For some it is a sad day, for others it is a new endeavor, today Indian conglomerate Bharti has officially closed its deal with Kuwait based  Telecom operator Zain, with its acquisition of all Zain’s mobile operations in 15 countries across Africa for an valuation of USD10.7 billion. Zain’s African covered 15 countries with a total customer base of over 42 million.

With this deal Zain is no longer the crown jowl of  the Arab Telecom Industry.

As a followup to our last post about Zain’s Jordan launching Ibda3 a startup incubator Dr. Abdul Malik Al Jaber CEO of Zain Levant Region along with Reem also from Zain were kind  to answer via email our questions and provide more information about the program:

AC: What type of support you provide the startups? funding? resources what type?Do you provide office space?

Abdul Malik Al Jaber: We provide office space, that is fully equipped with all required hardware for content industry. We also provide resources in the relevant area for the incubated project; technical, marketing, legal, HR, etc.

We provide seed funding as well as per the project.

AC: what happens after the startup is launched? what do you take in exchange for all the offering you offer?

Abdul Malik Al Jaber: “The projects that are selected, go through a process of pre-incubation and then incubation and then graduation.

We have a VC (Venture Capital) fund that is attached to the incubator. The VC works like any other VC fund, which means we invest in some projects and we take shares. Such project are registered in the form of a limited liability company and the VC takes a stake based on the project and the amounts that will be invested.”

Reem Al-Odwan from Zain added this followup:

1- for now this program is launched only in Jordan, we are looking to launch it in other countries that F.U.N is already established there in cooperation with Zain Jordan and Zain Group.
2- we are not going to limit the funding per project to a certain amount. The funding will be fair to make the project succeed.
3- our percent will also depend on the kind of project and the period of incubation, it will be around 35-50%.
4- the VC fund so far is 100,000 JD.

Zain Jordan a branch of one of the largest mobile operators in the world has announced launching Ibda3 program; Ibda3 an incubator program for youth between 18 to 25 years old.

Zain’s website says that the program provides “highly combined business development processes, tools & specialists, teamed up to nurture and support the early stages of new and small innovative telecom related ideas and transform them into successful business models. ”

The Selection process goes into stages:?”Stage 1: Reviewing the application and selecting the candidates upon the criteria ?Stage 2: The candidates will be presenting their innovative ideas to the committee ?Stage 3: Selecting the most innovative ideas ?Stage 4: (Pre-incubation): Preparation stage; this stage will provide the selected ideas with the proper business guidelines, training, research and analysis. ?Stage 5 (Incubation): Project development phase ?Stage 6: Establish a company and launch to market.”

The program application deadline is May 11, 2010 with more info on Zain’s website. Though the website does not reveal any specifics if the program will provide funding, space, or just labs and mentorship.

I tried to call Zain just now, but it seems working hours has ended, however I emailed Zain’s CEO Dr. Abdul Malik Jaber requesting more info.

Update: Kzalek was on private beta, the download link has expired, sorry for late update it was  a miss communication with its founder.

Last month, I nagged and was wondering why the current Twitter AIR based Desktop apps such as TweetDeck and Seesmic do not support Arabic text on Mac or Linux? But now I can breathe the sigh of relief. ( Arabic is written from right to left. Arabic letters are connected to each other unlike the Latin words).

Few hours ago, Kzalek, founded by Mustafa Farghay from Egypt, launched in beta. Kzalek did not only solve the problem for Mac and Linux users but has a complete Arabic Interface for both platforms, Windows and any platform that can run by Adobe AIR.

Whats more wonderful, I think that this app has the best Arabic right-to-left (RTL) support. Usually on the other Twitter desktop apps, when you tweet something in Arabic and add some English word(s) to your tweet, the tweet text gets scrambled as the English letters go South. But with Kzalek app, the tweet stays clean and organized. The same way you would write an Arabic document in MS Word when you add some English text to it. ( Even though I am currently a Mac user, I did not see any other office suite that is better than MS office).

Currently Kzalek, offers many Twitter basic functions with some more new features:

1. Complete Arabic UI.

2. You can see the tweeted pics in thumb view.

3. You can see the original Tweeted long URL without having to leave the app. Since Kzalek uses the popular Untiny service from Saleh Al Zaid from KSA. (LINK)

4. You can tweet pics and shorten urls directly from the app using bit.ly, Twitpic and yfrog APIs.

6. Kazlek can translate tweets into Arabic. It uses google language API (Although Google translation is funny in most occasions).

7. Favorite tweets get replies and DMs and you can reply, Retweet and DM.

8. Search feature.

As a twitter user with multi Twitter accounts, and since the app is still in beta,it does not meet my current needs. Although it might help me manage my ArabCrunch Arabic Edition on Twitter.

Mustafa Farghay told ArabCrunch about his future plans to add more features that would make Kazlek even more useful to any level of Twitter users. These features will include adding multi accounts, sending DMS to many users, friendship methods (add, block…etc), support for Twitter native users lists, Twitter trends, audio embedding, saved search Farsi interface and increased performance to make the app consumes less RAM. Although Mustafa assured us that currently Kzalek consumes less RAM than any other AIR clients. He also added that he might offer SMS support for replies and DMS in many Arab countries.

As for the web, Arabic Twitter is available via ArTwitter.

I told Mustafa about the most popular video sharing service on Twitter, TwitVid which is cofounded by Mohammad Al Adham from Jordan and Adil Lalani from Pakistan, and he said that he never knew about them but he will start reading their API to see if he can add TwitVid to the list of twitter services supported by him.

I also asked Mustafa if he is willing to support Twitter’s regional clone from Jordan, WatWet, but it turned out that he hasn’t heard about them either. He added that he will read their API and consider the idea.

