MonsterGulf.com, one of Middle East’s leading online career and recruitment solutions providers, today launched Monster application for mobile devices on Windows Phone platform, the app gives job seekers and career minded professionals the to search for jobs and explore new career opportunities. The new application can be downloaded through Monstergulf.com and Windows Phone Marketplace.
Commenting on the launch, Sanjay Modi, Managing Director, Monster.com (India/ Middle East/ South East Asia) said, “We are excited to introduce our latest addition, Monster Windows Phone app, to our robust suite of Monster Mobile Solutions. Microsoft has taken a unique and fresh approach with Windows Phone, and it is great to see the rapid growth of these devices. At Monster, our goal is to connect seekers to the right career opportunities by giving them a variety of mobile and web site options that meet their job search needs. We are confident that new media, especially mobile technology will continue to play a pivotal role in empowering jobseekers. At Monster, we are committed to bringing about best in class innovations leveraging latest technologies to help seekers access job opportunities by their preferred method.”

For job seekers, the new app provides:
On the move access: Seekers will now have Mobile access to available jobs on Monstergulf.com;
Search and apply on the move: Seekers can now view and apply to job postings directly from their windows Smartphone
Pinned permanently on dash board: Jobseekers can pin the application to the Windows mobile Home screen and once a section/feature is pinned, it is “always-on” on the user’s start screen, as a “Tile” allowing him to directly navigate to the pinned section within application and thereby driving higher user engagement.
Fresh Jobs: Jobseekers will get fresh jobs alert matching their profile. The alerts will be available on the start screen for pinned applications.

Twitter trending topics are the most discussed topics on Twitter, last year Twitter added local trending topics to some US cities and some countries around the world, where it buzzed the most discussed topic coming from a given location. However now we can see United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Turkey were added to the list , where users can see trending topics from UAE and Turkey. We do not know when these 2 locations were added, a user told us it has been there for a while

Looking at UAE trending topics we found some of them similar to those trending worldwide, with the exception of hashtag #Syria and #Egypt. As we can see all trending topics are in English due to the high presence of expats in UAE. According to latest estimation there are around 2 million Twitter users in UAE:
#Top100Lies
#ThingsWeDoDuringExams

General  Michael Hayden, United States Air Force (USAF), Retired, former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Deputy Director of the National Security Agency (NSA) is the keynote speaker at Black Hat Abu Dhabi.  He will share his insights on “cyber security and cyber threats in a changing world”.

lack Hat, the world’s leading information security conference, will take place from the 12th to 15th December 2011 at Emirates Palace.  The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) represented by the UAE Computer Emergency Response Team (aeCERT), in cooperation with Khalifa University of Science, Technology and Research (KUSTAR) with UBM are responsible for bringing Black Hat to the Middle East for the second year in a row.

Mohammed Al Nasser Al Ghanim, Director General, TRA, and aeCERT said, “We are extremely pleased to have General Hayden as the keynote speaker for Black Hat Abu Dhabi 2011; as security continues to be at the top of the list of priorities for enterprises and governments in the region, his experience in running two of the most well respected security agencies in the world will provide invaluable insight to CIOs in the region.”

General Michael Hayden, Ret. served as director of the CIA (2006-2009) and deputy director of National Intelligence (2005-2006) when world events were changing at an accelerated rate.  He was also appointed to the post of director of the NSA from 1999-2005 by President Clinton.

Black Hat Abu Dhabi will offer a full range of sessions, including ten training programmes, followed by three briefing sessions running simultaneously to the exhibition.  The two days of briefings will discuss and demonstrate the latest and most important security issues facing the market today.

AreebaAreeba a business social network geared towards residents of the Arab world has reported reaching 650 thousand registered users from 110 countries, in less than a year since its launch.

The Dubai based AreebaAreeba offers smiler functionality to Linkedin, users can post status update where other users can comment on them, start and join groups, blogs and events and discuss topics on forums. However looking at the site you see there is not much activity and user generated content.

Apple has opened today its online store in UAE, not to be confused with Apple’s App store, Apple online store enables consumers buy Apple’s hardware and software online.

Now residents in UAE can buy online from Apple products such as iPhone, iPad, iMac, iPods and MacBook Pro at prices lower than those in the physical reseller market and deviled to their addresses in 3 days. Apple is also offering free delivery for orders with over than 520 AED.

Scapehouse is a new social media site that might a little bet late to the Google+ game. the startup comes with a new vision for online discussion,

On facebook people share stuff with their friends only, on Twitter the game is different, people share with their followers who do not have to be their friends.

Scapehouse brings both: users can share stuff with their friends only or with friends and followers, something that is close to the idea of Google+ main feature: circles. The site brings full news feed page, where users activities of commenting or liking an update is visible.

