The Arab World Online

July 08th, 2007 in Online Marketing- Middle East

Mohammad Itani, head of media,Neo Digital (a Flip Holding company)Â

 While Middle Eastern users (especially youth) are among the most active users of Web 2.0 content (social networking) their usage of these channels has been limited to novelty activities and is hindered by on-going blocks from government censorship. All Arab-oriented social networking sites have one common mission, to provide the local Arab internet user with an online experience that offers diversified yet cultural quality content and services that suit the community’s social, intellectual, entertainment and online-interactivity aspirations. A number of portals, recognising the potential of these functionalities have created their own alternatives.• Jeeran: Blogs and Social Networking • Ikbis: Youtube and Flickr• Clipat: A part of Maktoob • Jam3etna: Nescafe’s social space- classifieds, discussion groups (Targeted towards university students)• D1G: Content, Community, and Main Stream Web Services. Again, the above do have a considerable audience share, but are still limited to the youth market (16-25 year-olds). Other social community portals targeting businesspeople are limited and again are under severe moderation by web administrators.While all of the above have been doing a good job in moderating their content to avoid being blocked, again fear of being blacklisted by their peers (such as Flickr and My Space) is still existent.  Â