During her visit to the region Yahoo’s CEO Carl Bartz shared How Yahoo sees huge opportunity in the Arab region. in a press releases sent to us, Yahoos says that Maktoob homepage is the fifth most popular home page on Yahoo with around 50 million unique users compared 30 million unique users when Yahoo acquired Maktoob for around 200 million USD. In terms of revenues in the press release Yahoo said that Yahoo captures 40% of online display advertising around 40 million USD.

Here is the remaining of the press release:

“When we look around the world, the Middle East and North Africa is one of the most exciting markets for us at Yahoo!, with a combination of rapid user growth and a very attractive advertising market with incredible potential,” said Bartz.

“Arabic is also one of the fastest growing languages on the Internet, yet only 1% of online content is in Arabic today,” Bartz added.  “Part of Yahoo!’s investment in MENA is to facilitate the growth of the Arabic language online.”

During her remarks to media assembled at Yahoo!’s offices in Dubai, Bartz discussed four topic areas: Yahoo!’s local teams and commitment to the region; the company’s commitment to growing Arabic content online; new products the company has planned for the region; and the growing online advertising opportunity.

During her remarks to media assembled at Yahoo!’s offices in Dubai, Bartz discussed four topic areas: Yahoo!’s local teams and commitment to the region; the company’s commitment to growing Arabic content online; new products the company has planned for the region; and the growing online advertising opportunity.

Local Teams and Investment

Yahoo! acquired Maktoob in November 2009, and since this point the company has invested in fully staffed offices across Dubai, Amman, Cairo, Riyadh and Casablanca.  The offices are home to nearly 300 employees who work in editorial, engineering, sales, marketing and customer care.

“Because our teams are local, we understand what people need and in turn develop our products accordingly to serve up the right content. This is a big differentiator for us. We are not just a technology company, we create deeply personal digital experiences,” said Bartz.

“You can’t deliver ‘deeply personal’ unless you are deeply local. We combine that expertise with a global scale, global content, and the best from around the world.”

Growing Arabic Content Online

Bartz cited that the thirst for high quality and relevant content in Arabic can be seen in the company’s engagement on its properties.

In the past year and a half since Yahoo! acquired Maktoob, the combined reach of the company has grown from 30 million unique users to 50 million. The Arabic Yahoo! Maktoob homepage launched last November and it is already the fifth most popular Yahoo! homepage in the world today.  Only the U.S., Taiwan, India and Indonesia have more readers.

Six months after the launch of the homepage, Yahoo! Maktoob has become the second biggest news destination in the region after Al Jazeera, and has established leadership in a number of content areas. For example, the company is number one in the region’s online Entertainment with omg Arabic.

The women’s property, Helwa, is the region’s favourite lifestyle destination for women’s news, health and family tips, as well as fashion reviews.

Yahoo! Maktoob has also established content deals with the likes of Al Jazeera, BBC, Reuters and the Saudi Publishing & Research Company, and continues to look for more Arabic language content partners. The company continues to recruit writers, bloggers and editors to make its original content in Arabic broader and richer.

“We are making our content mobile, since mobile penetration for this region is growing at an incredible rate,” said Bartz.  “This month we will introduce our Yahoo! Maktoob homepage for mobile in both Arabic and English. Also look for mobile versions of our media properties, like news and sports.”

Video is also an important area for Yahoo! as broadband penetration continues to rise in the Middle East. Bartz said that Yahoo! has plans to invest more in Video On Demand service to deliver content from popular Arabic TV series, movies and music videos.

New Products

Bartz also shared details of Yahoo!’s new Ramadan product. Under the theme “Ramadan Around the World, Ramadan Where You Are”, Yahoo!’s Middle East editorial team will personally select lifestyle and religious content from its News, Women, Video and omg properties, and popular forums.

“No one else has the ability to draw from such a rich selection of content, and make it so personally relevant to users,” Bartz said about the upcoming Ramadan site.

Growth in Online Advertising

Bartz emphasized the opportunity these new Yahoo! experiences – along with the growth of the Internet in the region – create to extend the company’s lead in online advertising.

Already, Yahoo! Maktoob is the number one in the Middle East and North Africa for display advertising, with 40% market share.

Online ad spend for the region is currently only 2% of total advertising spend for the entire region.  By way of comparison, online spend in France is around 15% and in the UK it’s 25%.

However, Bartz noted that the region is host to the fastest growing advertising market in the world, with average year-on-year growth in digital spending around 25-30%.

“We envision the online ad market in MENA to reach at least 5-7% of the total ad market by 2015,” said Bartz.  “And with our strong agency and client relationships – along with our leadership in Science, Art, and Scale – I am confident we’ll be there to deliver the benefits.”

“Advertisers in the region – just like anywhere else – want to tell their stories in beautiful, immersive and personal ways,” Bartz added.  “And it’s a big reason why Yahoo! has great partnerships with some of the leading local and global brands, from P&G, Unilever, Etihad and Emirates airlines, and GM, through to Chanel, Dior and more.”

Yahoo Maktoob is spending ad dollars on advertisements being displayed on Taxi cars in Cairo Egypt. Seems the Arabic branch of Yahoo wants to push more into mainstream Egyptians.

The ad asks Egyptians to make Yahoo Maktoob their default home page to access Yahoo mail Facebook and so-forth.

Yahoo has recently redirected its homepage in the Arab world into http://maktoob.yahoo.com and relaunched Maktoob site smilier to what  Yahoo! is today, widgets or a “start-page” that can connect users with their latest feed from Yahoo Maktoob sites and external sites.

We do not know how effective  is advertising on cabs for internet brands rather than it is a branding effort from Yahoo more than a traffic driver.

Updated: Confirmed by many users in Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Morocco. more below. Yahoo.com is offering redirect to this like (http://nxd.search.yahoo.com/404handler?src=topdomain&fr=404_topdomain&url=xa.yahoo.com/)

It seems that Yahoo.com is under DNS hijack, at least here in Jordan and Saudi Arabia:

We are not sure if this is the case in other countries but a sources told Arab tech blog Teedoz that the hacker is from Saudi Arabia. Yahoo Maktoob.com domain remains safe.

Stay tuned for more detail, in the mean while please let us know Yahoo’s domain situation at your country.

Update1: uk.yahoo.com works in Jordan where the writer of this post lives. One other user confirmed that Yahoo.com is hacked in Jordan

Update 2: Users in Morocco and Bahrain told AC that they have the same problem.