Unlike Twitter, updating a post is not limited to 140 characters, and users can comment on each update in a chronicle order and can like or dislike it. Resharing an update is also available on Scapehouse and can be shared with friends only or with both friends and followers, with the option to add comment of the shared content.

Abdullah Khan cofounder of site who is the from Karachi Pakistan and currently lives in UAE told AC that they have been working on the site 6 months now and have launched in beta around 2 months ago, before Google+. ( the other cofounder is Ali Razzouk : From Aleppo Syria, Living in Dubai UAE.)

Now that Google+ has gained 10 million users in 2 weeks since its launch, Scapehouse has a challenging time to compete, But it was a nice idea nevertheless. Would you use it?

Updated: below the post.

Dan Stuart CEO & founder of GoNabit confirmed that LivingSocial has acquired GoNabit. He told ArabCrunch that LivingSocial does not want to disclose terms of the deal.

He said “we have high plans and high expectation and we will expand to new markets” GoNabit is now a LivingSocial company “and likely down the road we will take their brand as they have awesome technology.” But he did not specify when.

Update: GoNabit sent us the acquisition  announcement press release here it is:

LivingSocial-GONABIT DEAL MARKS First E-COMMERCE ACQUISITION FOR MIDDLE EAST

Regional market set to mature with entry of world-leading local commerce brand

Dubai, UAE, 28 June 2011 – The acquisition of GoNabit.com, the Middle East’s original group-buying website, by LivingSocial, the online source for handpicked experiences at a great value, marks a milestone development for the region’s e-commerce industry. The deal is the first large-scale acquisition of an e-commerce company in the Middle East and signals further market maturity as one of the world’s leading local commerce brands enters the region. Under the new agreement, GoNabit will become a LivingSocial company.

Approached by several international group-buying players, GoNabit chose to partner with LivingSocial because of a clear alignment with the company’s vision and values. With a shared mission to create exciting and affordable experiences for members and valuable new marketing opportunities for merchant partners, GoNabit says the acquisition enables them to better serve their stakeholders and continue to pioneer e-commerce in the Middle East.

“GoNabit’s acquisition by LivingSocial is a milestone in the development of e-commerce in the Middle East. E-commerce is in its infancy in this region and the entry of prominent global player LivingSocial signals the next phase of the industry’s development here,” said Dan Stuart, CEO and Co-founder, GoNabit.com.

“Our acquisition by LivingSocial has really strengthened our ability and resolve to continue being the best group-buying website in the region. Both Dan Stuart and I will remain in our respective roles for the foreseeable future and all GoNabit staff have been retained,” added Sohrab Jahanbani, Chief Operating Officer and Co-founder, GoNabit.com.

“As with previous acquisitions, LivingSocial has again chosen to align with a local company that possesses similar values and ways of doing business. We are excited to enter the dynamic Middle East market and further strengthen our strategic global efforts to bring LivingSocial values to members across the globe,” said Tim O’Shaughnessy, CEO and co-founder, LivingSocial.

GoNabit was co-founded by Dan Stuart and Sohrab Jahanbani in January 2010, with investment and support from Bayt.com, the Middle East’s leading job site.

Speaking about the acquisition, Akram Assaf, Chief Technology Officer of Bayt.com said, “I extend my congratulations to the truly dedicated GoNabit team for their success story. We at Bayt.com are proud to have been a part of a business that allows people to live their lifestyle of choice and we are eager to be involved in more innovative ventures in the future.”

Headquartered in Dubai, with local offices in all its markets – Abu Dhabi, Beirut, Amman and Cairo – the company has recently announced popular new deal verticals catering to specific interests. Dubai Family, dedicated to providing fun deals suitable for children and parents alike, and the pan-city GoNabit Getaways website which offers exciting holiday deals and travel packages are both enjoying a growing popularity. In addition to being the first group-buying website in the Middle East, GoNabit is the first company of its kind to offer deals in Arabic. Members in Abu Dhabi, Amman, Dubai, Beirut, Cairo and Sharjah, Ras Al Khaimah and Ajman have saved more than $5 million USD in the past year.

LivingSocial also announced its launch in The Netherlands; the acquisition of Ensogo, a leading daily deal website in the Philippines and Thailand; and DealKeren, an Ensogo company based in Indonesia. Along with the GoNabit deal, these two new acquisitions and the Netherlands launch bring the total number of countries in which LivingSocial operates to 21. The company’s reach now spans six of the seven continents.

Terms of the deals were not released.

Shoppers can continue to save and discover on www.gonabit.com.