With this Launch, Twitter will become even more popular in the Arab world, especially as AC broke Twitter talks to strike SMS deals with major operators in the Arab region. In addition, Twitter did another recent SMS deal in India. Not so good of a news for WatWet!

I do not understand why some people clone something famous, well this is somehow the case of WeziWezi, the new twitter like microblogging, 1 to 1 and group messaging project that was just launched in Beta stage from Amman, Jordan.

Right now, WeziWezi has the same features you already find on Twitter and its other regional clone WatWet but with less user friendly Interface: You can follow and unfollow, @messages, direct message and favorites. Also on WeziWezi, you can upload photos to your timeline; which is available on WatWet, as for Twitter photo upload is available via third party apps like Twitpic and Flikcr.

WeziWezi differs in the following:

1- Right now WeziWezi has worldwide SMS notifications you will get free 10 or 20 messages per month but you you have to buy credit for more and it works with all operators worldwide (I have not tested this feature) , but you cannot update your status via SMS (planned within 3 months.) Twitter on the other hand has no Free SMS notifications in the Arab world yet, though this might to be coming soon. As for WatWet, SMS notifications is limited in Jordan to one operator: Zain,  Jawwal in Palestine, MTC Touch Lebanon, STC and Zain KSA in Saudi Arabia.
2- Location Based social media (LBS)is not functioning right now, Ameer Omari the founder of WeziWezi told ArabCrunch, that he is going to launch this feature within a week, where people can know where their friends are right now on the map (using Google maps API) At the first stage he will do this via tracking your IP, later it can be done manually and as well as via Mobile apps . He also said that there will be location privacy settings, where users can show their location to their friends only.
This Sounds like Brightkite, right? Close to Google Latitude?!

3- IM support: this feature is what Twitter had , which later was canceled because of the high costs of server hosting that are associated with providing the service. WeziWezi , according to Amir will have this feature within 3 or 6 month. The IMs notifications he said will include: @s and direct messages, and all the updates of the people you follow.

4- Groups: Twitter has no groups the same for WatWet, which is a killing point to many users, though it is available via third party apps which is not provide friendly solution because you need to setup a new group and add users , every time you use a new app, plus there is an API update limit, so the more groups you add the more you consume your limits. WeziWezi groups on the other hand, will be public and can be followed and joined by anyone and anyone can start one.
5- Threaded replies: one of the beauties of FriendFeed is threaded replies. Twitter does not have this feature nor WatWet. WeziWezi is planning to add this feature within 1 to 2 weeks.

6- Native Mobile apps: Ameer told me that WeziWezi will launch 2 Mobile applications: one based on Flash light and the other based on Symbion S60 third and second edition. Users will be able to use all WeziWezi features on them plus they will be used for location tracking ( he can use WeNear API for help in this regard). Twitter does not have an official mobile app, however 10s or more apps are available in virtually all mobile devices via third party developers. WatWet has plans to launch mobile apps with no clear launch date.

Finally, WeziWezi has a public API (both Twitter and WatWet have this too) and will launch its Arabic Interface within 6 months as Amir told me. He also said he is targeting Arab users.

Good Luck WeziWezi, tough market to compete at. Early Arab Tech adaptors already using Twitter now, I think it is hard to switch them over WeziWezi, what do you think?

Ameer Omari 25 year’s old freelance developer from Amman, Jordan. WeziWezi is his part time project.

Twitter logo

Update: (Sorry guys there was miss understanding, It is a source/s inside and outside Zain who confirmed that Zain is in talks with Twitter for SMS notifications deal across their branches in the region. As for Zain PR they wrote on an email, that SMS connections are under discussion with different social networking services and No date is set yet. Again other sources also tipped ArabCrunch that Twitter is in talks with other operators in the Arab region for SMS deals (more about this soon.) You might probably know that Twitter is publicly interested to get it 2-way SMS up and running on Iraq. (read Time magazine story about Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter, last April visit to Iraq under the sponsorship of the US government.) Iraqi Mobile Operators AsiaCell  on their part declined to provide information to ArabCrunch when I asked them questions regarding any deal with Twitter, saying: “can’t provide you with such information for it is confidential.” You can draw your own conclusion out of this answer. AsiaCell  is one of 3 mobile operators in Iraq: Zain Iraq and Korek.)

Twitter ended last year  its free out bound SMS in bound notifications  to users worldwide excluding 3 countries because it costs them around 1000 USD per user/year. But now it is using the global media buzz they are getting to snap cheap or free deals with Mobile operators around the world, including the Arab world, ArabCrunch learned.

Kuwait based Zain the 3rd largest mobile operator in the world with a commercial presence in 24 countries, has confirmed (Update: a source/s inside Zain has confirmed) to ArabCrunch that they Zain is in talks with Twitter for SMS notifications deal across their branches in the region. Other source/s have also told ArabCrunch that Twitter is in trying to strike 2 ways SMS deals with more operators in the region . (I am following up on this  and will update you on AC.)

Update: It was Zain PR who said on a previous  email that no launch date is set yet, and that things are still under discussion (Update: with different social networking.) Zain refused to comment on the details of the discussions, however I expect the Twitter 2 way SMS deal if agreed on will include short local codes and will not cost Twitter a penny.

WatWet new Logo

On the other hand, WatWet the regional Microblogging and messaging startup that has more members than Twitter in the region, has very recently added new local numbers for receiving SMS notifications with more 7 regional operators  after Zain Jordan: Jawwal in Palestine, MTC Touch Lebanon, STC and Zain KSA in Saudi Arabia, Etisalat in Egypt, Etisalat and Du in United Arab Emirates. WatWet also now broke from Friending into the following methods with private profiles and “@” messages.