Update 3: Egypt too as the comment below.

Update 4: Qatar joins the list, Algeria working fine as user report.

Update 5: Kuwait and UAE joins the list.

Update 6: Syria and Lebanon joins the list.

Update 7: now it is back in Jordan, Syria and some other Arab countries as of 7:56 pm GMT.

Update 8: Yahoo released the following statement:

“Reports that Yahoo! experienced a denial of service attack in some Arab countries are inaccurate. Some users in the region experienced a redirect, the issue was identified and fixed.”

Yahoo! announced today that it will start running its customer base operation for 9 languages via IBM service delivery center in Cairo, Egypt.

These languages are: Arabic Spanish, German, French, Italian, Turkish, Polish, Romanian, and Russian.

After Yahoo’s acquisition of Maktoob late last year there was fear many employees would be laid off and that the development center would be relocated outside the region.

Since the acquisition insiders have informed us that 60 employees have been fired while Maktoob development center remains in Amman, Jordan. Yahoo’s decision to bring the customer support operation of these languages to Egypt will certainly provide jobs for the region although our hope is to see them hire more engineering jobs. Ideally, we want Yahoo to open an R&D center somewhere in the region which would help develop more technical human capital.

This announcement also could suggest that Yahoo may soon launch Arabic versions of their websites and apps especially since Yahoo! has shut down around 27 Maktoob owned sites. Some of these were duplicates to those from Yahoo(USA). Yahoo has emphasized Yahoo brand and logo over the Maktoob brand.

On events that Yahoo sponsored the brand name “Yahoo Middle East” was used. On Maktoob’s website the word Yahoo! is  much larger than the word Maktoob, indicating emphasis.

UPDATE: Ahmed Nassef, VP and managing director of Yahoo! Middle East told ArabCrunch that there will be No dropping of brand name ‘Maktoob’,” hence the naming of the brand Yahoo! Maktoob. The new brand will be the integration of both.”

Following Yahoo’s announcement of shuting down around 26 Maktoob websites, Yahoo! Middle East has today made another Integration step between Yahoo! and Maktoob, as it unveiled the new brand ‘Yahoo! Maktoob’. Previously known as Maktoob from Yahoo!, the new brand, which is showcased throughout the website further emphasizes the Yahoo! brand name adding more integration to Yahoo! USA own services such Yahoo! Mail.

The Yahoo! Maktoob main website has been redesigned and incorporates the Yahoo! USA look and feel with more streamlined navigation bar on the right and left for the English version with links to Yahoo Mail and Messenger however, a link to Maktoob Mail the first Arabic mail which was launched Maktoob around 2000, still exists. Center boxes emphases political and entertainment news.

The announcement of the new brand ‘Yahoo! Maktoob’ is a significant point for Yahoo! in the Middle East, as it prepares to implement new Yahoo! features, such as Y! search on Maktoob.com channels and additional global Arabic channels, Yahoo said in a press release ArabCrunch just received.

In the press release Ahmed Nassef, Vice President and Managing Director of Yahoo! Middle East commented:

“For the first time, the Yahoo! Maktoob page will integrate the English versions of popular Yahoo! products such as Mail and Messenger, with localised versions to be announced in due time….The new homepage is just the beginning for us, we will continue to innovate and present updated information and relevant content throughout this year.”

I do not know if Yahoo has plans to delete the Maktoob brand, but in the last event Yahoo! Maktoob sponsored they used Yahoo Middle East not Yahoo Maktoob! I will update you shortly with more info stay tuned.

Yahoo! Middle East has today announced the official opening of its new offices in Dubai, UAE and Amman, Jordan. Rich Riley, who joined 1999 when Yahoo! acquired the start up company he co-founded and serve as the Senior Vice President & Managing Director, Yahoo! in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) has travelled to the region in order to host the official inauguration of both sites.

The offices both offer a spacious and fun environment providing staff with nice facilities such as table tennis, foosball, Wii, a café with TV and Sat connection, as well as refreshment machines and kitchen facilities.

Yahoo has been expanding its staff  in the Arab region as they hired recently many people from mid level to executive level.

As ArabCrunch first broke, Yahoo! Middle East acquired Maktoob.com, the leading online community in the Arab world, with more than 19 million unique users, in August 2009.

This acquisition sparked fire to the Arab Internet and tech industry, as now Investors see the exist window wide open to home grown startups, new startups are emerging almost on a weekly bases, new VCs and accelerators are being started and about to launch as ArabCrunch will report soon.

When mergers or acquisitions happen companies tend to close down unsuccessful products or those that overlap with each other. The other effect is downsizing the acquired companies’ staff in which Yahoo fired around 60 employees of Maktoob recently.

For Yahoo the mother company in USA, acquiring or launching sites and services and then shutting them down all together was not something unusual!

Yesterday Yahoo Maktoob users received an email from Yahoo telling them that around 27 sites from Maktoob will be closed. These sites include forums and sites that Maktoob have perviously acquired and paid a large sum of money while others are sites that Maktoob it self has developed and launched in house before Yahoo’s acquisitions.

The list includes a couple of sites that overlaps with current Yahoo services that looks strong internationally: seen and jeem ( general Q&A system) which competes with Yahoo Answers , Zoom ( photo sharing) competes with Flickr.

As7ab Maktoob’s social network is not on the list which might mean that Yahoo will keep it, as it has better features than the the old and failed Yahoo’s social network 360degree, though Yahoo has its own Yahoo Buzz and a social media and networking strategy across its sites, so I expect that As7ab will be linked with that strategy. the other social sharing sites Maktoob Clippat is not on the list as the cause to keep it might be that Yahoo until now did not do well with video sharing.

The other notable site that Yahoo is closing is sh3bwah a forum that unverified sources say that Maktoob paid around 200,000 USD to acquire and was really successful in terms of traffic, I do not know the reason behind the closing, but the site has problems with software piracy.

On the closing list, you will see a number of Islamic sites that provide Islamic content and maktoob’s sites guide and a number of Maktoob Mobile services.

