide and a look at the research at the end of the post will help you make a better business decision. However, you should note a major highlight, Nokia is sinking desptie Nokia is a clear leader now, but faces fierce competition in GCC from Apple and BlackBerry. 54% of those in the study who where surveyed, claim to use Nokia smart phone, 45% consider it their main phone for apps and just 22% would consider it as their next smart phone.

The study is done by AppsArabia the UAE based fund for mobile apps entrepreneurs which is part of twofour54, to highlight the business potential of apps in the Arab world. The study was conducted online and surveyed nearly 3,000 people in the region and the highest response rate came from Egypt, which had 14% of the participants.

Here is the research highlights :

• 49% of smartphone users expect to upgrade in the next 6 months, 70% in the next 12 months.
• 82% who don’t have a smartphone want one and 54% expect to get their first one in the next 12 months.
• 95% of smartphone users have apps installed.
• Smartphone users have an average of 29 apps installed, while 40% have 10 or less.
• 51% of smartphone users use apps all day long.
• 73% like downloading apps that make their life easier and 57% are interested in game apps.
• 82% of smartphone users with apps download at least once a week.
• On average, smartphone users download 6 apps each month.
• n the coming 12 months, 53% of all smartphone users claim they will be buying apps (30% said they wouldn’t and 17% were not sure)
• In the coming 12 months, 24% of all smartphone users claim they will spend more than USD$50 on apps.
• 58% would trade their usage data and receive targeted advertising in return for free app
• 52% recommend apps to friends while half as many (26%) give a simple rating score for those
• they don’t know to see.
• 33% find out about new apps from their friends while most are discovered doing a search on their smartphone (38%).
• Just 14% would evaluate an app based upon general media coverage.
• 62% of all smartphone users surveyed in the Middle East prefer apps to be in English while
• 39% of users who understand Arabic prefer apps to be in English.

Here is the full research:

Apple has resonated to Israeli demand to remove 3rd Palestinian Intifada iPhone app from the iPhone app store.

“Israel today” is reporting that “Israeli” Diaspora Affairs Minister Yuli Edelstein sent a letter to Apple requesting the app be removed, and a day later it was. he said “By its action, Apple has proven, as Facebook did, that it shares the values that oppose violence, incitement and terrorism.”

We did not look at the app, but like the 3rd palestinina intifada page we do not think it called for terrorism, with this move Apple proves that free speech and the right for palestinians to be free from Israeli occupation are not granted at Apple.

Mobile, Fixed and Internet operator in Jordan is launching Orange Apps Award 2011 aimed at mobile developers companies or individuals. With applications in Arabic ( english is a plus) for Android/ Blackberry/ Java /Symbian /Windows only are accepted.

Orange Jordan divided the winning prizes into 5 categories: Community Category, Entertainment Category, Business Category, Orange Employees Category, Students top prize on each one is 5,000 USD, then 3,000 USD then 2,000, overall prose: 10,000 USD.

Developers can start registration starting from 16 of May 2011 till 3rd of June 2011, then Orange will start filtering the ideas of the applications and will notify the participants of top 50 ideas by email & SMS to submit their applications. The deadline for submitting the applications will be on 30 of June, 2011. top winners will be awarded during the Award ceremony which will be after med of July.

More info at the Award website.

Mobily a mobile operator in Saudi Arabia has launched Mobile apps competition with Awards up to 90,000 USD. Mobile developers can compete on 3 awards: best app award, best app idea award, best app design. each awards will offer the winner 30,000 USD in cash prize.

The competition is open for all developers (Update: seems only for Saudi Arabia residents) on all mobile platforms and has started accepting applicants yesterday. Last day of submitting apps is 25th of June 2011. Then a voting period will start 1st of July and will end on the 30th of July 2011, only registered users to Mobily developers community can vote apps.
On the 1st of August the winners will be announced.

Opera Software today announced that it mobile browser Opera Mini has reached 100 million monthly users in March and two billion daily page views

Opera announced 2 month ago Opera 100 million mobile users, though that number represented the combined total for both its mobile browsers, Opera Mini and Opera Mobile. Now, Opera Mini has reached more than 100 million users in its own right.

The number of monthly Opera Mini users across the globe has grown by 11 million since February 2011 and doubled from the 50 million mark in February 2010.

Opera Mini’s twin March milestone, two billion daily page views, already doubles the one billion daily page views achieved in July 2010.

Between 2009 and 2010 Twitter users from the Arab world were estimated to be around 15,000 to 40,000 but these figures were not official and not very accurate. But after the revolution on Tunisia and Egypt, as Twitter has been used as a tool to fuel the revolution,Twitter become a house hold name in the Arab world just like Facebook. An infographic about Digital Marketing Trends in the Middle East from socialbakers and IQPC estimated the number of Twitter users in the Arab region to be around 5.5 Million users, that is 136.5 % growth rate! The infographic goes to reveal that 40% of them are from UAE.
Other interesting figures from the report is that there is 15 million Facebook users, that number however might not be accurate as in Q1 2010 our sources inside Facebook estimated the number around 16-18 million users.
The complete inforgraghic is below, we have another two reservations, e-marketing budgets from the Arab world does not include banners ads spending as it focus on email marketing, smart phone apps, SMS marketing, social media marketing and google adwords. Another one it does not mention the source of the numbers for Twitter users!
Ari Kesisoglu – Regional Manager, Middle East North Africa said that online ad spending in the MENA region is between 110 to 130 Million, thus the report should include banner ad spending to offer a complete picture. USD annually.