In the Arab world Zain operates in Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Iraq , Saudi Arabia and Sudan as Zain, and in Lebanon as mtc touch (under a management contract). And now in Palestine via Zain Jordan’s recent merger with Paltel. Paltel is the only Palestinian fixed and mobile (‘Jawwal’) operator ( Paltel has a base of 1.5 million active mobile customers and over 363,000 fixed line customers, as well as approx 78,000 ADSL customers as of March 31, 2009. Zain Jordan, has over 2.35 million active mobile customers. The merger is expected to generate over US$1 billion of revenues this year.)

Zain operates in 24 Arab and African countries with a workforce of over 15,000 providing a comprehensive range of mobile voice and data services to over 69.5 million. It operates in the following countries: Bahrain, Burkina Faso, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Iraq, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Malawi, Madagascar, Niger, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. In Lebanon, the company manages the network on behalf of the government operating as mtc-touch. In Morocco, Zain in a joint venture owns 31% of Wana Telecom.
Zaina achieved in its the half-year ending 30 June 2009: Consolidated Revenues of US$4.014 billion a 37% increase , and a Net Income US$533.5 million a 4.4% increase.

#You can follow ArabCrunch on Twitter: @ArabCrunch on WatWet: @ArabCrunch

In August 2008, Juniper Research forecasted that Service Provider revenues, derived from mobile money transfer services and remittances, will exceed $5bn globally by 2013. While the research firm Informa, predicts that by the same year, more than 424 million mobile users will be sending money to other mobile users in the same country via their mobile phone, and 73 million will be sending money internationally via their mobile phones. Africa and Middle East are predicted to be one of the top regions of the global international mobile money transfer gross transaction value.

Traditional money transfer and credit card companies are trying to be part of the mobile payment loop in order not to lose their business, while mobile operators and software vendors across the world are deploying different schemes to capitalize into this opportunity. Putting ideas into action, Kuwait based Zain, which is considered the fourth largest mobile network in the world in terms of geographic presence, with a footprint in 22 countries spread across the Middle East and Africa with over 60 million active customers, and Western Union, a global leader in money transfer, recently announced that they will work together to deliver mobile money transfer services in countries in Africa and the Middle East through Zain’s new Zap platform.

The Zap service provides Zain customers access to a wide range of transactional services from their mobile phones. Customers can interact with select bank accounts, top-up or transfer airtime, and move money to businesses, friends and family. The service allows customers to pay bills such as electricity, and can even be used to settle grocery bills in the supermarket. Zap has been operational in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda for several months, making mobile banking services available to more than 100 million people in East Africa. Zain has also announced plans to introduce Zap in 22 markets. (ArabCrunch will do a follow-up story about when Zain will launch Zap in Middle East, by next week, inshallah.)

As Zain’s Zap is only available for Zain Mobile subscribers, this agreement with Western Union will enable Zain’s Zap to reach far beyond its members; Because Western Union has a global agent network of more than 334,000 locations in 200 countries and territories.

When the service is launched, consumers will be able to send cash money transfers from participating Western Union locations around the globe in the same way they do today. Zap customers who are enrolled in the service in select countries will be able to choose whether they want to receive their money in cash at a Western Union Agent location or in accounts tied to their mobile phones (their “mobile wallets.”)

Money-transfer receivers who receive funds in their mobile wallets will be able to pay bills, buy airtime or cash out through the Zap service at more than 12,000 Zap agent locations in East Africa.

The service will be introduced in select countries when regulatory approval has been secured. The service with Zain will be operational in countries with significant international and intra-Africa remittance activity.

Dr Saad Al Barrak, Zain Group CEO, said in a press release,

“This service will enable the millions of people who are abroad to send money home swiftly to their friends and families not only in the cities but also directly to the villages across these countries.”

Western Union has established cross-border Mobile Money Transfer pilots in a variety of corridors around the globe. The Western Union service currently allows mobile subscribers in the Philippines to receive funds sent from select Western Union Agent locations directly into their mobile wallets. In the future, Western Union will also offer consumers the option to send funds directly from their mobile phones for pickup at Western Union Agent locations globally or directly to another mobile subscriber. Western Union is extending its global distribution network through alliances with mobile network operators.

Zain brand is wholly owned by Mobile Telecommunications Company KSC, which is listed on the Kuwait Stock Exchange (Stock ticker: ZAIN). Zain is listed in the Financial Times’ Global 500 Index which ranks the world’s largest companies based on market capitalization.

In 2008 , Zain Group recorded all time high consolidated revenues of US$ 7.44 billion, an increase of 26% compared to 2007 and net profits of US$ 1.2 billion, an increase of 6% on 2007. Year on year customer growth across the two continents in which Zain operates was 50% with the Zain Group serving 63.54 million managed active customers at 31 December, 2008.

Zain operates in the following countries: Bahrain, Burkina Faso, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Iraq, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Malawi, Madagascar, Niger, Nigeria, Palestine (currently operating as Paltel Group), Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. In Lebanon, the company manages ‘mtc-touch’ on behalf of the government. In Morocco, Zain owns 31% of Wana Telecom through a joint venture.

As The Kuwaiti cellular market awaits the launch of the third mobile operator Viva  by the end of 2008. A new report from Arab Advisors Group titled “Kuwait Communications Projections Report “, projects cellular subscribers to grow at a CAGR of 9.4% from 2008 to 2012, reaching 4.37 million and a penetration rate of 97.2%. Kuwait’s telecom market is still firmly in government hands.

The Ministry of Communications (MOC) solely operates Kuwait’s fixed telecommunications network and is also the regulatory entity for the telecommunications sector in the country. Development plans are issued by the MOC. 

There are currently two mobile operators Zain and Wataniya (Qatar Telecom (Qtel) acquired 51%  2007). Parliament’s approval is essential for matters pertaining to operating licenses, liberalization policies and privatization issues.

