In his speech in front of time 100 were Wael was chosen among of Time magazine nfluential people, Wael said that he is not a hero and all what he did is simple create an event on facebook and mark it with #25Jan Revolution, from “we are all Khaled Saed” page, that event marked the spark of the Egyptian revolution which ousted president Husni Mobarak. He also said that he is a proud Muslim Arab and Egyptian. (me too ) Here is the video with Arabic subtitles:




Istikana the free to use ad-based online classical premium Arabic video content platform ( reviewed by AC here) and The Arab Telemedia Group today announced a new content partnership that will bring many popular TV shows from Arab Telemedia’s library, including “Akher Ayam Al Toot”, “Sham Shareef”, and many more to Istikana.

Under the agreement, full episodes of Arab Telemdia’s extensive library of thousand’s of hours of drama series will be available on the Istikana service beginning April, 2011. The Arab Telemedia Group is the first Arab production house to have won an International Emmy Award (Al Ijtiyah – 2008).

With this agreement istikana solidify its position as the platform for premium classical Arabic video content.

If you grow up in the Arab world you remember growing on TV cartoon series such as Adnan wa Lina, Grendizer and Abtal Al-Mala3ib . Istikana offers you the online place to view on demand the complete episodes of such series for free.

The site has a wide variety of shows that span from, Drama, Cartoon, Theater, Comedy to Religious.

According to the site’s cofounder Samer Abdin all the site’s content is legal and licensed either direct from the content owner, or an authorized MENA re-seller.

Legal video content platforms is not new to the Arab world, there are Egypt based Forga, Shahid from Dubai based MBC group and Shofha from Egypt based LinkDotNet. While Shahid main focus is offering MBC’s run Series and movies free on demand, and Shofha on movies and Series licensed from variety of sources such as Rottan where users have to pay to buy or rent movies and shows and view them on the site or download them. Istikana focus on Arabic classical shows and offer them for free and on demand. As for Forga it offers movies, series, trailers, video clips and actors’ profiles, though most of the content Forga has are modern movies and much less content for series, we found only 2 of them!

Istikana business model according to Abdin is based on advertising as the site currently run display ads and in-video pre roll ads.

The classical Arabic video on demand service is founded by Samer Abdin and Tareq Abu-Lughod and is self funded but it also has received early angel investment from a Googoglar Sami Shalabi.

The site enables users to embed videos on any web page here is the first episode of Grendizer:



As the uprising in Libya continues for the 6 day, news report says that two third of the country is on the hand of protestors, other reports say that mercenary forces from Africa, Italy and East Europe has committed atrocities against civilians. Mainstream media are banned from the country, so people using their cameras and eye witness  are the only source of news from Libya.  Here is our list of  social media news sources  based on citizen journalists in Facebook and Twitter about the revolution.

In English:

• Facebook:

Rased News Network RNN
Rased News Network (R.N.N) specialized in news about Egypt, the page did a wonderful effort during the revolution in Egypt, they have reporters on the ground and outside egypt. The page was offering up to minute news about the revolution with images and videos. Now it is offering news about Libya.

B.R.Q News Network

Facebook page that seems is affiliated  with Rased News Network (R.N.N) the page that was offering up to the minute updates about the revolution in Egypt. B.R.Q News Network is offering up to minute news from the ground in Libya with videos. We monitored some of their news and checked them with mainstream media and they matched.

• Twitter:

@RassdNews

@ShababLibya

@libyansrevolt

@feb17libya

@euandus

@AJELive

@ajarabic

@feb17voices

PS: these are Twitter users who are tweeting news and updates about the revolution, we do not know everyone affiliations and were they are located,

And the hash tags: #libya and #feb17.

Arabic:

Facebook:

‎انتفاضة 17 فبراير 2011- لنجعله يوم للغضب في ليبيا
Arabic Facebook page that called for the revolution on 17th of Feb. has 74,733 members offering news update in Arabic with images and videos.