Here us the infographics:

ContactCars.com a car listing and buying portal in Egypt has launched its Arabic iPhone app offering users the latest car prices in the Egyptian market.

The app features tens of car models complete with photos and specifications. A long with a loan calculator which allows you to calculate the monthly installment for the car of your choice though Contact Company.

ConactCars is a partnership between Vodafone Egypt owned company Sarmaddy and car insurance & funding company in Egypt Contact. The sites offers listing of new and old car molds in egypt along with prices and specs, car funding and insurance applications, automative news, and car video and photo sharing.

Paragon Software Group, has launched the voice enabled Al-Mawrid Al-Qareeb Arabic-English and English-Arabic Dictionary Mobile app from the oldest and largest publishing house of Arabic books and educational materials – Dar El Ilm Lilmalayin.

Al-Mawrid Al-Qareeb is now available on the latest series of Windows Mobile devices, iPhone and iPod touch (Apple versions include iPad support for early adopters), in addition to the version released in early 2010 for Symbian S60 3rd Edition and S60 5th Edition devices.

Key Features of the app:

• 33,535 words, phrases and definitions
• Portrait and landscape views (for Apple and Windows Mobile devices)
• English audio pronunciations prerecorded by native speakers
• No Internet connection required – easy access anywhere, anytime and without any charges
• English words are translated in any grammatical form
• Read e-mails, documents, and web pages from the device and get word translations without leaving active applications (for Windows Mobile)
• Touch screen support (for iPhone, Symbian and Windows Mobile devices)
• “Fuzzy search” and wildcards (“*”, “?”, etc.) features help to find and translate words even if users do not remember the exact spelling.
• Hyperlinks between articles and directions to easily switch between related entries
• “Flash Card Quiz” to add new words to flash cards and test knowledge at leisure
•  “History” feature displays the last looked-up entries
• Possibility to clear “History” (for iPhone)
• List of similar words in case of misspelling (for Apple and Symbian devices)

OS: iPad, iPhone and iPod touch OS 2.0-3.X; Windows Mobile 6-6.5 Standard, Classic and Professional; Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC and Smartphone devices, Symbian S60 3.x – 5.0 phones.
Price:
Apple devices is available for 14,99 USD (11,99 EUR)
Windows Mobile and Symbian is available for 39,95 USD (27,95 EUR)

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The launch of facebook locations has taken lots of buzz, the service allows users to check in using their touch phones into different location, know where their friends are and get information about places and discover new ones. Facebook places competes head to head with startups such as NY based Foursquare, texas based Gowalla and Face2face ( our review of Face2face here.), Even though Foursquare and Gowala were appeased by beiing invited to show up at facebook launch event of facebook places and even though Foursquare , Gowalla, loopt, Face2Face and other social based localtion startups still preserve some differentiations such as badges and rewards while face2face focus is on privacy, But the entrance of a 500 pound gorilla into the locations business might killer to all of them as the facebook boost over 500 million active users.

Indeed, most experts agree that facebook locations might be a killer to Gowalla and Foursquare, but having a 500 pound gorilla competitor such as facebook is one thing, when compared to the gigantic new competitor to ArabCrunch represented by the US state department, least to mention facebook has no CIA agents, but the US federal government do have over a million, who could be “or already put” into “good use.”

Unlike the US market, Foursquare and gowalla adoption rate in the Arab world is somehow limited to a bunch of geeks and early adaptor but who seems to be in the rise, specially that Gowalla iPhone app is available in Arabic. which seems the reason behind Jordan based Internet company Jeeran decision to venture into the location market at the local level. As the site launched few days ago local Arabic social portal for the capital of Jordan Amman calling it: Jeeran Amman.

Jeeran Amman, has 2 features right now: Amman Places and discussions. Amman discussions provides a forum for users to discuss city wide issues, but Unlike facebook Locations, Gowalla and foursquare. Amman places does not depend on users checking-in online or via smart phones, there is no checkin but rather user can add review of the location and “like” it or “dislike” it. However the value of the Amman Places is providing information about the place and see what people think of it. Something that facebook has now with its location services but plus check-ins.  Also unlike facebook locations, Gowalla and foursquare. On Jeeran  Amman Places users can not add a new location, but are already added by Jeeran staff. and users can not share photos on that location or leave tips or gain points and badges, or see who of their friends are around them.

Jeeran places also competes also with Saudi Startup Qaym in terms that it provides a section for restaurants reviews.

We called Omar Kudsi, Jeeran’s cofounder 2 times to get more information about Amman Places and whether they will also launch iPhone app with check-ins and launch places in other Arab cities, But Omar did not answer our calls.