About LivingSocial

LivingSocial adds surprise to every calendar with handpicked daily deals you can share with friends. Members enjoy at least 50% off on the coolest, local experiences. Local business owners get an easy and cost effective marketing tool to attract new, loyal customers. In 2010, one of the fastest growing companies in the space expanded with LivingSocial Escapes offering easy weekend trips at great value. In April, LivingSocial has unveiled Instant Deals – real-time, mobile offerings delivered via members smart phones featuring deals within .5 miles of their location. Based in Washington, DC, the international brand and has saved nearly 30 million subscribers more than half a billion dollars in 21 countries on 6 continents.

About GoNabit

GoNabit is an online marketing company that uses the power of social commerce to nab unbeatable discounts of between 50-90 per cent on things to see, eat and do in the cities in which it operates. It was the first group buying website to launch in the Middle East and offers businesses a risk-free customer-creation engine. GoNabit was founded in 2010 by experienced entrepreneurs Dan Stuart and Sohrab Jahanbani and is majority-owned and supported by Bayt.com, the number one job site in the Middle East. GoNabit has the highest level of Verisign’s SSL encryption and is also the first company in the UAE to have its database management verified by TRUSTe.

Each day subscribers to GoNabit get the opportunity to purchase an unbeatable deal on something cool to do in their city. To successfully “nab” the deal, it must first tip – the point at which a minimum agreed number of purchasers opts into buying the deal.  Once the tipping point is achieved and the deal goes live, any GoNabit subscriber can purchase it. The deal is available for 24 to 48 hours, or 72 hours for weekend deals.

For more information visit: www.gonabit.com

###

Things are changing for Arab seed startups, as we are witnessing many programs that funds seed startups being launched across the region: Oasis 500 and Meydan in Jordan, Tahrir Sq. in Alexandria Egypt, PlugandPlayEgypt center in Cairo, and Seeqnce in Lebanon.

The new addition to these programs is SeedStartup a startup accelirator based in Dubai. that focus on web. mobile and software startups.

Seedstartup has similar structure to Ycombinator in USA and Oasis 500 in Jordan, it . Entrepreneurs from anywhere from the world apply for the program through SeedStartup website through out its rounds. 10 startups are then selected to participate in each program round that last 3 month in Dubai. ( entrepreneurs have to move to Dubai for the duration of the program)

The program for selected startup include: mentorship, Seed investment: $25,000 ($20k if your team has 2 co-founders, $25k if you’re 3 or 4 co-founders) in return for a flat 10% equity stake, and Networking & introductions to sources of follow on funding.

During the program time entrepreneurs will build their products under the guidance of their mentors. At the end of the 3 month, entrepreneurs will launch their products and are ready for the next round of funding which SeedStartup will facilitate via an investor day where angel , venture capital investors and the media will be invited for a demo day.

SeedStartup says in its website that it can also provide follow on investment through its fund of up to $250,000 (917,000 UAE Dirhams).

The money for the 3 month period would barley cover the living expenses in Dubai, however moving to Dubai to work full time in your startup and the people and the mentors you get to meet makes the program worth it for seed startups, but I think you gota have a developer cofounder with you if you want to apply in order to develop it for you.

SeedStartup says in its website that the program will start on September 1, 2011 though entrepreneurs are encouraged to start submitting their ideas now.

Apple announced that its iPad 2 is coming to Japan today, Hong Kong, India, “Israel”, Korea, Macau, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, Turkey and UAE on April 29 and will sell at the same US suggested prices of $499 (US) for the 16GB model, $599 (US) for the 32GB model and $699 (US) for the 64GB model. iPad 2 with Wi-Fi + 3G will be available for a suggested retail price of $629 (US) for the 16GB model, $729 (US) for the 32GB model and $829 (US) for the 64GB model. iPad 2 with Wi-Fi will be available in China on May 6, Apple said in a press release further international availability will be announced at a later date.

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.

Google has launched today Google Maps domains enabling local search within a country in Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Oman, and Saudi Arabia.

The Interface of these local maps is available English and Arabic as well French in some countries. Google navigation comes enabled with new Google Maps domains. Google Navigation offer directions from one distention to another.

Also users can now in these countries create “My Maps” a customized version of the user’s maps. Say your favorite hangouts.