View Larger Map

The Kuwaiti government owns minority interest in all cellular operators, while the Internet market is completely served by private sector companies.  Samer Abbas, Senior research analyst of Arab Advisors Group wrote in the report.  

The cellular market in Kuwait continues to grow steadily. Cellular subscribers reached 2.77 million in 2007; a penetration rate of 81.6%. With the entrance of the STC-led third mobile operator and as full competition starts, the Arab Advisors Group expects the operators to engage in tariff competition. This will drive market growth going forward and drop monthly ARPU. We project cellular subscribers to grow at a CAGR of 9.4% from 2008 to 2012, reaching 4.37 million and a penetration rate of 97.2%.

Outgoing international calling traffic and revenues through the MOC’s exchanges declined slightly in 2007. After a recovery in 2006, outgoing international calls went down again by 5.3% in 2007, to reach 214 million calls. Owing to the massive cellular subscriber base in Kuwait, the vast majority of international calls originate from mobile lines. In 2007, mobile lines accounted for 90% of outgoing international calls and 86.4% of outgoing international call minutes.  

UPDATE 26/9/08 BELLOW:

Do you know Apple’s revolutionary mobile device: iPhone? if so and you are an owner who lives in the Arab world, your iPhone most likely is the old version which you bought it cracked,  and you did not buy an iPhone 3G the new iPhone version, since it is near impossible to get one because Apple sells it through AT&T in USA starting at $199 for the 8 gigabyte device with GPS but with a 2 years contract. – iPhone 3G is also available in 25 other countries.-

Well soon you will be able to have an iPhone 3G if you live in one of those 3 Arab countries: Jordan, Qatar and Egypt.

As of Jordan, an inside source told me that Orange Jordan the incumbent mobile, fixed and Internet operator in Jordan will introduced iPhone 3G by the end of next month or by the first 10 days of the November.

The source said the iPhone 3G will cost between JD (Jordanian Dinar) 200-  JD 300 – JD 0.70 JD =  $USD  1.0 – with 2 years contract with Orange. While the 16 GB iPhone 3G will cost around JD 300- JD 400 with no contract. The source added that the iPhone price will go up with no contract or with less contract time. -I have emailed Orange Jordan for a confirmation Of the launch date and the price plan.-

Orange Jordan will be the sole iPhone distributor in Jordan, while Vodafone will be the sole distributor in Qatar and while in Egypt it will sell it along with  Mobinil. And this is confirmed by Apple’s website here here and here.

Apple has already sold more than 6 million iPhone 3Gs in the past two months since the device launch in July 2008, and it sells 800,000 units each week,

So how much will it sell in Jordan?

Orange came third after AT&T and T-Mobile at the 1 million iPhone 3G sales mark -which happened  just three days after iPhone 3G launch on July 11,2008-  with combined unit sales of 77,000 from France, Belgium and Switzerland.

In Jordan Orange mobile subscribers has past the 1 million mark, but most to its customers -and most mobile users in Jordan- are prepaid card users, who cannot afford a contract. Though most of mobile users in Jordan have smart phones priced from JD 120  and up. So I expect a 5 to 7 % of current Orange customer base to buy an iPhone in the first year –this is just speculation not based on a market study-, also we will see a switch from the number one Mobile operator Jordan Zain Jo to Orange in order to use iPhone, not just for personal use but also for business, since iPhone supports Microsoft exchange offering push email, calendar, and  contacts, a thing Zain enjoyed by being the sole distributor for Blackberry in Jordan.

According Apple’s website iPhone3G does not support Arabic, which is the default mobile OS language for the vast majority of mobile users in Jordan and Egypt, But not for the first 20,000 iPhone buyers in those 2 countries!

(I have emailed Apple asking them when they will launch the Arabic version, and whether it will be available at the time of iPhone 3G launch in Jordan, Egypt and Qatar. I have also emailed Vodafone and Mobinil asking them about their iPhone 3G launch dates in Middle East.)
UPDATE 26/9/08:

I did not mention in the post that I do hear that Orange being granted a 3G license yet, The 3G license has not been issued to any operator in Jordan yet. Telecom Regulatory Agency (TRC) which governs the telecom industry in Jordan, said in this press release “additional license for radio frequencies from (G2/G3) in addition to 3G License through a process of a comprehensive bid to take place before the end of 2008″”

So what does that mean? Orange is not launching iPhone 3G next month? a smell of corruption is raising here since Orange has not been issued a 3G license yet: here is the email I received from Orange regarding iPhone, If you understand what they mean let me know:

Dear Valued Customer:

Greetings:

First, we would like to take this opportunity to thank you for contacting Orange

In reference to your inquiry about iphone kindly be informed that the IPHONE is a phone set with multiple features. It has been offered at Orange web sit for sell soon and there is no any information about this iphone and when we are going to start sell it and tell now it is not available yet.

Finally, should you need any further information please don’t hesitate to contact us again

Regards

Customer Care Service – Orange

so customer service says iPhone will be soon on sale on Orange website!

Watwet the micro blogging & social networking Arabian clone of Twitter has launched a new design today with some new features. ( I have reviewed watwet in the past here)

What is new:

The new design is very nice, sleek and straightforward, I personally like it. And it seems other wawaters did. The new design also comes with a number of pre-built themes.

Huda a watwet users even demanded more:

can we have a dynamic design that changes automatically according to time of day, in the morning and at nite (night)? nice font btw (by the way.)

.

Now Mobily’s customers (the second Saudi mobile operator) can send and receive SMS updates, as well it has been the case for Jordan’s Mobile operator Zain’s customer. But if using any other mobile operator in Jordan KSA or anywhere worldwide you can only now send SMS updates.

Other new features include:  a Badge similar to Twitter’s badge which allows you to embed your wawets updates to your blog or any website, be it your updates or your friends, also a new Facebook app and statistics which list all the user activity stats, such as: number of watwets, friendship request , ..etc.