Jeeran’s venture into local sites comes after a series of new product launches: Jeeran Channels: news about cars, sports and so on. Jeeran improved it UI including a much better user profile, entered the Music business with Jeeran Music .

Jeeran was started in 2000 with an Arabic clone of Yahoo’s closed geocities then ventured into blogs, introduced social networking aspect: profiles, the ability for users to share photos and videos, launched a poetry social site sejaal.com along with an Arabic digg clone called Khabbr.
In an unpublished ArabCrunch video interview with Feroz Sanaulla Investment Director at Intel Capital which was made few month ago he said that Jeeran is the best performing company in his portfolio and wants them to over spend to gain more users. Intel Capital is the second investor in Jeeran.

But can Jeeran local social sites make a stand to Facebook Places which has around 16 million Internet users in the Arab world?

( Disclosure: Jeeran is also venture backed by Jordanian Internet venture Capital firm IV Holdings, IV Holdings mother company Accelerator Technology Holdings was approved a 25 Million USD fund from the US federal government, The US State Department to enter into competition with ArabCrunch)

AS the Muslim’s month of Ramdan is about to start, Nokia has launched recently a new range of mobile applications and content tailored for the holy month of Ramadan. This is the second year that Nokia launches such apps.

The new range of Ramadan applications 2010 are available for free on Ovi Store, and the last Ramdan applications has been updated with a new features.

Karim Moussa, Head of Marketing, Nokia Lower Gulf said that last year Ramadan apps has recived over 1 million downloads and this year’s app now support more Nokia devices.

This year’s Ramadan applications a include the Holy Quran, Prayer Times, Hadith, Boyoot Allah, Arabica, Mozzaker, and Makkah and Madinah. New features include Quran recitation from multiple recitors ( which we demanded last year) from which users can choose to download in MP3 format. Prayer timings and Qibla direction are provided for 1000 cities in 200 countries, along with the ability to add, remove, update and edit any location using the GPS.

The new Boyot Allah helps Muslims to locate the nearest mosque on Nokia’s free Ovi Maps and Navigation platform. The new mobile services also feature locations of Major mosques in the GCC and the world, such as the two holy mosques, Masjid Al Haram in Makkah and Masjid Al Nabawi in Al Madinah. Additionally users can also find locations of mosques all around the world using free Ovi maps available on Ovi store.

Boyoot Allah applications is the most useful addition as it helps Muslims around the world find Masjed’s near by whenever they go to a new area or city.

Ramadan applications for 2010 are compatible with a range of Nokia Symbian based  devices including Nokia N97 mini, Nokia E72, Nokia E52, Nokia X6, Nokia 5230, Nokia 5530, Nokia C5, Nokia 5235, Nokia 5800, Nokia E5, Nokia 6700 slide, Nokia 5233, Nokia X3, Nokia 6303i, Nokia 2710 and Nokia C3. The user interface for the applications is available in English, Arabic, Farsi, French and Urdu.

Nokia 2010 Ramadan Applications include the following:

• The Holy Quran: allows users to read, search, bookmark and listen to Quran recitation
• Prayer Times: provides prayer timings and Qibla direction for 1000 cities in 200 countries, along with the ability to add, remove, update and edit any location using the GPS
• Hadith: gives an easy and convenient way to read the Honorable Hadeeth from Sahih Bukhari, Sahih Muslim, Riyad us-Saliheen, Holy Hadeeths and Arba’in An Nawawi
• Boyoot Allah: helps Muslims locate the mosques in different cities using Ovi free maps around the world.
• Arabica: helps non-Arabic speaking Muslims to read and understand Quran, Hadeeth and Dua in Arabic by self-learning or with the help of online teachers through their mobile.
• Makkah and Madinah: offers a mobile guide with multimedia content and the most famous places that people can visit during Hajj and Umrah
• Mozzaker: allows mobile users to listen, search and translate a large collection of of daily Azkar and selected supplications. People can also download more Azkar and share via SMS and MMS with friends and family

The Ramadan applications are developed by ASGATech, a Forum Nokia Premium Partner in the Middle East, with all content reviewed and approved by Al Azhar Al Shareef.

Great job Nokia but we are looking forward for a killer new mobile that can take on iPhone.

Update: broken links fixed sorry for inconvenience.

Today one of the worst floods in Pakistan has affected around 3 million people with a death tool of 1,500. And that number is expect to raise.

According to Aljazeera English Sawt Valley was one of the areas affected worst by the floods as they brought down bridges and swept away entire villages.