RNN News in Arabic

RNN in Arabic.

قناة الجزيرة مباشر – Aljazeera Arabic Live.- Aljazeera Mubasher Channel

ِAs uprising continues to grow in the Arab world we promise you to publish new lists of new revolutions in new Arab countries. And here are some videos:

Sweden based mobile and Computer live streaming service bambuser has confirmed our report that it was blocked in Egypet at 1 CET today. Along with Twitter and other news websites reporting on the demonstrations.

Bambusa said in a blog post “Prior to services like Bambuser entering the field, protestors would record videos, uploading them to YouTube when they got home; however, many never made it, as police confiscated phones. Now, as they can’t operate like that, and so instead have chosen to close the whole service in order to keep control.”

it went on in saying: “we” condemn the abuse of power that we are seeing today. We are working hard to ensure access resumes for the Egyptian community and stand by them in their quest for the right to protest.”

On the Other hand according to several sources and Facebook updates of users inside Egypt, Egyptian totalitarian regime has blocked 3G access in demonstration areas to prevent Live streaming via 3G network.

Here are some of the videos the young and tech savvy Egyptians shared on the platform before the blocking:

This 25th of January, the day Egyptian activists rallied Egyptians to demonstrate across Egypt against the rule of Egypt’s President Hussni Mubarak and harsh economic conditions.

10s Thousands of rallied across Egypt in a bid to emulate the Tunisian revolution that toppled its dictator Zien Al Abden Ben Ali.

Egyptians were creative in using social media, with Khaled Saed anti torture  page about to reach 400,000 followers, the page was instrumental in organizing activists – Khaled Saed is an Egyptian man beaten to death by 2 Egyptian police men because he posted a video on Youtube about Police corruption-

Now, Egyptian activists went more creative, live streaming demonstration, thus documenting live any attempt of police brutally, hence preventing that from happing.

Here is a link to the the live stream at Al Masyer Alyoum Egyptian Arabic newspaper:
and here is the stream it self:




On the other hand, activists  are tweeting live from demonstration under hashtag #Jan25 with images of what is happing.

Seems the Arab world is going under wave of change that can not be stopped, in Jordan last week thousands of Jordanians rallied to topple Samer Alrifai’s government, the same in Algeria and Yemen.

Update: Rased News Network  (RNN) page on facebook is offering Minute by Minute updates about the events in (Arabic.)

#images via @TravellerW

This is not new, humiliation of Palestinians and Muslims men and woman around the world is not very recent. What is new is that social media and YouTube has made these footage public rather than hidden behind bars.

Last August an Israeli female soldier posted her pausing in-front of humiliated Palestinian prisoners.

This time Israeli solider dancing in front of humiliated Palestinian female prisoner is posted on Youtube.

Here is the video:




Shame is not enough to describe this criminal act.

Number 1 video sharing website owned by Google, YouTube now has an Arabic Interface.

The move is some how late for Google to bring an Arabic interface for YouTube, since most of its other services are already has an Arabic UI.

This move means local Arab video sharing startups such as iKbis and D1G which the later is headed by former Yahoo Data Chief officer Ossama Fiyad has become more and more irrelevant.

Last year, during a Arab Advisors groups telecom conference in Jordan, telecom executives said that 40% of Internet traffic in the Arab world is going to YouTube, now that YouTube has Arabic interface that number is most likely to increase.

Why regional video sharing sites could not be a match to YouTube? first the culture of citizen video creation is much more prevalent in USA and around the world, more than in the Arab world, most of the world does not speak Arabic, they are the majority of Internet users! Second freedom of speech is more guaranteed on Youtube, since it is based in USA ( we hope it stays like that) . Arab startups have to comply with local oppressive laws or risk going to jail. So Arab Internet users go to YouTube because they get content they would not find on sites such as d1g and Ikbis.