Public  timeline has been added with latest, featured, and channels: which now has Play FM ( A customer to  Ahmad Humeid’s  other company, he is the CEO of iToot Corp the owner of Wawet and Ikbis) and  Shopping guide. But both at the moment are not functioning. Though this shows that Wawet is introducing social media to businesses so they use it as a marketing tool,  thus watwet will in turn make money.

What is missing:

Wawet’s -as I said before- main differentiation to twitter is its 2 way MMS service and its Arabic interface. Also as I said before Watwet might have benefited from Twitter ending out-bound SMS services to Arabia and most of the world. But anyways Twitter with around 2 million users has not gone main stream in USA yet, let alone in the Arab world!

Though since Watwet 2 way SMS service is limited to Zain’s customers in Jordan, and now Mobily in KSA, there is no real value for users like me in using the service. Plus there is no desktop app that can let me receive and send updates like Twhirl does with Twitter, identica and seesmic. It is really annoying to keep hitting refresh to see latest friends updates or to get my email spammed with tens of updates per day.

Actually by looking at watwet’s timeline it tells you that usage rates seems to be very low with few updates from only few users per day.

I have sent a watwet to Ahmad Humeid with few questions but he did not answer.

TweetSMS has been launched today after around a week of internal testing, the launch was scheduled yesterday, but apparently they had some hiccups which lead to delaying the launch to today.

As reported by ArabCrunch last week, TweetSMS enables Twitter’s users who no longer can get SMS notifications from Twitter in countries outside USA, Canada, and India.

TweetSMS messages are paid for by credits. 1 Credit = 1p (1 pence in Great British Pounds), which will be converted from your local currency when you purchase them. So If your country is listed as 5 credits, a single SMS message would cost you 5p (or equivalent). Message bundles are currently available in quantities of 100 credits, 200 credits, 500 credits and 1000 credits.

The service is available in 190 countries with different fees. For example fees for some Arab countries are:  Jordan, Oman, Qatar , Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen , Bahrain, Egypt, and Libya Arab Jamahiriya  4 credits.  U.A.E , Algeria, Iraq, and Lebanon  5 credits, Morocco  7 credits , while Kuwait  8 credits.
For non Arab countries Australia, Denmark and Japan 4 credits, Norway 5 credits, France and Italy 8 credits.
To view TweetSMS full price list go here.

Another service that enables Twitter 2 way SMS in countries that do not have it for free is twitMobile which is already live since around a week or so, twitMobile seems to have cheaper rates than TweetSMS in some countries. They have same credit charge, 1 penny per credit. The following countries have cheaper rates than TweetSMS: UAE, Kuwait, and Norway 4 credits, while Australia 3 credit, full countries price list can be found here.

ZygoTweet  is another solution for SMS Tweeting, but they have not launched yet.
In Jordan it will cost me 4 Penny per message with TweetSMS, around 6 Jordanian Piaster. Which is the same price for sending SMS to an international mobile  number, while to a Jordanian mobile number it cost 3 Piaster , though the price is reasonable, I’d rather wait tell TweetSMS or any other startup enable free ad supported SMS. But If I get a Zain Jordan number I might use Watwet reviewed earlier by ArabCrunch here.

3alarasi is an interesting Jordanian startup, which is an entertainment portal that mix its in-house produced unique animated cartoons, caricature, audio productions, and articles, with users generated & sharing of content:Games, videos, audios and photos, with many social networking features.

3alarasi means in local Jordanian dialect: I accept with great pleasure or I appreciate greatly.

3alarasi uniqueness is in its in-house produced content, which currently produced by its cofounder cartoonist Omar Abdallat, his animated cartoons is a distinctive attempt to fill the gap between Arab originated animations and the ones  originating from western and Asian producers. 3alarasi’s edge is in its localized content that understands the local culture more than being competitor in high-tech long animations.

In-House Content:

Currently Omar uses different carton characters, in his cartoons, and animated cartoons, in which they tackle many issues related to the Jordanian society, such as Awad Abu Shifa and Jaber Kawanes, each cartoon character represent a segment of the Jordanian society, 7awa (Arabic for Eve) represent a women who tackle women related issues. Other characters include: saleem abu saleem o um saleem.

Though the cartoon characters and the animation are currently limited to Jordanian culture and dialect, 3alarasi has plans to add Egyptian and Khaleji (referred to the Arab Gulf area) characters and content soon. and While the site Interface is currently in English, an Arabic interface is also coming soon. According to Amer AbuLaila CTO and cofounder of 3alarasi.

The following video is an example of 3alarasi in-house produced animation, it uses slang Jordanian dialect:

Video transcript:

(o 3ard okhti)= by the honor of my sister( he is swearing by the honor of his sister, which is not a classy swearing expression that is somehow common in Jordan among some youth, but not used by officials, and in Islam it is considers (Shirk) – associating a partner to God- when someone swear by anything other than God) -ya jama- you (group of people) and I am not lying (tripping) to you with any word, that from how a professional driver I am, I light my cigarette in Amman, -the capital of Jordan 400KM away from Aqaba-, and finish it in Aqaba, but also I am used to (Tanatat) gays‘ calm way of driving, like once I went back from Aqaba to Amman in (darrs )- i did not understand this word -Amman in the center of the Map- and with the honor of my sister, and with the honor of my sister, I am not a tripper (liar).

MMS:

Beside 3alarasi website which all its service on the web are free-, 3alarasi offers MMS Channels for Zain Jordan subscribers, with 0.20 JD( Jordanain Dinars, (US$ 1= JD 0.70O) fee per message, though it plans to enable this service with more regional mobile operators, “we are negotiating with several operators in KSA, Oman, Yemen, Palestine” said AbuLaila.