Here is AC’s guide in how to help the flooded people online and via mobile:

1. On Twitter follow hoshtage #Pakistan or #Paksitanfloods. IF you live in Pakistan please tweet pics so the world will know what is happening and upload to Flickr. this Twubs has a mashing of text images and videos.
2. Islamic Relief launched £2 million (pound) appeal for Pakistan floods, you can donate online here.  and via Just giving.
3. Care International has also setup web page specficly to send online donations to help people in Pakistan’s flood here
4. International federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent ( IFRC) also launched and appeal to collect 16,333,000 US dollars which will be used to “reach 25,000 families (175,000 people) in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and Sindh provinces, as well as part of North West Frontier Province. Assistance will also be channelled to Red Crescent medical teams who are on the ground treating a range of ailments including injuries, skin infections and respiratory problems. “ online donations here, or via bank transfer.
5. You can donate to the British Red Cross Pakistan Floods Appeal by texting the word “DONATE” or “FLOOD” to 70700. More info here. (Update: link does not work anymore RedCross UK says that they have disabled some pages due to heavy traffic here is another page from Red Cross in UK.)

#Image via

Opera the oldest independent Mobile browser company today published it’s State of the Mobile Web Report World Cup Edition, a report that offers deeper inside into major mobile web browsing trends, this time the report focus is worldcup and Africa. In Africa Mobile phonepenetration is higher than PC penetration.

In june 2010 Opera Mini had over 59.4 million users, a 3.2% decrease from May 2010 but an increase of 124.7% since June 2009. Opera backs the slight decrease in key metrics “can be traced to certain countries where we have experienced some technical and political challenges that now are about to be solved.”

As for how many pagesviews Opera Mini users viewed the number was over 27.3 billion pages in June 2010. Since May, page views have gone down 3.4%. Since June 2009, page views have increased 161.8%.

According to the report Africa is seeing an explosive mobile browsing growth, where Sudan and Ghana lead the top 12 countries of the region in terms of page-view growth (4,645.6% and 916.5%, respectively). Sudan and Ghana also lead the top 12 countries of the region in growth of unique users (1,225.0% and 498.8%, respectively). Kenya leads the top 12 countries of the region in page views per user, with each user browsing 639 pages on average each month

The top 12 countries using Opera Mini in that region are South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt, Ghana, Sudan, Libya, Tanzania, Ivory Coast, Namibia, Mozambique and Mauritius. from June 2009 to June 2010, page views in the top 12 countries in Africa increased by 182%, unique users increased by 124%, and the amount of data transferred increased by 160%.

Other findings of the report:

- Facebook, Google and YouTube all do well in Africa. Facebook is the top-ranked site in six of the twelve listed countries, and Google is ranked #1 in the remaining six countries.

- Nokia remains the most popular handset brand in Africa, followed by Sony Ericsson, Samsung, and LG.

- iPhone is the leading handset for Opera Mobile users in USA fowled by BlackBerry 8330 (“Curve”) and then BlackBerry 9700 (“Bold”), Samsung SPH M810 (“Instinct s30”), Nokia 5130 XpressMusic ranks 9.

- Most Popular sites in USA: google, Facebook, youtube, wikipedia, yahoo, my.opera.com, accuweather.com, nytime, Twitter then Myspace.

- Russia:Nokia is the top handset first Nokia 6300 followed by Nokia 5130 XpressMusic, Nokia 5310 XpressMusic, Nokia N73, Nokia 2700c. Topsites are vkontakte.ru then yandex.ru, google comes 5th.

-China: all tops 10 handsets are Nokia starting with Nokia 5130, top sites are : kaiqi.com then baidu.com, google comes third.

-Egypt: saw Unique-user growth since June 2009: 158.5%, all top 10 handsets are Nokia, top sites are google.com, Facebook, youtube, getjar, ketomob, yahoo, yallakora 7th.

- Sudan: saw Unique-user growth since June 2009: 1,225.0%, top 10 handsets all Nokia, tops sites: google, Facebook, youtube, ketomob, gear, live.com, bbc.co.uk. my.opera.com, yahoo.com and wikipedia 10th.

- Libya’s 10 top handsets are all Nokia top 3 sites: google.com, youtune and then Facebook.

- The top sports sites visited by Opera Minin users in June 2010: goal.com then, livescore, fifa.com, m.championat.ru, m.espn.go.com

Opera also held its first Opera Mini Mobile Web World Cup. Opera used per capita mobile browsing figures to determine the match winners. The results were quite different from the real games, with Chile and Argentina advancing to the final match. Chile squeezed by Argentina by just 4.1 pages-per-user on that day to win.

More stats on the report’s page here.

After Yahoo acquired  Maktoob last year, many of Maktoob group companies were merged under one independent brand called Jabbar. Somehow similar precedence happened with Orascom Telecom’s LinkDotNet 150 million USD buyout to Mobinil, but at a larger scale.

Orascom Telecom which is one of the largest tech and telecom groups in the Arab world, has been facing legal disputes with France Telecom as the 2 are biggest shareholders of Egyptian Mobile operator Cairo-based Egyptian Co., which operates under the brand Mobinil.

So on July 3rd 2010 Mobinil agreed to pay 130 Million USD to  acquire the ISP unit of Orascom’s LINKDotNet SAE and Link Egypt SAE as part of an agreement that settled the legal dispute between Orascom and France Telecom SA.

However,  the non-ISP business unites were not part of the deal, so OTVENTURES was born as a new addition to the Orascom Telecom group.