Youtube provides more value to Arab users than regional video sharing sites, specially that sites such as d1g contains many pirated videos.

2 allegations hit Whistleblower website Wikileaks‘ founder Julian Assange in Sweden, the first one involves rape  but was dropped only after 6 hours.

Wikileaks got famous after leaking 90,000 documents involves the war in Afghanistan around a month ago, and before that releasing video footage of a U.S army Apache Helicopter killing journalist in Iraq. Since then Obama’s administration has been publicly attacking the site and looking for ways to press criminal charges.

Wikileaks said over Twitter“ Reminder: US intelligence planned to destroy WikiLeaks as far back as 2008.” The site on March 15, 2010 published a classified 32 page U.S. counterintelligence investigation reveled a plan in plotting to destroy the center gravity of the site by attacking its “trust” and credibility.

In an interview with Aljazeera English Asang said  that Wikileaks was warned by Australian intelligence of such things. However, he said they do not have yet an evidence of CIA involvement in this allegations but called it “Smear.”

Mentioning rape, many Iraqi prisoners accused US forces in Iraq of rapping them, while some CIA reports shows that rape threats where used as interrogation techniques by CIA operatives.

Wikileaks prepares to release another 15,000 documents relating to the war in Afghanistan.

Here is Alajzeera video interview with Assang:




Early this month a disaster erupted in Pakistan but the scale of damage has gotten too worse.

Pakistan floods might be the worse natural catastrophe in the 21st century as  the U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon calls the devastation the worst he has ever seen. While The country’s prime minister says as many as 20 million are homeless. The floods has killed  more than 1,600 people and damaged or destroyed more than 722,00 houses.
Saudi freelance developer Raed Saayd created a video out of his frustration due to main stream media neglectance of the disasters, he asked people to do anything a Tweet, a YouTube Video, a BB IM or anything to inform the world about this catastrophe.

Here is his video:




And here are a list of organizations that you can send donations and report events online:

#image via Raed.

Yesterday was the first day of the holy month of Ramadan in some Muslims countries, and today it is the first day of Ramadan for the rest of the world. In this month all Muslims are obliged to fast from eating, drinking and having sex , from dawn to sun set.

In this occasion we send our greetings to all Muslims worldwide and specially AC’s Muslim readers. and to non Muslim readers of ArabCrunch we also wish you a happy August .

Here is our Greeting Video: Ramadan Entrepreneurship and Clinton:




As with every year here are some links to websites that help you know more about Islam:

Islam Guide.

Islam Web

Islamic Tube

Just Quran

Best Islamic Sites

Sisters Magazine

#image by Sama.

Yahoo Maktoob just launched its new service Video on Demand, a site that syndicates Videos from major Arabic satellite channels in the Arab region.

Videos on the sites includes clips from Arabic channels such as Aljazeera Arabic Alaan, Rotan and Alrisala and seems more channels to be added. Yahoo Maktoob has recently announced striking a deal with Rotana for this service.

The new site offers users the option to view videos according to categories like Music, news etc.

I think this is the most useful service Yahoo has launched in the Arab world since its acquisition of Maktoob late last year. ّThe new site is not just useful for Arab expats around the world who have no access to Arab Satellite channels, but also to locals in case they missed a show, they can come back to the site and watch it for free.

Today Yahoo also launched a website for the month of Ramadan.

All videos in the site are available  for free.

Around 10 days ago ArabCrunch  had a meeting with Barig Seraj the CEO of ICT Ventures a Saudi based Venture capital firm.

Barig Seraj informed us about his company and his recent investments, ICT Ventures is a growth based VC that focus in the IT sector. The VC firm made 3 investments so far. First in Mobidiv an Egyptian mobile app developer that is working on a special Chines SMS service, then they invested in ITs2 a digital security company in Saudi Arabia and lastly ICT Ventures closed  an investment round with IdealRatings a SaaS app providing Islamic Shariah screening, purification, and  fund management service for financial institutions that identifies and manages Shariah compliant instruments in the world. IdealRating is founded by Egyptian entrepreneur Youssri Helmy . The SaaS startup received 2 rounds of funding before from  Technology development fund in Egypt and then from Jordan based VC IV Holdings.