Here is the full list of sites Yahoo will close in Arabic:

فيما يلي المواقع التي سيتم إغلاقها:
- أنا دلوعة
- بطاقات الفراشة
- أحلام الفراشة
- الفراشة سبيس
- الترجمة الفورية
- بطاقات مكتوب
- دليل شمس
- دليل مكتوب
- دليل شبوة
- دليل وصلات
- دليل عيون
- نكت مكتوب
- سين جيم
- شبوة سوفت
- ألبوم شبوة
- موسوعة الأسرة المسلمة
- موسوعة شبوة نت الإسلامية
- تواقيع شبوة سوفت
- التفسير الميسر للقرآن الكريم
- بطاقات تحت العشرين
- وصلات
- وصلات الرياضي
- موبايل
- عالم مكتوب موبايل
- زووم
- قناة المسابقات الثقافية

And now what do you think about Yahoo’s move ?

Yahoo! Middle East recently announced the appointment of Anas Abbar as Head of Product and Product Marketing Management for the organisation responsible for Yahoo! global and regional products in the region. This was announced while I was on ArabNet conference and Anas sets next to me.

Anas Abbar played a major role in enabling technologies to support the Arabic language; he was one of the key contributors of enabling Arabic language on the Microsoft platform. With 18 years of experience, Anas Abbar developed vast experience with global and emerging market responsibilities, focusing on program management, localization, product management and business development.

Ahmed Nassef, Vice President of Yahoo! Middle East comments: “We are extremely thrilled to have Anas Abbar join the team as Head of Product and Product Marketing Management; responsible for Yahoo! global and regional products. As Yahoo! Middle East is set to embark on an exciting phase of its development in the region, we are fortunate to have Anas Abbar’s experience, leadership and proven track record to lead a successful and exceptional product team for the Middle East. We are confident that we will benefit greatly from his extensive knowledge, specifically in product management, Arabisation, localisation and business development in the region.”

On this occasion, Anas (Andy) Abbar, Head of Product and Product Marketing Management for Yahoo! Middle East:

“I am extremely excited about my new role at Yahoo! Middle East. I am confident we will grow our customer base and build the Yahoo! brand as a leader in the region. It is truly a privilege to be part of the Yahoo! organization.”

You can Follow Anas on ArabCrunch.NET here, he is one of ArabCrunch.NET mentors.

ArabCrunch Broke at the global level that Yahoo Acquired Maktoob, today it was announced that the deal was completed on Thursday noon.

Yahoo’s acquisition of Jordan based Maktoob is the first major investment by a US tech company in the Arab region.

As we said before this is a game changer to the startups and the tech scene in the region, as investors will start moving to investing in tech companies as they see the exit window is now open for their companies. An Essential part of the ecosystem that is taking its shape in the region.

We at ArabCrunch have a mission to help startups, innovators and the tech industry in the region, that is why we build ArabCrunch.NET as the first online community for the tech and startups ecosystem in the Arab world and beyond.

Here is the video interview AC made  with Samih Toukan the cofounder of Maktoob and with Keith Nillsson VP Yahoo the second day of the deal:

Creative Commons (CC) is a nonprofit corporation dedicated to make it easier for people to share and build upon the work of others, consistent with the rules of copyright. CC provides free licenses and other legal tools to mark creative work  so others can share, remix, use commercially, or any combination thereof.

With this launch, Jeeran CC channel will have blog posts and media materials on how to use CC in creative work, plus a focus on Aljajzeera CC work http://cc.aljazeera.net and the latest clips from Aljazeera under CC.

The new channel aims to spread CC culture in the Arab world which is close to the OpenSource World.
Jeeran has recently undergone a makeover, introduced other channels under different categories, like Cars, health and so on, which are basically an aggregate of relevant blog posts from its community of bloggers.

Update: Look at the end of the post.

Yahoo’s acquired Maktoob has launched its first application for the iPhone called “Maktoob Dictionary.”

Maktoob Dictionary is a text translation app from English to Arabic and vice versa, it has around 160,000 Arabic and English words and phrases and enables you to bookmark words.

The app also comes with “word of the day” along with its meaning and does not need Internet connection unlike the revolutionary iPhone app “Arabic Language Buddy” from Sakhr which needs Internet connection to translate speech-to-speech Arabic to English and vice versa.

Maktoob’s app is compatible with iPhone Os 3.1 or later and available for free download here.

If you downloaded the free app, you can share your experience via commenting here, as I do not have an iPhone, however I will be using laster my friends iPhone to test it along with Arabic Language Buddy and update you  on AC.

Update: Maktoob Dictionary was developed for Maktoob by iPhoneIslam before Yahoo’s acquisition. iPhoneIslam is founded by Tarek Mansour a 33 Years old man from Cairo, Egypt. The startup specializes in developing iPhone Applications and was the first one to Arabize iPhone.

(via Samih Toukan Maktoob cofounder’s Tweet)

PS: By the way I knew that Maktoob was working on an iPhone app since I saw their job posting asking for an iPhone developer.

Jeeran is an interesting Arab internet company because its story resembles the stories you hear about in Silicon Valley (USA): A Tech startup that starts from the founders’ garage or dorm and then makes it big (example: HP, Yahoo and Google to name a few.)

Jeeran was founded in 2000 by then two Jordanian students and entrepreneurs Omar Koudsi and Laith Zraikat in Amman, Jordan as an Arabic web based WYSIWYG tool to create websites similar to Yahoo’s closed Geocities . The founders learned web development by their own and launched Jeeran.com, first from their homes.

Later on, they got incubated in Amman based incubator iPark. Then Jeeran graduated and opened its own offices and started recruiting more people.

Around 2005, Jeeran added an Arabic blogging platform that is similar to Google’s blogger where users can start their own blogs in Arabic, the platform was in-house developed using Microsoft’s .Net technologies. Today, Jeeran Blogs hosts around 140,000 blogs and competes with Yahoo’s Maktoob Blogs, Albawaba Blogs, along with Blogger and WordPress.com since the last 2 are Arabized now.

In October 2007 Jeeran got funded with around 1 million (JD) Jordanian Dinars according to sources. (0.71 $ USD = 1 JD) From one of the most active regional venture capital firms IV Holdings in the region.

Also in2007 Jeeran launched Khabbr an Arabic clone to the popular social media site Digg. Khabbr has not really taken off like Jeeran blogs or Digg it self. It currently has around 7,500 members and is based on the PHP open source software digg duplicate Pligg.

Around that time, Jeeran also added video and photo sharing and social networking capabilities, however at the time the design of the users profiles was not streamlined like the what you see on facebook, it is more like MySpace HTML customized users’ profiles (MySpace is cleaning up its users profiles design.) In this front Jeeran competes with Ikbis from Jordan, D1G from Jordan AlsoFacebook from USA, Netlog from Belgium and Masrawy from Egypt along with Yahoo! Maktoob’s As7ab.