The birth of OTVentures was announced on July 6th but overlooked by the mainsteam media, so here is quick profile of the new company which seems to be the largest indigenous Arab Internet play in terms of reach:

- OTVentures CEO is Hanan Abdel Meguid who is former CEO of Link Development.

- OTVentures says it hires 700 team members operating across over 17 countries.

The holding companies:

LinkOnlLine:

Founded  in 2002, now one of the largest, if not the largest Arab Internet company with the following Portals:

MSN Arabia:

MSN Arabia is the result of LinkOnLine partnership writhe Microsoft, MSN Arabia is available in English and Arabic. It covers Windows live services and the MSN Arabia Portal.

MSN arabia portal offers wide range of content such as: news, business and financial guides, technology, health, fitness and diet tips, entertainment games, and celebrity gossip games. The site is also integrated with other LinkOnLine products such as Otlob.

MSN Arabia uses MS bing as the default search engine after it abandoned LinkOnLine’s own search Engine Onkush. As a Portal MSN Arabia main competitor is Yahoo Maktoob and as Bing is available in Arabic, Google is the main search competitor. However Aljazeera and other news and vertical sites might also be considered as competitors.

Masraway:

One the most popular Arabic portal geared towards egyptians, Masrway offers a wide array of content and services:

News, Classified, Jokes, Video sharing, Games (single and Multi player ), SMS ( 1-Egyptian and Saudi user subscribe can get news at the of cost 4 EP per month, 2- online paid service to send SMS to other mobile phones), TV Guide, E-Gov Services (links to e-gov services) Jobs ( integrated with Linkonline careermdieast job portal), Women channel, Thanaweya Amma ( high school results), Anti Women Harassment ( good job ), Music, Travel, Food Delivery (via LinkOnLine’s otolb) Ketabat ( user generated Arabic content and news -citizen journalism), greeting cards, Hosting and Domains and webmail.

Yallakora:

In operations since 2002 providing Arabic English, news and content for football leagues in the Arab region especially in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Tunisia & Morocco and most of the European and other regional tournaments in the world. The site also offers an Arabic fantasy Football competition and iPhone app.

YallaKora key competitors are: kooora.com, Filgoal (from Sarmady a Vodafone company in Egypt), Goal.com and Yahoo Maktoob Sports. Yallakora English version still has Onkush as a default search engine, seems the developing team forgot to add bing instead.
MSN Maghreb:

MSN Maghreb is a French version of MSN Arabia targeting French speaking users in countries like Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria.

Mazika:

Arabic Music Portal offering legal Music Audio and Video streaming and Islamic Nasheed with the option to buy via “Credit Card”, the site also provides online Audio & Video streaming and celebrity news.

On the entertainment front Saramady Vodafone company has Filfan a portal with content related to Music and cinema.

On Mobile, Nokia X6 Comes with Music offers free Music download for one year.

Otlob:

An online food ordering site through which orders can be placed to many restaurants in Egypt, UAE, KSA and Bahrin. And otlobmall.com a mall shopping site.

Yallabina:

Entertainment and city guide for Cairo, covering major events, concerts, and cultural events.

CareerMideast:

Job recruitment site for the Arab world, according to the about page the site has 500,000 CVs which is 25% of Bayt’s claimed CVs  number. Careermideast currently offering free job posting for employers.

LinkonLine ID: is linkdotnet single login to all its sites.

El3ab:

Online bilingual gaming offering  flash based single player & multiplayer games. The site says they will add Game Reviews Channel for reviewing the newest games worldwide. And a Fan Shop, for buying different elements “which will enhance gaming experience on el3ab.” The site offers traditional Middle Eastern games such Tarneeb and chess.

Other regional players in the Arab Gaming include: Tahdi from Jabbar, Tarneeb.com, kammelna popular baloot game from Saudi based remal IT and Wizard productions ( merged with Go3Media, it has recently received funding from Ossama Fiyad former Data Chief Office Yahoo and Chairman of D1G and Oasis 500.) and Yallagamescafe.

Baraca Arabia:

News and content for FC Barcelona Arabic fans.

Shofha:

The first Arabic legal video service, or the HULU of the Arab world. Shofha is made possible with strategic partnership with Rotana the leading Arabic entertainment company. The site offers users to: buy: download and view for a life time, renting: download and view for 48 hours and online streaming. Payment is via credit card or Linkdotnet cards.

Shofha uses unforunityly Microsoft’s Silverlight platform instead of HTML 5.

Yahoo Maktoob on the other hand has formed recently a partnership with Rotana to use and stream Rotana’s wide range of multimedia content, including music, videos, movies, concerts, TV channels and radio, through its upcoming Video Network channel for the Arabic speaking world.

Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Tala who owns Rotana is planning to launch a new Arabic television news channel in partnership with the Fox network. The Prince  is also an investor in Rubert Murdoch’s News Corp who in his part made recently a $70m investment for 9.1% of Rotana.

Arab Finance:

Arab Finance Provides online trading for the Egyptian stock market, financial news, tools and analysis. It also has “Isharet el Borsa” desktop app offering real time stock quotes info, charts and other technical info.