User Generated Content:

The Gaming community is one of the other interesting aspect of 3alarasi, where users can upload shockwave apps and share them with the community who in turn can have fun playing them. I do not know if there is any other regional game sharing website available today in the Arab world, so that makes them first also in this area.

As mentioned earlier 3alarasi also offers to its users the ability to upload and share content and offers social networking services.

Users can upload for free videos, audios, and photos, with many privacy options, while Video upload can take any format,  uploaded from Youtube or Google videos, or an immediate capture from your personal cam.

The social networking aspect of 3alrasi has all the usual social networking featuers: Profiles, adding friends, commenting on each profile, sending messages and discussing topics on the forum ( which interface is not inline with 3alarasi theme). Users Profile for example can be customized either with an HTML code or through what-you-see-what-you-get customization option.

Business Model:

3alarasi business model is based on MMS subscription revenue sharing with mobile operators in the region and in selling ads on its website.

According to ERUM Creative Productions L.L.C that owns 3alarasi, during the last 18 months, ERUM has served over 600 unique animation episodes where more than 51,000 mobile users in Jordan enjoyed our MMS channels, 3alarasi, 7awa, and Falla7. I estimate 3alarasi mobile revenues to be around 142,800 JD monthly (US$ 1= JD 0.70), which would be 1,713,600 JD yearly. ( Based on 0.20 JD per message on the assumption of 7 MMS per user per week, with 50-50 MMS revenue sharing with Zain Jordan, with 51,000 subscribers)

But according to AbuLaila the company has been funded privately and recently 28% of the company was sold to 2 Jordanian investors, who valuated the company at half a million JD (US$ 1= JD 0.70O), in which I suggest this valuation is too low if you look at my estimated revenues above, that does not take into account the expected increase when 3alarasi’s MMS is enabled in other regional countries. Let alone the expected ads revenues from the website.

3alarasi online ads offers, Banner Ads: with three locations on each page on the website. Videos and audio Ads format can be: a text ads rotator on the video or audio player; also the video ad  can be played before the video or audio (Pre roll ad).

I could not get information if 3alarasi developed the video and ad insertion technologies or if they are using a third party application, since AbuLaila, went offline before answering all my questions, but I hope he can send me some more information soon.

Though according to the company advertising system has Ad tracking System , that enables advertisers to track their campaigns, view reports, breakdowns, and with graph tools.

Areas of Improvements:

3alarasi has a rewarding system that currently does not function, and I could not get much info about it from AbuLaila, but my take is that they should offer revenue sharing with the users who upload content on the website, and their best focus should be with cartoonist and creative producers across the Arab world, where 3alarasi should reach them and open dedicated channels for them on 3alarasi, so they can submit creative content from cartons to animations. And share with 3alarasi  their 3alarasi’s web site contents’ ad revenues, and the revenues from their MMS distributed content, in  which this would make 3alarasi the creative producers  socialnetwork platform in the Arab world.

3alarasi stats (according to ERUM):

According to  ERUM, 83% of the site viewers are coming from Middle East, and GCC (Arab Gulf Council ) countries, and its highest five ranks are in Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Egypt, and Libya.

S ince early this year, 3alarasi.com has served over 5 million video views and over 4 million photo and caricature views for worldwide users.

And today 3alarasi.com is receiving over 12 thousand unique users per day, while new visitors to the website are increasing due to the continuous marketing campaigns on Google, Facebook and other networks and websites.

Other stats of 3alarasi.com according to ERUM study on Alexa

* Over 350,000 Unique Visitors per month.
* Over 1,200,000 Page views per month.
* Over 40% traffic from Jordan & Middle East.
* Over 33% traffic from GCC area.
* Subscribers are between 14 – 45 years Old.
* 70% are between 18 – 29 years Old.
* 56% males, 46% females.

Company Background:

3alarasi started 18 months ago for few content it produced which was distributed only via MMS to Zain Jordan subscribers, then to a website with cartoon content, produced by cartoonist Omar abdallat. The current new Beta version  started when Amer AbuLaila CTO joined the company for the IT development 9 months ago, According to Abulaila.

3alarasi is owned by ERUM Creative Productions L.L.C whose Founders are: Amer AbuLaila as CTO, cartoonist Omar Abdallat, writer Rajae Qawas, Fahed Oweidat as CEO.

3alarasi in Main Stream Arabic Media:

Yesterday 3alarasi was featured on BBC Arabic radio find the audio bellow (in Arabic )
While AbuLaila will be on Future TV (Lebannies Arabic Satellite Channel) 10 – 11 am (Jordan time +2GMT)

Besides 3alarasi, ERUM provides creative content via all media; they have created TV advertisements using their characters. They also have a daily show on Ramadan with Nourmina TV Arabic Satellite Channel from Jordan.  And started to broadcast their cartoons on other Arabic Satellite Channels, like Future TV, and soon on other popular TV Channels across the Arab world.

# Press Release via Arab Adivisors Group

The United Arab Emirates is the most connected country in the Arab World according to the Arab Advisors Group’s annually released Total Country Connectivity Measure (TCCM). The Arab Advisors Group, a member of the Arab Jordan Investment Bank Group, calculates the TCCM by adding the household mainlines penetration, cellular penetration, and Internet users’ penetration rates in each country. These results were released on the first day of the Fifth Annual Media and Telecommunications Convergence Conference, which was inaugurated in Amman by Jordanian Minister of ICT Engineer Basem Rousan.

“Convergence presents us with a great opportunity that the Media and Telecom business can greatly benefit from, as new sources of revenue are emerging” said Eng. Basem Rousan, the Minister of Information and Communications Technology. He added: “The government is committed to providing a flexible legislative and regulatory environment that nurtures competitiveness and reflects the growing convergence in the ICT sector”. Eng. Rousan also congratulated the Arab Advisors Group on “the growing success of this leading event” and indicated “Jordan’s standing as a key player in the regional ICT sector, a role that is further demonstrated by hosting the 12th session of the Arab Council of ICT Ministers in Amman on the heels of the Media and Telecom convergence conference”.