As a proof that Intel Capital has started to get serious about investing in the region’s tech companies, May 17th 2009 was the day when Jeeran received its second round of funding from Intel Capital along with another IV Holding portfolio, ShooFeeTV. The amount of funding was not disclosed and I have not heard a solid number yet.

As with Khabbr, Jeeran maintained its what I call Give Them A New Brand Name strategy for its new projects, when In June 2009 it launched its new offshoot and a very good replacement for the Forum based Arabic poetry websites: Sejaal.com a web 2.0 community for Arab poets that also offers poetry competitions.
Jeeran is also an Investor in Talasim a Jordan based “Arabic comedy” website, that I referred to as useless website with some silly content. A comment that one of its founders was not happy with when he approached me yesterday during Amman Twetfestival event. (Sorry it is not a personal attack, but I do not like allot of the content on Talasim and I am free to express my opnion )

Very recently Jeeran launched a new subsidiary called Jeeran Research a research agency tailored to the Arab world that competes directly with Yahoo’s Matoob Research.

Today, Jeeran claims a 1.4 million unique registered members and over 7 million unique visitors per month (April 2009). Though, some sources told me that most of Jeeran traffic is going to Jeeran blogs, however this information could not be verified.

Though Jeeran story is similar to Silicon Valley success stories since it got started using very few resources, it took its founders a longer time to get funding, than any of their US based counter parts and has not realized an exit yet.

This is true, partly because back in 2000 and mostly until now there were few, if any active Venture Capitalist (VCs) and tech investors in the region. Let alone that international tech investors did not look seriously to the tech industry in Arabia.

Saying that, I am sure that Yahoo’s Maktoob acquisition of Maktoob is a game changer along with the Internet giant Google’s serious efforts in the region. As I said before when AC broke the acquisition news, now VCs and Investors alike see an exit to their investments, which would diffidently change their view to the returns of their investments in Tech Industry around the Arab world, a view that ArabCrunch has been trying to change for a while now by giving FREE buzz on this blog to tech entrepreneurs and the industry in general in this region along with events such as ARABCRUNCH DEMO.

Stay tuned for more details about Jeeran and IV holding on ArabCrunch as I have promised before to Interview separately Omar Koudsi the cofounder and CEO of Jeeran and Emile Cubeisythe managing director of IV HOLDINGS, but due to the busy schedule the official interviews never took place. But Inshallah soon I will do separate interviews with both of them.

#University of Jordan Photo by Roba Al-Asi.

Jeeran one of the popular social media communities in the Arab world has  recently launched a new subsidiary called Jeeran Research a research agency tailored to the Arab world (they call it MENA !) that competes directly with Yahoo’s Matoob Research.

The new company is using a new reward based Arabic/English survey community called Nazrati –(Arabic meaning: my point of view) to collect consumer data and analyze research for participating companies.

Nazrati is using opt-in methods for users to participate in online surveys, polls and community discussions. In return Jeeran Research will offer its members rewards. Currently it is offering giveaways that value rang from 1000$, 500, 400 down to 100$. According to Nazarti’s website the reward scheme will be based on  monthly and quarterly prize draws.
Like Yahoo’s Maktoob Research, Jeeran Research will be used primary by companies operating in the Arab world, to gauge users’ opinion and feedback which would help companies fine tune their product and marketing strategies.

(Next post the Story of Jeeran.)

Yesterday, the second day after the biggest news in the Arab Internet world since ever -Yahoo! Acquisition of Maktoob- I had the chance to record a video Interview with Keith Nillsson Senior Vice President International Emerging Markets Yahoo and Samih Toukan Co-Founder of Maktoob, now Director of Jabbar.

The 15 minutes interview covers topic ranging from, future plans for Yahoo Middle East, where Yahoo| Maktoob R&D will be done.? The relationship between Jabbar (The new company that used to be named Maktoob Group) and Yahoo.

One important point is that Kalimat the Pay-Per-Click contextual advertising system that runs on Araby.com will not only be running on iKoo network of publishers that serves 1.4 billion monthly impressions to over 39 million unique users, but also on Yahoo Middle East that has 20 Million on Yahoo, 16 million on Maktoob (There must be some duplicated users) thus posing a serious challenge to Google’s Adwords in the region.

PS: I tried around 10 times to upload the Video since yesterday but failed, each session took me around 2 hours. If there is anyone to blame it is Orange Jordan’s’ ISP division that forces download limits. So I went to the mall and used Kulacom WIMMAX Internet services.

Here is the Video:
(This Video is shot using Nokia 5800 Xpress Music, hence the quality.)



Yahoo |Maktoob: Interview with Keith Nillsson VP Yahoo and Samih Toukan, cofounder Maktoob مكتوب و ياهو لقاء مع from Gaith on Vimeo.

ArabCrunch broke the news at the global level, that Yahoo has acquired Maktoob and I updated the acquisition post and wrote with the completion of the deal, the remaining Maktoob Group companies – including Souq.com an e-commerce and auction website, cashU.com online payment card , Araby.com an Arabic search engine, and Tahadi.com an MMO games provider – will operate under a new entity called the Jabbar Internet Group , managed by Samih Toukan cofounder of Maktoob.

E-Marketing MENA which we profiled here, was recently completely acquired by Jabbar and rebranded to iKoo, sources told ArabCrunch it was at a market valuation of 20 million USD.
E-Marketing MENA (now iKoo) which was founded by Khaled Jabasini using only$15,000 USD of investments  has become the largest online advertising network in the Arab world. Now serving 1.4 billion impressions, with a reach to 39 million unique users in the Arab world, according to Khaled Jabasini. That is around a 50% increase of last February  stats of 780 million monthly banner impressions and over 19 million unique users.

Khaled Jabasini was a speaker at ARABCRUNCH DEMO and eMarketing MENA was a platinum sponsor to our event.

According to sources, Maktoob Group (now JABBAR) was an unannounced investor in E-Marketing MENA with majority shares of 75% since 2006, but now they had acquired the remaining share of Khaled, that makes Khaled the first self-made Internet millionaire from the Arab world. Former Maktoob Chief Product Officer, Isam Bayazidi is appointed as General Manager of iKoo.

AlKhaleejiah Online which is part Saudi Research and Marketing Group that has a network of websites that includes the online editions of more than 25 of the most well known regional multilingual newspapers and magazines is part of ikoo’s network of 120 plus publishers.