Google also launched Google Map Maker in Saudi Arabia and UAE, Google Map Makers allows users to use their local knowledge to practically edit the entire map – from roads, businesses, parks, schools and more

Update: RIM replied to our question whether its agreement with TRA offers UAE authorities ways to monitor the service in the country, with the following statement:

RIM cannot discuss the details of confidential regulatory matters that occur in specific countries, but RIM confirms that it continues to approach lawful access matters internationally within the framework of core principles that were publicly communicated by RIM on August 12 -

As our sources close to 3 regional Telecom companies revealed in August that UAE will reach a deal with RIM the owner of Blackberry to continue the service, Today telecommunication Regulatory Authority (TRA) of United Arab Emirates announced officially that BlackBerry (BB) services will not be discounted and wont be banned on the 11th of October. In August a decision by TRA was made to ban BlackBerry Messenger, Blackberry E-mail and Blackberry Web-Browsing Services making the device ineffective was made due to what TRA called security concerns. In his part, Dubai Chief Police called the ban due to “Israeli” & US Spying On The Country. Saudi Arabia followed UAE’s step and announced plans to ban the service but revoked the decision as our sources said that authorities in KSA will have some hand in “monitoring” BB services. TRA statement (Arabic) said that all BlackBerry services are not in compliance with Telecom regulations in UAE. Which most probably is a confirmation to our sources leak that now UAE authorities have access and can monitor BB beams in UAE.

In a meeting at the house of Dr. Saed Salamn head of Ajamn network Dhahi Khalfan Tamim Dubai Police chief said that United States of America is the first beneficiary from absence of BlackBerry surveillance in his country, and said that USA has an interests in Spying in his country.

Al Tamami showed before evidence of “Israeli Mussad” intelligence agents being behind an assignation which took place in Dubai early this year killing a senior Hamas Military members.

Tamimi added that “the west” has acused us that we have curbed BlackBerry users’ liberty while USA, UK, “Israel” and other countries are allowed to access all users data. Al Tamimi remarks in the meeting was published by Alkhaleej newspaper (Arabic link.)

In the meeting that gathered some of top telecom, IT and education executives in the country, the speakers asked for establishing tech research centers in the country to support decision makers and stressed the need for local engineers to handle sensitive data, as Dr. Mansour Al Our cited that information security  is very important now a days, he cited examples of information leakage one of them in 2005 and 1997 with Israeli spying on US President Bill Clinton and on the US State Department, he cited Bill Clinton Monica Lewinsky case as another example of Israeli spying in the united states of America. saying that Israel has provided components to computers that were used by US security and its political branches.

Other speakers like Ibrahim Shamsi head of communications wondered why UAE government seeks help from foreign experts to assess and laydown plans for its branches IT needs while there is existing local talent?

Saudi Arabia has reached an agreement with BlackBerry to get access to users data, our sources with relevance to telecom operators in region told us that UAE and BalckBerry are expected to reach such agreement at the end of the road. UAE said before they are banning BB by next month.

(Discolors: Unfortunately US State Department is a competitor to ArabCrunch.)

Updated.

There is no doubt at least to me that for any person wedding and getting married is one of the greatest blessing’s in life. Yebab help brides in United Arab Emirates (UAE) find various suppliers and services needed for the wedding, from caterers to dressmakers, artists, photographers and traditional musicians.

Yebab is now entering its next face as it got the first investment round from National Net ventures N2V, the Saudi holding and investment company we wrote about back in June 2010. N2V investment in Yabab is the company’s first.

The investment round was made in both cash and inkind, and will be used to expand Yebab in other Arab countries in the region and launch a new enhanced version of the site. N2V will also use its woman portal HawaaWorld.com to cross market Yabab’s services.

Yebab makes money from advertising the site is already cash positives.

Yebab is founded by serial Emirate entrepreneur Murshed Mohamed. Murashed’s other ventures are eMapia a location based marketplace  and Darrb a crowed sourced delivery marketplace that seems offline now.

Update: In the press release site Murshed said the site has 200,000 users.

Update: this site might be of a security risk, the site marketing personnel refused to provide us with his full  name or send us more details related  to security.

They finally responded and here is the update:

Update 2:

We got this response from Dushare marketing team:

How do you close the connection?
1. The connection is closed as soon as the second peer refreshes his page after recieving file or closing the browser page.

if the link is there in the cloud? how would we know that the user PC is not wide open to you guys or anyone?

He is not open, we have implemented a 128-bit encryption algorith on the transferred packets.

Another thing, the link can only be picked by one peer, no one else can coonect to it. You can also password-protect your files. And ones the sender leaves our page or doesn’t send another thing. All connections are closed.

Let me explain in details:

1. You pick a file, it gets prepped up and url is produced for you to send it to your friend/other peer.
2. The file link is clicked on directly, http://www.dushare.com#45130 or can be retrieved by entering the code “45130″ in the “claim” part.
3. upto to the point the url is produced, no security risk or any ports or sockets are sockets are exposed.
4. When the other peer, click on the url link and connect to you. The data packets are encrypted using a 128-bit AES encryption. This encryption is required for any tampering of data  by a middle man other than the receiving
peer.
5.We expose no ports or sockets. Once the other peer picks up the file, no one else can pick up the file and url link is useless. You can even password-protect your files.