Arab Finance also has free iPhone application for the Egyptian Stock market, providing real-time access to the Egyptian Stock Market.

Other indepandant players in the Stock segment include the following:
-Awarmer: from Suadi based Remal IT offers online trading for the Saudi Stock Market.

-Argaam: UAE based Gulf-focused financial news portal.

-Saudi Based N2V’s Mubasher.info offers comprehensive financial news and analysis tools for Saudi Stock Exchange, Dubai Financial Market, Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange, Egyptian Stock Exchange, Amman Stock Exchange, Kuwait Stock Exchange, Muscat Securities Market, Doha Securities Market, Bahrain Stock Exchange, and Palestine Securities Exchange

-From National Technology Group the mother company of N2V, Mubasher Trade offers trading for Egyptian stock market and UAE stocks. And Mubasher NET for retail investors, offering market data desktop app.

-From Jordan Tickerchart: Stock analysis software for Arab  stock exchanges.

Link Data Center:

Offers a range of hosting solutions for enterprise and small and mid size business, notably: Managed Dedicated Hosting ,which offers firewalls and load-balancing devices. However we do not know which environment is supported, like the different Linux distributions, as all Otvenutres is based on Microsoft .NET technologies.

The other regional Data center we know of in the region is Bahrain based Kulacom data center in Jordan

Link Development

Is one of the largest  regional ISV, software developer and out-sourcing companies in the region. Link Development is a key regional partner to Microsoft and its products such as MS Dynamics. Link Development most notable in-house developed product is: Tempo, an Enterprise 2.0 product which is based on Microsoft Sharepoint, offering corporate blogging, employees profile, document sharing, forums, HR forums and so on.

Link Development competitors are widespread from other Microsoft ISVs to small website development companies to Oracle and its partners to open source software that offer free alternative to MS products such as Sharepoint and Dynamics.

ARPU +:

Launched in October 2003, specialized in providing Value Added Services (VAS) and platform solution in the Mobile in the telecom field. Competitors are  in many of the verticals  the company operates in. This include: Eskandenia and Globitel from Jordan and info2cell.

ConnectAds:

Is the online adverting arm of O2Ventures, it represents many sites of o2ventures and is the official representative of Facebook in the Arab world.

Other advertising networks in the Arab world include: Sarmady, iKoo which resulted from Jabbar buying e-marketing MENA and N2V’s Net Advantage . More regional online advertising companies can be found here.

If we missed anything please let us know.

Facebook everywhere.

In its push to make Facebook available to everyone anywhere at anytime, Facebook launched back on May 2010 ZERO Facebook or 0.facebvook.com  an optimized mobile version of Facebook that includes all of key features of Facebook: update status, view news feeds, like or comment on a post, reply to messages but comes with no photo viewing.

On May Facebook said it has reached agreement with 5o mobile operators to offer ZERO Facebook free for their mobile customer ( no data charge) in 45 countries ( DU of UAE is on the list).

As ZERO Facebook is offered for free to mobile users, it does not come with photos, and if users want to view them they will not incur data charges.

Today STC, the number one landline and Mobile Operators in Saudi Arabia (KSA) said that today it started offering in collaboration with Facebook http://0.facebook.com for Free to its Mobile users. This announcement for sure will further convert Saudi Internet users to use facebook from other social networks such as Hi5. Twitter 2 way SMS on the other hand is also available for STC customers. Facebook has 2,385,580 users who said they live in KSA.

#Thanks @faisal_asif for the tip.

Number 1 social network in the world facebook has finally  updated its iPhone app making it compatibale with iPhone iOS 4 features , the new apps comes with the ability to do fast application switching. according to facxebook “While viewing the Facebook application, just click the “Home” button twice on your iPhone to quickly switch to another application (note: you must have iOS 4 running on your iPhone).

The app also take  advantage of the iPhone 4′s high resolution screen with optized the icons set. the app is avalible in English, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian and Spanish ( no Arabic version yet.). It can be downloaded from here.

It is worth mentioning that iPhone is hiring an Antenna Engineer-iPad/iPhone maybe to help fix the current bug in iPhone 4 which is losing signal when held in certain ways that seem to interfere with the device’s antenna.

Updated: below.

In August 2008 Twitter shut down SMS for the most of the world to save the hefty SMS cost, we  exclusively   reported back August 2009 back that Twitter is in talks with one of the largest mobile operators in the Arab world Zain to enable 2 way SMS in the Arab countries it has operations in.

Now that post seems to news have become true as now Twitter mobile page shows SMS option avalibe to Jordan only with Zain, Kuwait with Zain only and Saudi Arabia with STC only.

I have not tested Twitter SMS in Jordan yet since I do not have a Zain number but if you live in one of these 3 countries  and have Zain or STS  STC numbers do please let us know via comment if it works.

Zain Jordan has also another SMS deal with Jordanian Startup WatWet Twitter’s Arabic clone. This news for sure is not good news for Watwet, as the only advantage watwet had over Twitter is its SMS service and now Twitter has it!

We are big fans of Twitter in ArabCrunch since day 1 of its launch and happy to see this good news.