Seems like  iKoo is an acquisition target for Google, which some say might not be too long to happen.

According to Maktoob Business, as part of the acquisition deal, Yahoo! and the Jabbar Internet Group will continue to have a strong commercial relationship going forward, which will include the promotion of Jabbar companies on the Maktoob.com portal.

Update: Video Interview here.

More Updates here: Jabbar acquired e-Marketing MENA.

Update: Yahoo press release is at the end of this post, Financial terms were not disclosed, but my sources say the deal is over than 100 million.

Update: As we said other Maktoob websites that are not branded under Maktoob name will be called “Jabbar” a new company separate from Yahoo! (souq.com, Cashu, tahadi MMO games, Araby.com and Maktoob Research.) maktoob.com will be called  Yahoo Middle East and products will be cobranded Yahoo and Maktoob. ( ArabCrunch was 1st to break the acquisition deal world wide.)

Update: It is official, YAHOO buying maktoob! Yahoo has 20 million users in the Arab world maktoob 16 million according to Maktoob Business.

Update: After 2 days Yahoo products will be made Arabic and content Arabized. Yahoo Messenger and Yahoo Mail will be first to be Arabized.

Keith Neillson VP emerging markets Yahoo! was speaking spoke during the press conference.

Updates before the press conference confirmation:

Update1: Story is folding,  Yahoo will announce in a press conference shortly.

Update2: The number is bigger than 100 million USD, a source told AC was told.

Update 3: The deal will include maktoob.com but not maktoob group as I was told, stay tuned for updates here.

The talks between Yahoo and Maktoob have been around for 2 years now, but in the last few months, it was confirmed to ArabCrunch that the talks are serious.

Yesterday 24th of August 2009 was historical day for the Arab Internet and Tech industry if the news tips we got were proven to be right (Confirmed and the press conferences is up now), as according to reliable sources Yahoo team signed a deal to acquire Maktoob the largest Arab portal yesterday, the price is not clear but estimated at around 100 million USD. (Update: Financial terms were not disclosed, but my sources say they are more than 100 million USD.)

Update: According to the sources, there will be a press conference soon with half an hour.

This deal is significant, because it is the largest acquisition that happened in the tech sector in the Arab world since ever. It means allot, now Venture Capitalist (VC) and investors will see that there is an exit in funding they put into startups from the Arab world. Which means there will be more VCs and funding activities happing in the Arab world, which means more Arab startups and more jobs!

What we need next, is to see a world class IPO for an internet or a technology startup from the Arab world especially in the Internet space.

Maktoob started back  around  1997 as the first Arabic web-based email, founded in Amman, Jordan by Samih Toukan and Husam Khouri. The web-based email reached around 115000 users within a year, the company received funding from EFG HERMEZ and then Abbraaj Capital which sold its equity to Tiger Global Management. Maktoob now operates over a dozen of websites under Maktoob brand ranging from search (via Araby.com) web mail, social networking, blogging platform, sports, Q&As, photo and video sharing. Today Maktoob visitors stand around 16 million a month, as the largest portal in the Arab world from the Arab world.

Official press release from Maktoob Business:

“RELEASE: Yahoo! Maktoob acquisition

Aug 25, 2009

Yahoo! to Extend Reach to Millions of Consumers in the Arab World; Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Maktoob.com

Combination of local expertise and global scale to provide best online experience for consumers in the Arab world and platform for advertisers in the region

SUNNYVALE, Calif. & DUBAI, Aug 25, 2009 — Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO) today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Maktoob.com, the leading online community in the Arab world, with more than 16.5 million unique users.

“This acquisition will accelerate Yahoo!’s strategy of expanding in high-growth emerging markets where we believe Yahoo! has unparalleled opportunity to become the destination of choice for consumers,” said Yahoo! chief executive officer Carol Bartz. “Access to information and communications tools can positively impact people’s lives in many ways, and with the acquisition of Maktoob.com and our investment in the region, the Arab world will soon get a Yahoo! experience in Arabic with relevant local language content, programming and services.”

Internet users in the region will benefit from the combination of Yahoo!’s popular products and services with Maktoob’s compelling local content, which today reaches one in three people online throughout the Arab world. This acquisition will extend Yahoo!’s current offerings by adding capabilities to deliver relevant Arabic-language content and services, as well as Arabic versions of Yahoo!’s popular Yahoo! Messenger and Yahoo! Mail services. Maktoob.com is accessed by users in countries that include UAE, Jordan, Kuwait, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

“Yahoo! and Maktoob are natural partners and this combination should help energize the Internet market in the region as a whole. We are excited about Yahoo! building a stronger presence in the Middle East and bringing its compelling suite of services to Arab users in Arabic,” said Samih Toukan, Founder of Maktoob.

While Internet usage in the Middle East has grown more than tenfold since 2000, most markets are still in the early stages of adoption. According to the World Bank, there are more than 320 million Arabic speakers worldwide, while less than one per cent of all online content is in Arabic.

With Yahoo! and Maktoob.com’s combined audience and platform, advertisers will have access to the reach and sophisticated targeting capabilities they need to effectively engage with the region’s online consumers. Spending on online advertising is expected to grow by 35 – 40 percent this year in the region, according to Madar Research.

“Internet users in the Arab world will have access to Yahoo!’s vast content portfolio, as well as world-class communications products, which will be available in Arabic for the first time. In addition, advertisers will be able to leverage the vast reach of the newly combined audiences to effectively market to consumers across the region,” said Ahmed Nassef, general manager of Maktoob.com.

Maktoob.com was founded in 2000 by Samih Toukan and Hussam Khoury as the world’s first free Arabic/English Web-based email service, and since then has grown to be the leading Arab online community in the region.

“Yahoo is acquiring Maktoob.com for the strong brand and audience it has built over the last nine years and the passionate team they have assembled, which we believe is the strongest in the region,” said Keith Nilsson, senior vice president, Emerging Markets, Yahoo! “We see great growth potential in both audience and advertising in the Arab world and combining with Maktoob.com will allow us to quickly build our presence there with high quality products. This is a big win for publishers, advertisers, and consumers in the region.”

This acquisition is part of Yahoo!’s larger strategy to grow its business throughout the world’s emerging markets by connecting consumers with the content and services that matter most to them in their local language. The company’s Emerging Markets business group, headquartered in Singapore, is responsible for Yahoo!’s fastest growing markets such as South East Asia, India, Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East. Yahoo! has a strong track record of delivering great Internet experiences and helping fuel Internet adoption through partnerships with local developers and content providers.