Here is the video interview with Barig, were he shed the light on his firm, the companies the invested in and how would they excite.

The Interview was done in Four Seasons hotel in Amman, Jordan. After the interview the hotel’s security came to question the writer of this post about using a camera ?!

Today Jordanian startup Aqar Estate a real estate web listing site has organized a party at Bristol hotel in Amman, Jordan where they showcased to the real estate and web industry their upcoming version of the site.

The new site which is set to be launched the 1st day of the Islamic Month of Ramadan -around 20th of this month- will have a complete revamp and new features, focusing on social interaction and making finding relevant real estate information easier to the user.

Among the new features, the site will offer premium membership for real estate agents and real estate developers. Thus the business model now is based on advertising revenues which is now expanded with new offerings such as featured site and will also depend on premium membership.

During the event ArabCrunch had an Interview with the company founder, she is Hanan Khader an ex-Jeeran and ex-maktoob employee, she is one of the few women entrepreneurs in the web Industry in the arab world, her 2,5 years old startup is totally bootstrapped and is already profitable which lead her to leave her job at Jeeran and even expand her team. Hanan is a mother to young girls and pregnant with a new baby. Other players in web real estate web business include AqarMap

Here our unedited interview today :




Update: end of the post.

Motorola has been a Mobile handset icon in the Arab world for a long time, but in the past few years the star has diminished to rivals such as Nokia and now iPhone and BlackBerry.

That case was not specific to the Arab world, its has been a problem that Motorola faced in its mother land: USA, but with the launching of its powerful Android based cell phone Droid and now Droid X, things have changed.

In the Arab world, Motorola is making a comeback its Droid or what they call MileStone outside USA is now launched in several Arab countries: GCC countries such as Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt and Jordan. The Milestone cost around $ 700 USD depending in the country and the data plan.

Around a month ago we interviewed Bashar Hafez Products Operation Manager Motorola where he also showcased MileStone the first Arabic Android phone. In the Video Basher shed the light on Motorola’s new strategy, the company is focusing on Mobile and home entertainment business as 3 days ago it sold its wireless network infrastructure assets for US $1.2 billion in cash to Nokia Siemens.

This is part one of Motorola Comeback series.

Here is the Video (note the Milstone in this video is not with the Arabic version of Android, we will post our own separate review for that later) :



Update 1: We have contacted HTC PR company in the region, we are being told that some HTC Android powered devices run certain level of arabization, we will keep you posted once we get full details from HTC’s PR company in the region.

Today we are back in presenting to you with our guide of how to follow worldcup Live matches. Today’s match is between Spain VS. Honduras:

update: Minute 17: 1 Spain- 0 Honduras

Live streaming:



iPhone: TVu. IPad: TVu. Eurosport. 10 worldcup 2010  iPhone and iPod specific app here.

Twitter:



BlackBerry:
Shawwet BlackBerry.

Web (text):

FIFA.

#image from Twitter.

Updated.

Again I am exited about worldcup, today’s seems also exciting USA will play against England, even though USA is more advanced than UK in technology and has better startup ecosystem, England has a deep history in Football that roots decades back.

Here is quick the guide where to follow the game live whether  via online video streaming or via text and below is the Twitter live updates about the game.

Update: first half ended 1:1

Update2: #Englandgoalkeeper now a trending topic on Twitter, because the goal was his mistake.

Update 3: game ended 1:10

Live on Aljazeera Sports.


Watch live video from السويفى للبث المباشر on Justin.tv

2-Twitter:



3- BBC Live Coverage

4- Live from Video CBC and look tvU.

#image via Twitter.

Update: the game ended 0-0.