UAE’s TCCM score of 329.5% availed the country the first rank in the Arab World. Bahrain followed at 210.4%, followed by Saudi Arabia (207.9%), Qatar (193.1%), Kuwait (164.7%), Libya (162.0%), Oman (153.7%), Jordan (133.9%), Algeria (130.7%), Lebanon (124.6%), , Tunisia (122.7%), Syria (122.5%), Egypt (111.6%), Morocco (106.6%), Palestine (90.5%), Iraq (77.2%), Mauritania (54.5%), Yemen (47.2%) and Sudan (28.9%).

Comparing the end of 2007 and end of 2006 ranking reveals the following. The UAE kept its “number one” spot, while Bahrain moved into 2nd place (up from 3rd in 2006). Saudi Arabia moved up to 3rd place in 2007 up from 4th place in 2006. Qatar slipped to 4th place down from 2nd place in 2006 (largely due to the restatement of official population figures at a much higher figure which was the case in Bahrain as well). Kuwait maintained its 5th place, while Libya switched places with Oman taking the 6th place (up from 7th in 2006). Jordan stood steady at 8th place, while Algeria moved ahead of Lebanon to the 9th place while Lebanon slipped to 10th place. Tunisia, Syria and Egypt maintained their 11th, 12th, and 13th places respectively. Fixed wireless boom in Morocco propelled it to 14th place ahead of Palestine which slipped t0 15th place. Iraq remained in the same rankings at the 16th place, while Mauritania switched places with Yemen taking the 17th place and leaving the 18th place for Yemen. Sudan ranked last –as in 2006- in the 19th place.

The TCCM shows the extent of connectivity of individuals in a certain country whether via fixed lines, cellular lines and/or Internet. Off course, there will be an overlap since many individuals will be using these three communications technologies at the same time. However, the measure still yields an accurate and informative picture on the level of ICT services penetration in each country: For example, if a country has a TCCM measure of 60%, this means that at least 40% of the population are not users of any of the three services constituting the measure. While a TCCM score of more than 100% is very positive, it nonetheless, does not mean that all the population uses the services due to overlap of usage.

“As usual, the main driver in the increasing TCCM scores by end of 2007 in the Arab World was cellular subscribers growth with Internet services contributing a much lower portion of the increase. Still there were some bright spots such as the growth in broadband in Saudi Arabia and fixed wireless services in Morocco that contributed greatly to an enhanced TCCM score of the two countries” Commented Arab Advisors Group’s Founder and General Manager Jawad Jalal Abbassi.

“Enhancing the growth in the Arab broadband Internet markets –a prerequisite for any knowledge-based economy- will require coordinated and intensive policies and initiatives. This fifth annual media and telecoms convergence conference is a chance for operators, vendors and regulators to further enhance the growth in the regional markets for the benefit of all stakeholders (consumers and companies alike). The continued success of this regional event in Amman is a particular source of pride to us at Arab Advisors Group.” Mr. Abbassi added.

The Zain Group is the Main Sponsor of the Arab Advisors’ Fifth Annual Media and Telecommunications Convergence Conference 2008. Zain (formerly known as MTC) is the pioneer of mobile telecommunications in the Middle East and now a major player on the African continent. Today, the Zain Group is a leading wireless services provider and the 4th largest telecommunications company in the world in terms of geographic presence with a footprint in 7 Middle Eastern and 14 sub-Saharan countries, providing mobile voice and data services to over 45.7 million active individual and business customers. The company’s mobile telecommunications operations in Ghana will begin later in 2008.

The annual conference also received the support and sponsorship from Jawwal (Palestine), ESKADENIA Software (Jordan), GLOBITEL (Jordan), QUALCOMM, SIGNAL Communications – PRIMUSTEL (Jordan), Ericsson, Orange (Jordan), Greenpacket Networks (Bahrain) and Optimiza.

Conference exhibitors and partners include Waseela, Friendi, Nokia, Hits Telecom, Telecom Malaysia, Cyberia, Elite, DVV Media, Trade Arabia, ITP, Spot On PR, Mena FN, Telecom Review, ISI Emerging Markets, Media ME and int@j

Watwet was launched to the public about a 2 months ago After being for a while in privet beta.

The services is similar to twitter, it lets you to send your status update to your friends and receive their updates, via web, email and SMS. Unlike Twitter, on WatWet you can send and receive photos to and from your friends via web and MMS. And the service is available in both Arabic and English. (You can find my profile here.)

How you can use it:

1-For example you want to update your friends about your where about, you just send your wawet via SMS to a predefined number provided by wawet or via the web and all your friends receive your update, on web and SMS if they have activated their mobile number on wawet’s website and wish to follow your updates.

2- You take a cool photo and want to instantly share it with your friends, all you have to do is send it to a predefined number provided by Watwet from your mobile, or via the web and all your friends receive the update instantly via MMS and the web.

At this stage The SMS and MMS service is available in Jordan only and to those who have Zain mobile numbers only, but the web services is available worldwide, and soon Watwet will be available in more countries according to their FAQ.

Think that WatWet chose Zain,  because it is the most popular mobile operator in Jordan, with more than 1.4 million subscribers.

So instead of paying the cost of every SMS and MMS you want to send to each friend, you only pay the cost of one SMS or MMS and all your friends receive your update for free. On the other hand if you update from the web your cost is zero.

One of the neat things I liked about Watwet is that it automatically shorten any URL you enter when you submit your status, so you do not have to go to tinyurl, insert your URL, copy/past your tinyurl and then go to twitter to post it.