Following the acquisition, Maktoob.com will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Yahoo!. Ahmed Nassef, the current general manager of Maktoob.com, will continue to lead the Maktoob.com teams and will report to Keith Nilsson. It is expected that the transaction will be completed in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Upon completion of the deal, the remaining Maktoob Group companies – including Souq.com, cashU.com, Araby.com, and Tahadi.com – will operate under a new entity called the Jabbar Internet Group, managed by Samih Toukan. Yahoo! and the Jabbar Internet Group will continue to have a strong commercial relationship going forward, which will include the promotion of Jabbar companies on the Maktoob.com portal.

Financial terms were not disclosed.”

Massive multiplayer online game (MMOG or MMO)  is a type video games which is capable of supporting hundreds or thousands of players simultaneously and played over the Internet.  MMO games are becoming very popular recently across the world, but since many Games have many unsuitable characters and aspects to the culture and the religion of the Arab world, a new company called Tahadi which means “challenge” in Arabic has made its mission to customize the best of the MMO games to the Arab world in adherence with the Arabic and Islamic culture.

Tahadi has recently beta launched in Arabic and English a customized version of one the most popular MMO role-playing games in the world Ragnarok, “there are no magicians and the dress code is suitable to the region” Tamer El-Nasser technical manager of Tahadi told ArabCrunch.

Islam considers magic to be an act of blasphemy.

Ragnarok is based on the myths of the ancient Vikings. Players can create characters and venture off alone or in groups and explore the wide and wondrous virtual world of Rune-Midgard. This fully 3D digital world is filled with landscapes, deep dungeons filled with creatures, and cities and towns.

In Ragnarok, Players will gain strength and renown as they conquer the challenges of Rune-Midgard by engaging in numerous activities such as hunting, questing, crafting, player-vs-player combat, raiding dungeons, and laying sieges to guild houses.

To play the game the player has to install the free game client that has 1.2 GB of size. Tahdi has made the client available via : web download, Torrent download, or free delivery via Aramex, or the user can collect the game client’s DVD from any 700 Internet Cafés Tahdi has partnered with in Egypt.

El-Nasser said that one of the game advantages that they have what is called “game masters”- a 24 hours dedicated online team that provides help and support to the game players “this is not available on other sites.” El-Nasser said.

Tahadi Games which a subsidiary of the Maktoob Group of companies, plans to make money in the future from advertising and in game items purchase, however “Ragnarok” will be free for ever according to El-Nasser. The company also plans to launch more games tailored to the Arab world very soon.

Here is a live preview of Ragnarok:




Since its inspection in around 1997, Maktoob The world’s largest Arab online community, has been focusing in Arabic content. To this date there are few English services within Maktoob.com or Maktoob Group.

Maktoob.com’s relaunched and upgraded English business portal, now called Maktoob Business would be Maktoob’s biggest English service to date.

Maktoob Business focuses on regional and international business related content. The Portal is very rich with content and is divided into 7 channels: BUSINESS, NEWS, MAKTOOBfn, SPORT, PHOTOS, and RESOURCES.

Each Channel has videos from bloombarg and discussion forums. Also a nice feature called News in Numbers: the top mentioned stories in the last 7 days in companies, sector, people and tags.

The news source seems to be the top wires such as Reuters and AFP. However users can comment on each news story and Google map widget will show you the location where the story happened or main effect is. 

Here is a break down into what each channel has:

• BUSINESS Channel has sub categories such as Economy, Real Estate Energy, Banking & Investment, Transportation, Industry, Consumer, Culture & Leisure. Etc.
• The MAKTOOBFN includes: Companies, Markets, Commodities. This channel includes market data for FROEX and the regional stock exchanges
• Sports: sports news, I do not know how it is related to business?
• RESOURCES channel includes Polls, recent Events in the region, Company Announcements and jobs.
• NEWS includes: Gulf, Middle East, and South Asia.
• PHOTOS: related to the latest business news in the region.

The design of the site is very nice and much better than before. However one thing I think they need to improve is the search, I tried to find an article that was posted last year but could not find.

Maktoob Business competes with other business regional portals such as Zawya  and AmeInfo . From them I see Zawya being in top, as it is easier to navigate and find what you want and has richer content, though many features of Zawya requires paid subscriptions.

Maktoob Business has evolved over time, it was based on Maktoob’s acquisition  of a regional business portal (Unfortunately I forgot its name) that used to syndicate companies’ press releases, and used to be run by 2 men. 

Last month I reported on ArabCrunch that facebook launched Arabic beta, but as of today yeserday its officially launched along with Hebrew according to Ghassan Haddad, ‎Director of Internationalization‎ at facebook.

As with all other Facebook international languages translation, facebook Arabic and Hebrew was translated by the community of volunteers, with around 2.130 Arab translators while in Hebrew it is 2,103 , Arab translators submitted 29.294 Translations, while the Hebrew translators submitted 34,666 translations.

Both Arabic and Hebrew are Semitic languages and both are different than English thus have some challenges when used on the Web. Both languages begins in writing at the right-hand side of the page and ends on the left, so Facebook managed this challenge by making the design and the layout of the interface for both languages accommodate both languages’ special features.

Another challenge that facebook managed to tackle is that in Arabic and Hebrew, two words with the same meaning are used differently based on whether a person is male or female so they developed a feature they called “dynamic explosion”, which detects a person’s gender and selects the matching translation according to Haddad.

Arabic is the official language of more than 20 different countries including Palestine, Iraq, Algeria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, but each country has a different dialect, in which not every person from a certain Arabic dialect understand all others, and many times a certain word means something else in another Arabic dialect. So facebook used the official Arabic called Al Fusha ( الفصحى) – the Arabic dialect of Quran – which is the standard language used in media, publishing and other formal and religious circles.

Testing the Arabic interface of facebook, revels that facebook and the community have done a great job, the translation is accurate and I would say better than the translation I see in many Google products! However there are more Phrases that needs to be translated to Arabic such as “Email Friend Finder” , according to facebook Translations app there are still 9.420 untranslated phrases to Arabic while for Hebrew the number is 586 (Hebrew speakers are around 5 million!)

This launch is a mile stone for Facebook and Arab Internet users especially in countries where Arabic is the only language people know such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, (Arabs are around 400 million people, and only around 35 million are internet users.)