Twitter SMS commands:

• FOLLOW username
• Start following a user
• UNFOLLOW username
• Stop following a user
• ON/OFF
• Turn all Tweet notifications on or off
• ON/OFF username
• Set Tweet notifications for a user on or off (you’ll still be following them even if you set it to off)
• GET username
• Shows you the latest tweet from any user
• RT username
• Retweet a user’s latest tweet
• FAV username
• Favorite a user’s latest tweet
• D username your-message
• Send a direct message to a user

Update 1:

Seems like no one managed to get SMS activated here is a screenshot from AC friend Mohammad Khawaja using a Zain number in Jordan, if anyone managed to activate please let us know via a comment:

MBC group on of the largest media companies in the Arab world ( its site is down as of  3GMT) has launched a new Arabic version of its Mobile games call of duty “Call of Duty Modern Warfare Force Recon.” selling at an Average of 10 SAR. (2.66645 U.S. dollars.)

Since the first Call of Duty mobile release in 2007, the series has sold a combined 3.7 million mobile copies between Call of Duty® 4: Modern Warfare and Call of Duty®: World at War.

MoBC the Mobile arm of MBC has already launched number of Arabic Card games such as (Trix, Balot, Carrom ) in addition to the iPhone game (Who Wants to be Millionaire) and it plans to launch soon more entertainment games .

“Call of Duty Modern Warfare Force Recon” is available in a vast array of Mobile handsets from Sony Ericsson, Nokia, LG , Samsung to BlackBerry.

At the Begging this month Sarmady the digital arm of Vodfone Egypt released thier first Arabic iPhone, iPod and iPad app FilGoal South Africa offering interesting features for FIFA Worldcup 2010 fans:

• Latest news from the FIFA 2010 World Cup in South Africa
• Annalyses of games and exciting features and interviews
• information about the participating teams
• Fixtures, results and tables of all the groups
• A list of all the players participating in the tournament
• Live coverage of all the games, including goals, yellow cards and red cards
• FilGoal.com users’ comments on all the editorial material

The app has achived 11,000 downloads, while Shawweet BlackBerry App achieved 13000 downloads in 4 days since its launch.

I did not test the FilGoal app because until today I am iPhoneless , however today I tested quickly Eurosports worldcup English app for iPod using my friend’s iPad, the app looks interesting and has nice features such as live match coverage.

Jordan based BlackBerry (BB)  apps developer bberryapp.com has launched around 2 days ago their new BB app in partnership with Football social network startup Shawweet.

The new app which is called Shawweet (BETA) is geared towards soccer fans as it helps you get live football (soccer) scores for world leagues, track live event matches, standings, scorers and  allow you to add comments on what is happening .

Shawweet BB app, currently covers football matches for the World Cup 2010, EUFA Champions League, English Premier League, Spanish League,  and Italian League with more leagues to be added soon. The app is in both English and Arabic.
Th app achieved 360 downloads in less than 24 hours according to folks at bberryapp.com to download the free app you can go here.

Updated.

“

• The price is $199 in the US for the 16GB model, and 299 for the 32GB model. Available in two colors, black and white.
• Pre-order start a week from tomorrow with shipping in five countries, US, France, Germany, UK, Japan — in July,  18 more countries.”

With 100 new features, Steve Jobs covered 8 new features of the iPhone 4. The new design is 9.3mm thick, 3.5-inches, glass and steel, with a front-facing camera, microSIM, camera + LED flash, headset, and a second mic for noise cancellation.( we will post more soon.):

• Retina display increases the pixel density, 4x in the same amount of space. (326px per inch. 800:1 contrast ratio.) IPS — provides much more accurate color and much higher resolution.
• iPhone 4 is powered by the A4. Battery life improvement allowing for 7 hours 3G talk, 6 hours 3G browsing, 10 hours WiFi browsing, 10 hours music, 40 hours of music, and 300 hours of standby.
• Also built in every iPhone 4: gyroscope, accelerometer, and GPS for 6-axis motion sensing and a whole new camera system. The camera has moved from 3 to 5 megapixel sensor with a backside illuminated sensor, with the addition of HD video.
• iMovie for iPhone is now available for $4.99.
• The most advanced mobile OS in the world: iPhone OS4, with over 100 new user features, the biggest being multitasking.
• iBooks will automatically and wirelessly — and for no charge — sync your place, notes, and bookmarks across all your devices.
• iAds a new program from Apple to display ads on iPhone app promise spelt with developers, it compete with Google’s Ad mob.
• 
• Steve Jobs announces FaceTime, video calling for iPhone 4G. It’s iPhone 4 to iPhone 4 anywhere there is WiFi.
• 
• The price is $199 in the US for the 16GB model, and 299 for the 32GB model. Available in two colors, black and white.
• Pre-order start a week from tomorrow with shipping in five countries, US, France, Germany, UK, Japan — in July,  18 more countries.
• “iPhone 4 is the first phone with a built-in three-axis gyroscope. When paired with the accelerometer, it makes iPhone 4 capable of advanced motion sensing such as user acceleration, angular velocity, and rotation rate. Translation: More motion gestures and greater precision for an even better gaming experience.”
• Google, Yahoo for search Bing a new third option.
• Multi-Touch display.
• iPhone4G video here.