Unlike Twitter which has public timeline -status updates- from its’ users, the public updates on Wawet is available only at the front page for non singed in members, you can not see them when you sign in unless they are coming from your friends. I think they did that in order to encourage users to invite and network with their current real world friends, instead of hocking up with new people. But I advice them to enable public wawets, to helps users -like me- to promote their posts! And get answers to questions from the community.

How it can be improved:

Well I will give the idea of a project I had in mind few years ago but I did not implement it – the developers who signed the NDAs know a bet about it. –(Note to the people who signed the NDA, it is still valid and you can not use or share its’ content with other, especially the other aspects not mentioned here –

The basic idea is to make the service location aware, and that requires developing a mobile application that detects the location of the user, or use special SMS tags to check in location.

So once the user sends a photo from his/her mobile it detects his/her location and adds it to the photo properties. Also when sending from the web the user can check-in to the location that matches his/her current one, and the location’s photo is tagged with the location. The same applies to Status updates and videos, sine Watwet is part of  iToot copr,  the services should be also integrated with the other iToot Property: Ikbis.com thus providing photos web and SMS geo-location status updates and social networking, these thing are being implemented now partly by an American startup called BrightKite – to get a better understanding read my next post (How brigthtKite could evolve to web 3.0.)

One other thing they probably know is to open watwet’s API to third party developers so they can to build applications on top of wawet, which would add more value to its users, and would helo wawet  become a defacto standard in the Arab world.

Lastly you can have your own Watwet or Twitter by buying a software that costs a few hundred bucks.  but it is not just the idea, it is execution.

It is quite clear to any one that convergence between media and telecom is happening, we can add IT too.

The internet is a telecom medium but it is also a media medium, where a new bread of media company popped up years ago called New Media like yahoo, now the most notable trend is web 2.0: blogs, Wikis, social network, social media, etc. VoIP is changing the telecom game, Mobile 2.0: the linking the mobile to the internet with interactive apps, that some use your location and profile to customize services and ads to you. Skype for mobile, jaxter are some examples of how convergence is happening

While software applications are moving to the internet with SaaS (Software as a Service ) model: Where the software is a web application hosted online and you can access it from your browser with an internet connection.

All this convergence represents a threats and opportunities for traditional media and telecom companies.

In this them Arab Advisors group is hosting The Fifth Media and Telecoms Convergence Conference on June 2nd and 3rd 2008, with keynote speakers from 50 senior media and telecom senior executives in the Arab world, Asia and Europe.

The Conference will be held at Four Seasons Hotel, Amman, Jordan. I have covered the third conference for the Star newspaper where you can read the story here, but I did not get the chance to attend and cover the fourth one though.

Some of the regional media and telecom companies have embraced the convergence trend, for example: Aljazeera has formed a web 2.0 team, launched a channel on Youtube, an application on facebook, and you can now follow them on Twitter. Also my sources say they are planning to launch an e-commerce service in the near future.

Zain Jordan has been active with signing a deal with Javna for mobile ads called mobi ads, and partnering with iToot in its startup project watwet the new Arab social networking and mini-blogging platform, similar to Twitter, but with MMS capabilities.

MBC group introduced MBC mobile, and launched Movies in Motion, a Social Networking & Video Sharing website. Also the group started using DoubleClick the online Ad serving technology company that was acquired last year by Google for over a billion dollars.

According to the event’s website there will be over 450 telecoms and media industry delegates attending. The last conference was attended by Over 447 delegates representing major telecom, IT and media operators, vendors and regulators.

Some of the speaker will be:

· Dr. Saad Al-Barrak, MD and Deputy Chairman – Zain Group

· Mickael Ghossein, CEO, Jordan Telecom Group – Orange Jordan,

· Fayez Abu Awad, Business Development Manager – MEA, Nokia Interactive.

· Russell Merryman, Editor-in-Chief, Web & New Media, Al Jazeera English Channel.

· Massimo Migliuolo, Vice President Emerging Markets Service Provider, Cisco

· Mikkel Vinter, CEO FRiENDi mobile.

The conference sessions will tackle a lot of issues that relate to both media and telecom industry and how convergence is affecting them, some of the sessions are:

· Panel Discussion: How telecom operators and media companies envision cooperation / competition in the era of convergence and interactivity.

· Regional software suppliers’ capabilities and their importance to the regional landscape, by Nael Salah Managing Director and Founder, ESKADENIA Software.

· 3G terminal’s evolution and how it enables new market segments. By Mr. Luigi GasparolloV.P. Business Development MENA Region Qualcomm Europe Inc.

· The New Economy. Capturing the next growth phase in a convergent future. By Bo-Erik Dahlström, President and CEO, Ericsson Market Unit Middle East.

· Panel Discussion: The Broadcast industry’s strategy for new media delivery platforms (IPTV, Mobile TV)

· An Overview of the recent technology developments in the field of broadband wireless access and their impact on the Arab Markets By: Samer Taha, General Manager, Waseela for Integrated Telecommunications Company.

· Next Generation Media Consumption. By: Chris Forrester, Editorial Director, ‘Rapid TV News.

I noted that there was no dedicated session for mobile 2.0, It is relatively a new concept but is important to talk about, my advice to Arab Advisors to include this topic in the next conference.

The delegate fee is around US$ 990 per delegate, with discounts for groups. A hefty fee for some Arab startups, but something the big players can surly afford. We encourage Arab Advisors to give special discounts for some of the Arab web 2.0 startups to attend this event. But If you can afford you can register to the event here.

The event is a one of the best regionally and a great networking opportunity, I witnessed on the third conference delegates starting to negotiate deals, and according to ArabAdivsors’ Feedback from the delegates to the 2007 event shows that. 91.5% of the delegates said that the business development and networking value of the event was good, very good or excellent.