Facebook has regional competitors such as Maktoob’s As7ab and Jeeran, ArabFriendz and Kalam.

But to my perception and from the perception of the people I know Facebook by far is the most popular social network in the Arab world, even before launching the Arabic version, and it seems facebook is doing ok in monetizing its Arabic user base, I always see ads on facebook using its DIY advertising application, in Jordan where I am based, the same case happened while logged in to facebook in my last visits to Egypt and Lebanon in the last 2 months.

Facebook is now available in 40 languages with over 60 more in development, but according to Haddad facebook “goal is to make Facebook available in every language across the world.”

Conclusion:

OF all the other Arab social Networks, I find As7ab the most advanced, it has the nicest and easiest to use interface among its rivals ( excluding facebook), and shares many features of both facebook and MySpace such as profile customization using HTML, Networks, Groups, Events, Photo and Video sharing, Blogs, Gifts, and Celebrities (like facebook Fan page).

Maktoob which is the largest Arab home grown portal with around 14 million visitors per month and other Arabic social networks are challenged by Facebook move specially in countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, but as Ala’a A. Ibrahim a Zend Certified Enginer commented “believe me a lot of the users who are using Jeeran or As7ab or … etc, already have facebook accounts, but they think of it as another place to get dates.”

Though Maktoob is stronger in other features as a full regional Arabic portal like Yahoo, I think they need to integrate all their sub sites and features with As7ab and release an API for third party developers, in order to make As7ab more of a Social network for Arabs rather than one of those sites I have account at or dating website. Until this happen I see Facebook will remain the Social Network of Choice for Arabs.

2 days ago Facebook announced on the homepage (once logged in) that face book in English UK is available. The drop down menu offered an array of  international languages including Arabic as beta.

Before Arabic was only available in the facebook’s translation app. Now it is an option for any user to add it without installing the app.

The interface is now completely in Arabic, and was translated by facebook users themselves. Where translated content could be voted by users in order to verify its accuracy.

 This move will take any language advantage of any Arabic social network. like Maktoob’s As7ab and Jeeran.

By far, millions of Arabs use facebook everyday, even those who do not know English well, I’ve seen guys with little English skills use facebook, even though they do not understand everything yet they managed to use its main tasks. Now all they have to do is go to account>>setting>> and chose Arabic as the language. Note that there are many Arabs who know English well and would feel more comfortable reading and writing in Arabic more than any other language. 

Citizen journalism takes more uptime on hot news, remember London bombings? The first images were shot by mobile camera, and today the first reports of Mumbai bombing came from citizen journalism via twitter and images on flickr.

So Aljazeera launching of Sharek (an Arabic word which means participate) is smart way to get breaking news and exclusive content for the channel from people who were on site. But those people have to know Arabic as for the time being Sharek is only in Arabic. 

Aljazeera’s Sharek is part of the new redesign of Aljazeera Arabic homepage, which is half way to full customization of Aljazeera’s news.

With Sharek users can upload news videos and/or pic through the web site, or send it via mobile phone or email to sharek@aljazeera.net. Where Aljazeera may publish it on the site or on TV.

Citizen journalism has been around for years now, in the Arab world Maktoob has a section in its news website that allows anyone to publish news. International news station CNN has iReporter , but unlike both of them Sharik uploaded content is handpicked by Aljazeera’s editors to make sure the story is true before it is published, which is a good policy to keep real news from lies. As One of iReporter’s user once published that the CEO of Apple has a cancer which led to depreciation of Apple’s stock value, and put CNN in an embarrassing situation.

Maktoob’s news is full of non news worthy content, but its use of citizen journalism has been kind of successful in its sport channel.( see Editor’s note on the comparison with Wikeez here.)

The first company to use Citizen journalism years ago was the south Korean company OhmyNews , another company is NowPublic the Canadian company that bought Trumors from Guy Kawasaki. 

Last week, search engine Onkosh distributed prizes to the winners of the Soduko competition held during Ramadan on www.onkosh.com.

Sudoko Winners:
Soduko relies on logical mathematical analysis and has recently gained popularity amongst young and old. Ten thousand three hundred and fifty-one players (10,351) from 90 countries, 20 of which were Arab countries, took part in the competition with first place going to Bassem Ibrahim who won a Nintendo Wii game console. The second prize went to Taha Alaa who won a Sony Cybershot digital camera while Rana Mustapha came in third place winning an LCD monitor.

Participants in the competition had to solve 81,924 soduko puzzles at the rate of 26 puzzles per participant. The puzzles were divided into three levels of complexity to accommodate all players.  The first level attracted many participants solving 54,901 soduko puzzles while players in the second level solved 14,196 puzzles and players in the third and most advanced level solved 12,827 puzzles. Winners received their prizes at the company’s headquarters in the presence of the technical team responsible for the development of Onkosh.com.

Onkush Competition:

Launched at GITEX 2007, Onkosh.com provides a host of search capabilities to Arab users who can search for sites, photos, forums, files and blogs as well as news services available on the website. In its Arabic search product, Onkush competes with Araby from Maktoob, Ayna.com Google, Yahoo and (MSN) Live.com.

Onkosh.com also was one of the first to invent transliteration of Arabic Language, that allows users to search in Arabic by writing Arabic words using Latin Alphabet without having to install Arabic support on the device. In this front Onkush competes with Yamli, though it does not have an editor, an API facebook application and iGoogle Gadget like Yamli. A quick test between the 2 services reveled that Yamli is more accurate and faster, take “waladu” for example and test them in both sites.

The other Arabic transliteration product which launch caused allot of criticism is Ta3reeb from Google, I have reviewed Ta3reeb here.

Onkush is Orascom Telecom subsidiary. A telecom, mobile, ISP, web hosting and online media and emarketing giant in the Arab world. Where they have a number of online properties including MSN Arabia in partnership with Microsoft, which is the Middle East version of MSN. Which makes you wonder why Onkush is not integrated with msn Arabia search?

UPDATE: see Editor’s note bellow.

I have received from Delphine Eddé the founder of Wikeez an email answering my questions and giving more insight into Wikeez:

Who are we ?
An online community for fans !
As you said it  in your article we’re a social entertainment site, it defines it very well !

Wether your are fan of a movie, an actor, a football club … you can share your passion on Wikeez  with other fans and find all the latest information you need

Wikeez is a platform that will allow crowd sourcing via blogs, discussions and comments from members. We want to focus more on quick and personal post , not only text but also videos and photos.
Every member can discuss with other, create its own group of fan, vote, comment, create a blog or add post from an existing blog, and even add a celebrity/ movie/tv shows … if he finds enough fans to support him !  etc
Wikeez will give the user every feature and functionality to help him be an even more active fan.