The above explains the security part.

As for the connection,

You(sender) identify yourself with an id on the main server with your IP, then when the other peers picks the file, he has an ID, and IP, The actual data packets are transferred directly between ID 234 to ID 434 securely.

We have no control and we cannot intercept the file transfer as its transferred directly from peer 1 to peer2. Even in the case, the data is tampered by a man in the middle. It is encrypted using a 128-bit AES encryption.

I hope that clarifies your security concerns.

Another addition, The url link cannot be picked by more than 1 peer. You can also password protect your files.

Update 3:

From dushare team: “With p2p technology you don’t have access of anytype to the peers pc. It’s simply sending and recieving data packets and decoding them.”

There are different ways to share files with peers, coworkers and friends using tools such as torrents and ex- Google MENA Marketing Manager Nagi Salloum‘s Loomn.it

Dushare brings the concept of P2P (peer 2 peer) to the web and for free, no registration,  just hit upload any file of any-size and then share the key with your friend, he/she can join the link to chat with you while getting the file.

Dushare claims that it does not see your files or chat logs as they rely on secure direct transferee connection between the 2 peers. Dushare also offers the option to protect your files with a password.

Dushare is a product of DuLeaf FZE a United Arab Emirates’s Dubai Silicon Oasis based company. We do not know what is the startup model but we have replied to their coverage request and will let you know if they answer.

On the file sharing front, Infinite USB Memory Drive (IUM) also from Dubai provides unlimited file transfer between devices using WIFI.

Following UAE’s decision to ban BlackBerry Messenger, email and web browsing, Etisalat the #1 telecom and mobile operator in United Arab Emirates  (UAE) and is owned by the government,  announced an alternative replacement offer to blackberry (BB) subscribers on or before 31 July 2010.

The offer located at Etisalat BlackBerry Alternative webpage offers free minutes, SMS and data package to current BB subscribers with 12 month contract, along with free phones one of the following:

iPhone, Nokia E72, Sony Ericsson X10 Mini, Nokia E66, Sony Ericsson Vivaz Nokia N900, Nokia N97, Sony Ericsson Vivaz pro, Sony Ericsson Satio,Samsung Wave, Samsung Galaxy S.

We do not know what iPhone model will be provided.

There are around 500,000 BlackBerry subscribers in UAE. The BB ban will take effect on the 11th of October.

United Arab Emirates (UAE) Telecom Regulatory Commission (TRA) a government authority that governs the telecom sector, has announced today that BlackBerry Messenger, Blackberry E-mail and Blackberry Web-browsing services in the UAE will be suspended as of October 11th 2010.

In a press release TRA said it  informed the only 2 mobile operators in UAE Du and Itisalat about this decision.

This decision comes during security concerns from the governments of UAE and India about BlackBerry services and its encryption methods, the press release TRA said:

“Blackberry data is immediately exported off-shore, where it is managed by a foreign, commercial organization. Blackberry data services are currently the only data services operating in the UAE where this is the case.”

“Today’s decision is based on the fact that, in their current form, certain BlackBerry services allow users to act without any legal accountability, causing judicial, social and national security concerns for the UAE. ”

There are around 500,000 BlackBerry users in UAE according to UAE’s the national newspaper.  BlackBerry strong key selling point is its email and its BB IM, without those, the BB devices become just like any other low end phone.

It seems the growing success of Dubai based e-commerce group buying startup GoNabit has opened Jabbar group appetite to enter the market with a new startup called Cobone.

Jabbar group which emerged after Yahoo’s acquisition of maktoob receiving an investment of 20 million USD from the owners of maktoob includes the following sites: souq (auction site) ikoo ( online ad network) CashU (pre paid online payment card) Tahadi (Arabic games), Sukar ( private e-commerce club)

GoNabit is founded by ex-bayt’s head of its venture arm Intilaqat Dan Stuart and has also received investment from Bayt which is a majority share holder. Here is our recent interview with Dan.

In few words, Group buying works by offering time limited deals, if enough people join to buy the deal everyone gets it, if not, no one is charged. The key is to virally promote the deal across social media and email, which help buyers close the deal and helps the site grow  virally.

Both Bayt ( the leading regional job recruitment site) and Jabbar, has the NewYork based Tiger Global Management a hedge fund as the an investor, Jabbar’s CEO is Jordanian entrepreneur and angel investor Samih Toukan.

(via the nextweb)

Group-buying is one of the web’s fastest-growing retail platforms, and UAE based GoNabit is the first to bring it to the Arab world. CEO and Co-Founder Dan Stuart answered some questions we had about GoNabit and its quest to bring value to consumers and businesses in the Arab world.

