Monthly Archive for December, 2009

Mudawanat Inspired Me to Blog – You are Next!

Published by Sarah Hassaine on December 22, 2009 in Technology and Web Strategy. 7 Comments

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Anyone can blog?

Really?

That was definitely the message Mudawanat kept communicating throughout the event on December 12th, 2009. I was amongst 250 attendants and 60 online viewers, and I am 100% sure we all came away with the same impression: What should I blog about?

After all, if 120,000 new blogs are launched every day, surely there is something I can write about too?

Right now, the main challenge facing the web in the Middle East and the Gulf is the immense lack of e-Arabic content. Arabic is the fifth most spoken language in the world and the eighth online, making up less than three per cent of all web users, according to Internet World Stats.

Another challenge is that the region does not have effective bloggers just yet. Sure it is starting to – there are blogs coming from the ground in Gaza and Iraq for example, but the numbers are very low, relatively speaking. Nearly three-quarters of the world’s blogs are written from Europe and the United States. A June study by Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society found there are an estimated 35,000 active blogs in the Arabic language. But there are 70,000 blogs in Farsi – twice as many. Continue reading ‘Mudawanat Inspired Me to Blog – You are Next!’

Qatar’s Blogging Community Energized by Mudawanat: All About Blogging

Published by admin on December 20, 2009 in User Experience. 2 Comments

Mudawanat: All About Blogging

ictQATAR Event Attracts Over 250, Creates Buzz Across Twitter, Facebook and the Blogosphere

Participate or get left behind – that was the message echoed by many bloggers and blog experts at ictQATAR’s Mudawant: All About Blogging, which took place Saturday 12 December 2009 in Doha. The event, which attracted more than 250 people, featured regional and international blogging experts, as well as interactive workshops to help people start a blog or better market their existing blogs. 

“Simple online publishing technology has revolutionized how information spreads around the globe. The power has shifted to the participants, so participate,” said Jeremiah Owyang, the keynote speaker at Mudawant. Owyang, who is considered an international blogging guru and one of the fresh voices on blogging, said that humans are inherently social beings and that in the new digital age blogging is an increasingly necessary way to engage in society.

ictQATAR followed Owyang’s advice to participate and  announced the launch of its own blog, Digital Qatar, at the event. Digital Qatar, www.DigitalQatar.qa, aims to engage technology enthusiast throughout Qatar in a conversation about the boundless potential of information and communication technology. The blog is available in both Arabic and English and represents one of the first technology-focused blogs from the region. The first blog posts focus on creating effective web content that is user-focused, as well as practical information on how to blog.

Digital Qatar will be a platform for ictQATAR to more effectively engage in a two-way conversation with people throughout Qatar on a variety of ICT issues. ictQATAR is already very active in a variety of social media, including 14 social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Qatar Shares and Qatar Living. This online community was active throughout Mudawant, with more than 60 people watching the online live stream of the event and commenting, and many people live tweeting from the event, along with ictQATAR. Continue reading ‘Qatar’s Blogging Community Energized by Mudawanat: All About Blogging’

Back to Basics on Blogging

Published by Sarah Hassaine on December 9, 2009 in Technology and Web Strategy. 7 Comments Tags: .

BloggingOur morning routine of coffee and newspapers has changed over time to coffee and popular news websites.  Be it BBC News, New York Times or Al Jazeera, we would scroll through the paper’s subpages reading articles of interest.  However gleaning daily global news from just newspaper articles is becoming almost insufficient – now the trend is to also read a few blogs to gain different perspectives and even experiences, through the eyes of someone else. Continue reading ‘Back to Basics on Blogging’

User Experience: What is it and Why Does it Matter?

Published by Sophie Campagne on December 8, 2009 in Design and User Experience. 2 Comments Tags: .

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Have you ever walked through an airport looking at signs above you, ahead of you, on the walls to either side of you feeling a bit lost while trying to make sense of where you’re headed?  Like most things people do, you’re there with a purpose.  Maybe you’re looking for a specific gate.  Maybe you’re headed to the baggage carousel.   Or the nearest airport shop to purchase a bottle of water before boarding your flight.  Either way, you rely on the signage around you to orient yourself and find the specific destination you have in mind.

If the signage is good, and you’re able to quickly find what you’re looking for, you feel a sense of satisfaction.   Mission accomplished, well done me.  Conversely, if the signage is confusing, or worse yet, missing, you may become frustrated,  feel like you’re wasting your time, and you may even grow to dislike the airport, telling yourself that it’s been poorly designed.

How intuitive and easy it is to find something impacts the person’s impression of their surrounding.  The exact same is true of the web, and the term we use to describe it is the ‘user experience’. Continue reading ‘User Experience: What is it and Why Does it Matter?’