Wikeez is an arab world dedicated web site : today we feel there are not enough sites focusing on arabic stars or football players for example, and we don’t want to be in a content dominated by Hollywood stories.

It is by default in arabic, with an English version available.

The business model is based on advertising revenues only.

Our difference:
It is close to digg in regards to the voting system for contents, and the possibility for blogger to highlight their contents.
It is close to facebook in the creation of groups.
It is unique as it is linked to users passions centered around (on) movies, celebrities, tv shows, music and football (more sports will be added later)

Our target
Middle Eastern Young Adults, 20-35 years old

The Launch
Our launch strategy is in 2 steps

First: use social media to diffuse the information for the alpha and béta versions. We had 235 friends in facebook in less than one week, and 70 in Flickr …
We are planning to launch the Alpha version in 3 weeks, it will be on invitation only – and of course you’ll be one of the first to get one!!

Second: Go to general public when we have a full web site (full in terms of content, (whether) from journalists or members). There will be media promotion.
The general public launch is planned for January.

The Founders
Delphine Eddé ,33 years old (female).
Work experience: in France for 11 years in advertising, web strategy (DDB) and online media (CondéNet) .

We are today 5 in our team, planning to be 8 in 2 weeks and around 12 in two months.

Editor’s note:

The most famous Arab Sports destinations are Kooora and Maktoob’s Sport4Ever ( aL Rihad Lil Abad)

Kooora (which means a ball and Arabic) has the most comprehensive sports information, locally regional and Internationally, TV schedule, and a forum with 4810 members, and it is ranked 255 on Alexa, making it the most visited sports website in the Arab world. Koora’s content is produced in house.

While Sport4Ever has less visitors but it has web 2.0 features where users can upload and share videos and photos related to sports and commenting on different content, plus posting sport news and features (citizen journalism for sports), while editors do add most of the content they chose which of the users content goes to the front page. Sport4Ever has also a forum but with 509 members only (even though it emerged from being a popular Arabic sports forum and then was acquired by maktoob and changed to today’s shape). It has more things than Kooora such as: Dream teams, Casual games for different types of sports, and SMS subscription.

Though Kooora is more famous because it was one of being the first in the market, and the depth and comprehension of its sports content but the site design is not old fashioned.

So there are an established competitors in the sports category who miss Wikeez in a number of features: Aggregation, voting, groups, and social networking, but who in turn offer timely news and other features that Wikeez does not have yet.

Though the concept of users building a fan group, where the celebrity that gets the most traction, is unique way in determining the most famous celebrity, mine would be Zain Eden Zedan .

As for TV shows and movies I do not know any such service if you know please let us know in your comment.

It would be rather interesting see how Wikeez actually will work out, I Think for TV shows that silly Turkish show Muhand and Noor will be in top.

Yamli .com takes on major challenge to arabic content on the web

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. –  Yamli.com one of my best Arab startups has released a free API that allows the easy integration of its award-winning Arabic transliteration technology into any website. Yamli’s Smart Arabic Keyboard allows users to type Arabic using Latin characters by converting their words in real time into Arabic text. Third-party websites using the API can reach a larger group of Arabic speaking visitors who would otherwise find typing Arabic difficult.

According to co-founder Habib Haddad, “We are very excited about making this technology available to any website for free.  We hope it will encourage every user to be more engaged with the Arabic language not only on Yamli.com but on all Arabic sites and blogs. Our approach makes a significant contribution to the Arabic web by actually reducing the proliferation of transliterated Arabic words and converting them into real Arabic words,” concluded Haddad.

Various studies show that a large portion of Arabic internet users shy away from typing Arabic, choosing instead to write Arabic phonetically using Latin characters in an ad-hoc and informal fashion.  The transliteration of Arabic words and the limited availability of Arabic keyboards have stymied the use of Arabic on the web.  By making it easy for everyone to type in Arabic, Yamli.com is making the Arabic language more accessible for every day users, and helping to promote Arabic content on the web.

According to George Akra, Co-founder of Ikbis.com, “I think Yamli is one of the most innovative and useful services in the region, plugging the API to our site was easy and lead to the increase of Arabic comments on Ikbis.com. The simplicity and accuracy of the service is just remarkable,” concluded Akra.

The technology allows users to fully engage with Arabic content on blogs, e-commerce, social networking, education, government, video and music websites.  The API, which has been undergoing testing since March with selected partners, such as Maktoob, Annahar (Arabic Link), Moheet) Arabic Link), ART TV (Arabic Link), 3alarasi, and Babnet (Frensh Arabic Link) has already been used by hundreds of thousands of users already.

According to Sami Tueni, the General Manager of Naharnet.com, “Yamli is the best contribution to the Arab web. So easy to implement, it was the long awaited tool to help the Arabic language flourish online,” concluded Tueni.

You can get more info about the API at here.

Yamli according to Haddad is currently working on a massive project revolving around oneline Arabic search engine, Haddad did not tell me more, but I speculate it might be semantic Arabic search. Who knows we’ll wait and see.

ArabCrunch will add Yamli API very soon, accordingly I will write a review. stay tuned.

About Yamli.com

Yamli.com is a property of Language Analytics LLC, a software startup based in Cambridge, MA, that specializes in smart transliteration technologies for Arabic and other languages.  For more information, visit their website, at www.yamli.com

Araby (Arabic Link) the Arabic search engine from Jordan based Maktoob Group- which attracts more than 13 million unique users- has added new features.

The first new feature is categorized search, where all inbound searches to Araby are categories under different categories and displayed at the front page of Araby. search categories include: Family, Woman, Poetry, Holly Quran, Money and Business, Sports, Arab Actors, TV and Cinema, Games, etc.

Auto complete for search keywords at the search box, is the other new upgrade to the search system, where the system ajaxlly displays suggested and relevant search words after the user types the second letter, and the list keeps being updated with each additional letter, in away similar to Yahoo search but here in Arabic. Though suggested search on Araby only works on the front page.

The third new feature is search help where it displays on the left side of the search results page search keywords that are closer and further to the entered search key word.

It is worth mentioning that Araby has a self service advertising system similar to Adwords and Adsense called Kalimat Araby. Araby competes head to head with Google Arabic and Ayna from Lebanon.