[Rock Sfeir]: What is GoNabit and what value does it bring to consumers and businesses?

[Dan Stuart]: GoNabit is the first group buying website in the Middle East. We source deeply discounted deals from local businesses to be sold to subscribers online within a limited period of time. GoNabit uses the power of social commerce to offer businesses a risk-free customer-creation engine.

[Rock Sfeir]: Many entrepreneurial-minded individuals are currently working in the corporate world and are unsure of when to make the move to launch a start-up. You were a part of Bayt.com before launching GoNabit. When did you decide that the time was right to launch your own start-up?

[Dan Stuart]: I’ve been thinking about this for a long time…but especially in the last year or so. I had an understanding with Bayt.com CEO Rabea Ataya that he would look closely and possibly invest in anything that I felt strongly about launching. My job made it easier since I spent my days looking at new launch opportunities and evaluating investment proposals.

That said, it was my passion…being on the pulse of what was new and relevant to the region. The key was to have the experience in sales, marketing and product. Without these in your leadership team you are in for larger challenges and won’t have as clear insight into what you are conceptualizing.

Eventually, I made a fairly quick decision, and started working…I didn’t think too much. I knew I had the capital to launch it, and the follow-on investment was verbally committed. You really need to be ready for the insecurity and sleepless nights. If not, keep your job and your sanity…but accept that you will never shape your own thing, too.

[Rock Sfeir]: Are you pleased with the sales numbers you are seeing? What items are currently selling out quickly?

[Dan Stuart]: We’ve done over 1,400 transactions in 8 weeks. Greater than 95% of that is e-commerce, so I think that surprises a lot of people …except me. I knew the will and interest was there. There was/is simply very little to buy online in this part of the world due to the structural challenges of selling online here.

People really like lifestyle products like massages. We do like to mix in some really quirky things too. It’s our testing phase after all, so we need really give the market a chance to give us broad feedback…and we’re listening.

[Rock Sfeir]: What are your plans for regional and international expansion? What is the most difficult part about growing regionally?

[Dan Stuart]: Every city is a new country…so that is tough. If I was home in Canada I’d have 15 cities of serious size to expand that all have one language, currency, and legal structure.

Here it is expensive, time-consuming and inhibits scale.

This is one of the reasons that very few online companies in the region are of any real size. They need growth to scale…and growth requires crossing many significant barriers. You can go be 5th biggest in India and have an easier time than owning the Middle East, because you can grow more inexpensively. Europe has made growth far more open. North America is much easier. The Middle East doesn’t do themselves any favors. That said, our strategic investor Bayt.com has a network throughout the region that we are leveraging to grow quickly. If you don’t have that you’ll have a tough time keeping pace.

We’re also sniffing around outside the region.

[Rock Sfeir]: How do you convince businesses to sign on with GoNabit? Are some business owners hesitant to take an initial hit in their profits, even if it means getting new customers?

[Dan Stuart]: GoNabit provides businesses with a risk free customer-creation engine:

• No upfront cost – either financially, or in terms of time. Merchants only have to be prepared to offer a discount between 50-90% off their regular retail price,
• An advertising investment concentrated on actual customers (nabber community exists to buy deals and have chosen to receive them),
• Large reach into young savvy buyers (social, internet savvy professionals aged between 24 and 54 and weighted to females 60:40),
• Brand awareness – an exclusive spotlight on your business  combined with the buzz and power of social media,
• An additional shop window without the retail investment,
• Certainty of a clear and measurable return on investment, and
• Increased customer footfall – the opportunity to convert the one-off GoNabit voucher user into a loyal customer

It’s an education process for sure…and we’re doing it quite successfully. We can always get better. It’s only been 8 weeks after all.

[Rock Sfeir]: What forms of media are you utilizing to reach people? Do you feel that certain forms of media are more unique to the Middle-East than they might be elsewhere?

[Dan Stuart]: Social media is at the forefront for us. It is inherently a social undertaking where people buy online and share these experiences with friends offline. It makes sense to share since you do better if more people know. eBay and Souq work well when the auctions are not popularly known…so the price stays down. For us, buyers benefit by more people knowing.

We have also been strong in the media in terms of building awareness while educating the market. We haven’t really cracked the paid ads egg too much so far. We’ll see more of that as we grow and as we move in later phases of our awareness campaigns.

I think the Middle East is like most markets with little difference for our purposes. The scale is just smaller, but the sharing is no less personal and the measurement of marketing methods no less critical.

[Rock Sfeir]: What methods of payment do you accept?

[Dan Stuart]: We accept cash, cheque and paypal right now. We have 2-4 more payment methods under consideration, but not necessarily as additions, but some as replacements and localized solutions

[Rock Sfeir]: What would you have to say to Middle-Eastern consumers that are skeptical about online purchasing?