Again and again with world cup 2010  one of the most exciting events in the world and I am very excited, here is the live video streaming for france VS Uruguay and other places online to follow the match live. We might add a section for worldcup on ArabCrunch however stay tuned for our full guide in how to follow worldcup.

1- Live stream:

Watch live video from tasaali.com on Justin.tv


2- Websites to follow:

CBC.

BBS Sports.

Twitter.

#pic Twitter

Update 6: game ended 1:1 stay tuned for ArabCrunch Guide to Follow world cup online and on your mobile…
Update2: 5 PM GMT first half ended….

Again with world cup 2010  one of the most exciting events in the world and I am very excited, here is the live video streaming of the first match, in case one stream close down we will do our best to add a new one.

For other ways to watch the first game here are some links:

Update 3-4-5:
better quality
Watch live video from FでやるGame on Justin.tv

Watch live video from --**VIVO**-- on Justin.tv


Watch live video from FでやるGame on Justin.tv

Live Broadcasting by Ustream


Update2: more Video streams:

Watch live video from football tv on Justin.tv


The Internet changed how people shop. Now, Augmented reality is changing how people will shop online.

YOUReality along with Germany based Metaio are introducing Online Retail Visualization 3D tool, which makes it possible for consumers to see products in their own space before they purchase them by integrating Augmented Reality into a suite of commerce applications. The new services will change the retails industry by allowing shoppers to make more better buying decisions, and help retailers sell more.

With YOUReality, customers can try before they buy, allowing consumers to visualize context sensitive products with life-like 3D models in a photo of their own home environment. The resulting image provides a realistic view of what the object will look like in that space with the ability to move the item around and change colors, styles, sizes and textures of the 3D object while viewing it in the photo.

“Retail Visualization takes the guesswork out of the visual aspects of shopping, such as selecting fabric choices, textures and colors, making the buying decision faster and easier because consumers can literally see furniture, electronics, appliances, even accessories, in their own space at the point of sale. Retail Visualization for e-commerce allows the user to visualize products in a web store and then add the selected items directly to the shopping cart to complete the transaction online,”says YOUReality Founder, Michelle Fallon.

YOUReality has a suite of 3D applications for brick and mortar and e-retailers, product manufacturers, designers and others .

All recent metaio and YOUReality applications will be available for live presentations at the Augmented Reality Event (ARE 2010) on June 2nd and 3rd in Santa Clara, CA, USA.

Here is a Video demos:




E-commerce is an old school in USA, but in the Arab world it did not really take off for many reasons starting with credit cards are not common to borders and customs between Arab countries that complicate issues further.

And because of that, solving a problem in this sector might get you funded as Gate2Play has officially received the first round of funding from the most active Venture Capital firm in the region IV Holdings.

To fill the gap, a number of startups and companies provided prepaid cards starting with Jabbar’s CashU and Onecard. Visa and MasterCard partnered with several local banks to issue their own prepaid cards

Jordanian entrepreneur Muhannad Ebwini an ex-Maktoobian and GM of onecard cofounded Gaet2Play to consolidate the e-payment situation in the region. As Gate2Play will enable merchants to use its hub to process any of its e-paymnet partners. Making it more easy for merchants and driving more business for e-payment providers.

Muhannad told ArabCrunch that Gate2Play signed with many merchants, payment gateways in the region and expect to launch its in June this year. Here is my Video Interview I made with Muhannad during Arabnet conf in lebanon where he explained the e-payment situation in the region with more details and  his startup business model. ( He disclosed the funding round in the video so the news is not breaking since it was recoded around 1 month ago but it is exclusive to AC )

There is no doubt that the general public in the Arab world, just like all over the world including USA is ignorant about many things with the Internet, this widely evident that the major browser used by users of mainstream websites in the Arab region is the ugly 10 years old IE 6.0 and in many cases IE 5.5!!!