#via gdgt.

What represents new threats and opportunity to mobile operators, a new study from Juniper Research has found that Mobile VoIP services will develop significantly faster in developed markets due to the direct correlation between 3G roll outs and the take up of mobile VoIP. This is the case even though mVoIP traffic volumes may eventually be higher in developing markets due in part to the calling patterns of migrant workers, according to the study Mobile Voice Strategies: mVoIP Opportunities & Business Models, 2010-2015.

“By 2012 we expect significant uptake of mobile VoIP in its various different flavours”, says Anthony Cox, Senior Analyst at Juniper Research. “By that date mobile VoIP will be available over both 3G and WiFi networks. We also anticipate that several more traditional operators will have joined 3UK and Verizon in the US and developed relationships with mobile VoIP players such as Skype,” he says.

Further findings include:

· Alliances between mobile VoIP players and traditional operators may provide the best option for today’s incumbent operators to address the advent of mobile VoIP.

· Revenues from the circuit switched voice market will continue to diminish over the next five years, although this will not accelerate.

· A high percentage of Mobile VoIP carried over applications will be via WiFi networks, bypassing operators’ networks altogether. Such traffic will result in some lost revenues, amounting to around $5bn by 2015.

More info in the mobile voice report.

As AC broke yesterday the heavy rains that stormed the Saudi capital Riyadh flooded many parts of the city, causing damage and putting human life in danger. Many were trapped and some unverified reports suggest incidents of death. As we reported Twitter was instrumental in almost everything related to this sad event.

Since ArabCrunch also writes about Social Media, today we put together a guide on how to use social media and the Internet for to save lives and help the residents of Riyadh. Thanks to everyone for supporting the people of Riyadh. ( I will update this post if we managed to get more online resources please leave a comment if you know any.)

• Stay updated and informed:

1- Retweet and share this guide on facebook or via email so more people can use it to save life and help out.
2- Use Twitter with hash tag #RiyadhRain whenever you report any incident or follow the same hashtag for live updates.
3- Use RiydhRain.com or Twubs for live update also we have a a widget at the end of this post.

4- Go to Presidency of Meteorology and Environment (PME) early warning website for weather conditions though Twitter hashtag #RaidhRain is more realtime

• Ask for Aid or volunteer to save life

Residents of Riydh did a great job as many went and volunteered to save lifes, Saudi civil defense is asking for more volunteers

1- Ask for Aid by filling this app also if you are on Twitter via using hashtag #RiyadhRain #aid

2- If you are in trouble point your location using your mobile via Gowalla or Foursquare, also add hashtag #RiyadhRain.

3- If you would like to volunteer look for emergency requests here or call civil defense here: 014645260 ex 346 or via the facebook group “We are all the sons of Riyadh” or this app.

#volunteers apps via Jihad .

• Report and View Open or Closed Streets

Saudi Arabia startups Qayam has launched google maps mashup here http://www.qaym.com/rain/ enabling users to report and view opened or closed streets.

• Videos and Pics:

1- look at ArabCrunch Arabic post about the videos.

2- Ismaeil at picaso also Twubs.

3- saudijeans has some videos too.



#photos via y NaWaF0 and Yfrog

Nokia has announced today three new handsets – the Nokia C3, Nokia C6 and Nokia E5 said in a press release “These new handsets feature full QWERTY keyboards, and enable access to a range of different email accounts, IM communities and social networks.-including twitter and facebook.”

-Nokia C3 is the first device to bring a full QWERTY keyboard to the world’s most popular mobile phone platform – Series 40 – and is the first in the range to enable access to social networks directly on the homescreen. People can view, comment, update their status and share pictures to their favorite social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. a two megapixel camera, 2.4 inch screen and support for up to an 8GB memory card. The Nokia C3 is expected to be available in the second quarter of 2010.

- Nokia C6 is a Symbian-based smartphone comes with a 3.2 inch touch screen with a full slide out keyboard. The large screen provides a great Internet experience, as well as offering access to Facebook feeds directly on the homescreen. A suite of email and social networking help social media addicts to stay in the loop while in the go.

Expected to be available in the second quarter of 2010, the Nokia C6 has a five megapixel camera with autofocus and flash, and Ovi Maps with free walk and drive navigation. In addition, thousands of apps – from games and videos to news aggregators and web services – are available in the Ovi Store.

-Nokia E5. is Symbian-based Nokia E5 is smilier to Nokia E72 and Nokia E63 business line mobiles.
The device is expected in the third quarter of 2010, the device has access to Ovi store apps with email support for Exchange and IBM Lotus Notes.

- Nokia has signed deals with a number of operators in the Arab region to introduce bundled unlimited IM and email packages on its devices to take-on the increasing popularity of BlackBerry among business men and university students.

(Via Nokia press release.)

More hands on review of these devices real capabilities once we get them.