[Dan Stuart]: If you’re thinking about buying online then you are clearly not satisfied with the speed, access and choice available offline. E-commerce gives you this. If you participate in buying through proper online sites then you grow an industry, and that’s an industry that brings you economies of scale that pass on choice and cost benefits to you….you should want ecommerce to succeed.

Ultimately, look for sites with globally recognized security certifications, certified data usage policies, clear and obvious customer contact mechanisms….and try out those contact mechanisms. Send a test inquiry. If you don’t get an intelligent, timely and useful reply, then go elsewhere. You want to know that your question will get answered properly. You are paying for this contact and confidence so assign it value and feel confident in a site that provides it…and give them your business.

[Rock Sfeir]: As the Arab world gets more and more connected to the web, your target market keeps growing. But, what do you feel is the biggest challenge to the growth of GoNabit?

[Dan Stuart]: The biggest challenge is achieving scale despite trying to grow in a market that is fairly sluggish in terms of ecommerce. It’s sluggish because of the self-fulfilling prophecy in the region: people say that people don’t like buying online so many don’t because they hear that people don’t buy online in the region.

In fact, 10,000s buy through Aramex’s Shop and Ship each month…so that’s not true. We do 50-100 online transactions a day…making us one of the biggest ecommece sites in the region already.

I think the myth is hurting the region. The payment providers are generally poor and apathetic but that is changing with NBAD and Bank Audi. People will buy online if there is value for them, ease and confidence.

[Rock Sfeir]: Essentially, it seems that GoNabit is taking a proven concept and applying it to the usually under-served market in the Middle-East. Do you see forthcoming competition? Is it going to be a new start-up, or an established group-buying business operating internationally?

[Dan Stuart]: I think we’ll see both. We’ve led the market, done the education and proved the concept for the cities we are in. There will certainly be others to see that we have laid steps for them to follow in.

I think we’re bound to see an international player sniff around the region at some point, but there are far more mature businesses here in the region who remain independent (Bayt, Souq, etc), so we’re down the list from them in terms of sparking international interest.

Again, the structural challenges in the region make entry in markets beyond Dubai a real challenge for anyone apart from a really committed regional player.

What I would like to see is a company like us use this knowledge gained in a tough market to move to new market outside the region. We need to work harder and be better to overcome regional challenges…so why not apply that to other challenging markets and build a presence?

[Rock Sfeir]: Where do you see GoNabit heading in the next couple of years?

[Dan Stuart]: Tough call. We certainly have a vision that the founders share to some extent or another. We definitely want to grow and be a sustainable business held to global standards.

I would like to have sparked the rise of ecommerce in every country in the region, built the largest volume of ecommerce transaction of any website in the region, and sparked a new industry of startups that believe that ecommerce is do-able.

I’d also like to have to hire some staff who speaks another language besides English and Arabic

[Rock Sfeir]: Anything else you want to add?

[Dan Stuart]: If you are thinking of launching a business, think big and start soon. Thinking small and waiting means you’ll never start, and even when you do, you won’t do much.

H2O New Media the UAE company that offers social media software and services announced 2 days ago that it has bought out Public Relations firm MILK from Olive Communications FZC in a cash deal. The amount of the deal was not disclosed.
With this acquisition, MILK becomes a wholly owned subsidiary of H2O and will be known as H2O MILK. In the press release announcing the acquisition, H20 said that it will along with MILK “plan to work to expand MILK’s digital PR offerings into H2O’s client base and deliver additional value to advertisers on H2O’s community platforms.”

Tahadi Games, Jabbar’s group regional gaming arm has announced the partnership with Suzhou Snail Electronic Co., Ltd(Snail Game) to publish one of the top online games in the world: Heroes of Gaia. The game will be featured in both English and Arabic. The English version is scheduled to enter Closed Beta on mid of July and Arabic version is expected to enter Closed Beta two months after. Users only from the Arab world can test the game.

Heroes of Gaia is a browser based MMOG game where players fight to defend their castles while building armies and alliances to scour the world for resources . Players start with the choice to command 1 among 4 races: Human, Elf, Orc and Undead with the ability to conquer more races later and each race possesses unique traits and weaknesses.

Tahadi has 3 games in its arsenal Runes of Might, Crazy Kart and Arabic Ragnarok Online.

UAE based startup Infinitec announced its Infinite USB Memory (IUM) Drive on March 2010, saying at the time that they will launch on July First. Though the startup has sent us a press release with their new and final date, of August 31st 2010 .