Many users in the arab world do not even know what IE is? To that end Google launched recently a campaign called Ahlan online to educate the public about the internet with focus on Google Internet products.

The campaign uses cartoon characters developed and animated by Jordan’s creative startup Kharabeesh.

Smart and nice marketing move by Google Arabia, its first video was viewed to-date by around 38,000 people, even though the campaign is centered around Google products I am happy that users would know that there is something more than  that blue icon on the desktop, Hotmail, Yahoo mail, MSN and facebook.

On the other side, Yahoo Arabia has its own plans in this regard.

It is hard to find an online expert who denies the power of social media in helping anyone with creativity to reach the masses virally and via low cost efforts.

Social media has been one of the main reason behind Obama’s presidential campaign success, and now social media is used by both Israelis, Arabs and Muslims with their varied messages and backgrounds and believes among both parties.

Queen Rania of Jordan entered Twitter and use it to promote her causes starting with child education, the Queen was then followed with a number of arab politcal leaders who seems until now, not that successful twerps.

During the attacks on gaza last year, Twitter has been instrumental battle field between users who wants to end the war and the Israeli defense forces spam bots who was flooding Twitter messages every minute with hashtag #gaza with automated updates.

For Hamas, it seems that sympathetic facebook users have added different groups and fan pages for Hamas political leadership in which facebook went ahead and deleted them all together with no official explanation.

The term social media is not centered only on Twitter and facebook, it revolves about anything online that has a social aspect, this includes Youtube and flickr etc.

On youtube for example, one the ways to promote your company or cause is to post interesting videos that might grow virally as such your companies’ brand or cause will reach a bigger audience.

To that end, Hamas Military Ezzedeen Al-Qassam Brigades seems to understand that aspect, so its media devision went ahead sometime yesterday and posted a 3D video on Youtube with multi lingual translation, this time addressing the Israeli people, rather the Arabic speaking people with Arabic only content.

The 3 minute long 3D movie epics the suffering of the only israeli solider that hammers managed to capture: Gilad Shalit along with his father and pitch a message that the last 3 “Israeli” government prime minsters starting with Ehud Olmert, Tzipi Livni and now Baby Netanyahu have failed and lied about solving his cause.

The movie that has a “sad theme” starts with he Gilad voice addressing his father mother, family and his fellow comrades at the israeli forces, telling them that he missed them and that he feels sorry that his government and the “Israeli” army did not care about his case.

The movie “reveals” that the only way to release shallot is via prisoner swap exchange as it ends with a seen that when Gilad father receives his son in a coffin but ends with a message “there is hope” “Israel” has around 10,000 Palestinian in its prisons.

From a technical stand point, the 3D movie looks very professional and artistic.

Here is the video:




Around 2 weeks ago Google Launched Google Tashkeel which adds missing diacritics to Arabic text. Yesterday Aljazeera Arabic asked ArabCrunch board members,CEO of nPairo and former Senior Vice President Yahoo! Bassel Ojjeh about Google’s service at the 11:00 pm news hour.

Here is the interview recorded using Nokai N900:

Contrary to the iPhone and iPod Touch, Apple didn’t offer a weather application on the iPad. So geeks at Alexandria, Egypt based, Vimov, rushed in to fill the void and launched Weather HD even before the iPad was launched, around a month after they launched “iStumlate” support for the iPad.

When iPad went on sales this week, breaking around 300,000 or the 600,000 mark . Weather HD become the number one selling weather application on the iPad, and on the list of Top 30 selling applications among thousands of apps and books.

In short, Weather HD is a stunning application that provides weather information for any of more than 120,000 cities, but instead of just telling you the temperature, it renders it over beautiful video backdrops that fit the weather condition. For example, if it is raining, it will be raining on your iPad. If it is sunny, a backdrop video of a sunny day will be played.

Weather HD are sold on itunes store for .99 $. You can follow Vimov at ArabCrunch.NET here.