The interesting Infinite USB Memory (IUM) is a small USB like device that allows users to share “infinite amount of data” as we wrote on March:

“instead of storing data inside the stick it uses any thing that has a USB port as the storage space, enabling “infinite” data sharing ( videos, photos, doc..etc) using WIFI network meaning the device act as wireless connector between a personal computer and anything that is USB-enabled.”

Infinitc said that the delay in shipping of the wireless device is due to industry lead time issues in sourcing components and microchips.

In addition, the company also announced that the IUM has been re-designed to becoming more smaller. it will sell at $129 .

The startup said that customers who pre-order before the August 1st shipping date will receive free shipping to any destination around the world. this can be done via Infinitec website.

Infinitec is founded by 2 ex-Nokia coworkers from Palestine: Ahmad Zaharan CEO and David McKern CMO from Australia. Infinitic profile on ArabCrunch.NET can be found here.

Former regional marketing manager for Google in MENA Nagi Salloum who launched yesterday dead simple sharing tool loomn.it is launching today his new startup loomni.

Lo0mni is trying to solve the problem of education and knowledge. As after university most people tend not to learn and take new courses as most traning courses are geared towards executive and sneior managment due to the expensive rates they are offered at (1000+ USD.)

Loomin is able to offer affordable cousres at the rate of 50$ with a new conecpt to attract instructors: “marketing by teaching”:

“here experts can share their knowledge, educate people about topics they are expert in, and with extensive practical experience. ex: as a social media company, market your services by teaching people about social media stuff. If they are interested and understand the benefits of social media they will contact you for professional advice and services. Instructors are incentivized to deliver high quality course as the delivery will impact their reputation in the market. “ Said Nagi

Nagi is also introducing Loomni vouchers, prepaid codes charged with a certain monetary value (typically 200 AED, avg price of a course). This allows businesses to provide the Loomni courses to their staff by purchasing these vouchers and distributing them to their employees. Employees would then book courses on Loomni without any cash transaction.

“With this, companies can now fund education as part of their corporate social responsibility in a new way, by purchasing Loomni vouchers and distributing them to non-profits to educate disadvantaged people, Government can now easily support the Emiratis continuous education by providing them with Loomni vouchers.” Nagi added.

Quick Questions and Answers:

The elevator pitch in 140-characters?

Loomni is a knowledge sharing platform organizing a variety of short,attractive,in-venue courses, delivered by experts at unbeatable prices.

• Who is the target audience?

Loomni is aimed at university students, small and medium businesses and general audience. The website has been designed with a very user friendly and simple interface, creating a fun and nice branding.

• What is the story behind choosing “Loomni” as your start-up’s name?

Loomni is a blend between illumination (illuminate people’s minds) and alumni (I used to pronounce it Alumnee). i wanted a simple fun easy to spell/pronounce word, and available as a domain name

• What is the monetization model ?

the business is designed on a revenue share model between Loomni and the instructors, share varies based on course, instructor, frequency of course, audience…

• why you decided to leave Google?

Prior to moving to Dubai as the regional marketing manager in Google, I worked in Procter & Gamble, as a regional brand manager for Near East markets, based out of Beirut, Lebanon but decided to quit Procter & Gamble in 2008 to launch a start-up aimed at fixing the scattered private tutoring market. Only few months after launch, due to harsh political instabilities in Beirut, I decided to leave Lebanon and settle in Dubai, which offers a solid infrastructure for businesses to prosper. I took the time while at Google to fine the business model I had launched, and when the time was ready, decided to relaunch it in Dubai. So in short, yes, these 2 situations are related

#Loomni at ArabCrunch.NET.

What appears to be the biggest exit in the Internet industry for this year, Dice Holdings, Inc.,a NYSE Listed specialized career websites for select professional communities has acquired United Arab Emirates (UAE) based Energy job sites WorldwideWorker.

In a press release Dice Holdings announced on May 10th that the purchase price consists of initial consideration of $6.0 million in cash.  Additional consideration to a maximum of $3.0 million in cash is payable upon the achievement of certain operating and financial goals over the next two years.

WorldwideWorker according to the press release has more than 400,000 energy professionals have registered with WorldwideWorker and two-thirds of those are based in Asia, Africa or the Middle East.

This is an interesting news to the Industry and will for sure push more investors to venture into funding startups as Yahoo Maktoob deal did.

We will followup with more info about this news soon.

Aramex the leading regional delivery company is expanding its e-commerce presence with its recent partnership with United Arab Emirate e-commerce startup Nahel (launched at AC), providing complete end-to-end delivery service with plans for its own payment gateway.

We  conducted a video  Interview with Iyad Kamal COO of Aramex who discussed the deal’s details during ArabNetme in Lebanon:

Disclosure: Fadi Ghandour CEO of Aramex is an advisor to ArabCrunch.