I’ll be away a bit for the Eid holiday, so Eid Mubarak everyone!

The question should really be why would you not blog? Watch the short video below to hear from marketing gurus Seth Godin and Tom Peters on why they blog – and why everyone else should.

I must admit, when my boss decided she wanted to start a blog and I found out that I would be doing the bulk of the writing, I was a bit skeptical (and not excited about the increased work load). But, honestly, writing Digital Qatar is now one of the favorite parts of my job – and dare I say I don’t even really consider it work…but don’t tell my boss that. It certainly has exposed me to new ideas, provided me with a creative platform and helped me think about technology in a completely new way.

So start blogging if you aren’t already – whether for your job or about something that personally interests you. I’m pretty sure you’ll find it to be rewarding, and who knows, people may even start turning to you for insight.

(Special thanks to Gerd Leonhard, our Connected Speaker for December, for posting this video on his blog.)

She is my travel idol!

Like many people in Doha I love to travel. While Doha has some nice things to offer, an escape to blue skies, greenery, nature and historical sites is always welcome a diversion for me. And thanks to our generous leave – and my very understanding boss – I have become quite a travel pro (or so I would like to think!). So what’s my favorite travel site when planning a trip: Wikitravel.

Wikitravel is the Wikipedia of travel guides. Like any wiki, it is user generated content that can be updated and refined by anyone. And just like Wikipedia, the content is proving to be accurate, timely and very reliable. The site has over 23,000 destination guides already – and growing.

I generally start any trip planning with a visit to Wikitravel. It offers information on countries, cities and even regions in general. Most destinations include really useful information on visa requirements and also a list of airlines that fly into a particular location. This was incredibly helpful when I was planning a visit to Lesotho (I didn’t even know where it was until a friend moved there) and exploring possible trips to Madagascar and Mongolia – they have yet to happen.

Wikitravel also has great recommendations on things to do while on your holiday, including culture destinations, shopping information, restaurants and hotels.  I find the tips on things to do useful, but am not a huge fan of the restaurant listings or hotels. I prefer TripAdvisor (my second most important travel site) for these because it allows user ratings and commenting, helping me make a more informed choice.

More valuable features that are often included for destinations include popular tourist scams, weather information, travel alerts and possible daytrips and excursions. There is also content available in various other languages, but English is by far the most populated.

So for those of you still trying to figure out your Eid plans, check out Wikitravel for some ideas and valuable trip planning resources. And if you discover something new, then be sure to update the Wikitravel guide.

If you are like me, you probably have about 3-4 different passwords that you use for you multiple online accounts. You use any variation of these for you your Gmail, Facebook, online baking, Twitter or news website subscriptions. Sometimes you forget which of your passwords you entered for a particular site, but if you work through your 3-4 options you can usually figure it out. And, if you are like me, you think you are quite clever with all your variations with letters and numbers. But really, how strong is your password?

After reading about research done by the Georgia Institute of Technology where they used very basic technology to try to crack people’s passwords, I realized just how weak mine were – al off them! The researchers found that they could easily crack a cluster of eight character passwords within 2 hours. When they increased the characters to twelve, they calculated that it would take 17,134 years to crack all the passwords in a cluster. That is a big difference. Let’s just say I promptly changed all may major passwords to be at least 12 characters.

Their calculations were based on the assumption that a sophisticated hacker could try 1 trillion password combinations a second. Um- wow.

So what else makes a password strong besides the number of characters? The article I read cited many different sources with advice, including Microsoft which recommended not using real words to avoid a “dictionary attack,” while Carnegie Mellon recommend using a full sentence as a password, including punctuation. A bit contradictory. Of course the strongest password would be a complete jumble of letters, numbers, and symbols, such as #%$*45&*(knfasf^^^”, however that does not seem practical to remember. And of course most sites do have limits on password length and characters that can be used.

Regardless of what you use, you should at least be thinking security when you create passwords for major online accounts. Think both in terms of number of characters and types of characters, but certainly be sure you can remember it! And if you want to check the strength of your password,try out Microsoft’s Password Checker. Mine are now rated as strong!

It was just a matter of time before it happened, so when Facebook announced yesterday that it was introducing a location-based service the digital world was not surprised. What was a bit surprising was that on the stage with Facebook during the announcement were representative from foursquare and Gowalla – seemingly Facebook’s prime competitors in the mobile check-in world.   Apparently they will be using the Facebook Places API to push their check-ins to Facebook Places. Seems like a smart partnership for all parties.

So what exactly is Facebook Places? From what I have read and the videos I watched, it is a very basic location check-in service, much like foursquare. You go to a restaurant or store and “check-in.” Your phone’s GPS or Wifi detects your location and shows you the places nearby. You then select your location (if it is on the list) and “check-in,” which will then show up on your Facebook page and in the newsfeed of your friends. Each place you check into will have its own page on Facebook and people will be able to check these pages for comments on the place and to see who is checked-in there (some privacy concerns!).

A unique feature for Facebook Places compared to the other check-in sites is the ability to tag the friends that are with you in your check-in post. Your friends will need to accept your tag for it to appear on their page and in their newsfeed.

Of course the biggest advantage of Facebook Places has over other check-in sites is their huge network. With over 500 million users, Facebook Places clearly has a large built-in network to grow through. I certainly expect it to become incredibly popular. And of course businesses will want to be sure they have a strong Places page. Facebook is even reaching out to businesses encouraging them to build their Places profile, and then of course link it to advertising.

Right now the Facebook Places application is only available in the U.S. and on the iPhone, but Facebook said they plan to expand to more locations and mobile platforms soon. So are you looking forward to Facebook Places coming to your phone?

I love a good deal and I love to feel like I am “in the know” of what is going on in my community, so when I heard about Groupon I was naturally excited. Groupon is a social website that shares with members a one “amazing” deal a day from a local store, restaurant or company. If enough people “buy” the deal it is activated and the entire group receives a coupon, or “Groupon,” that can redeemed for that deal. If not enough people sign up then the deal is cancelled and you pay nothing.

All kinds of deals on Groupon

The site operates on the principal of “collective buying power.” Basically companies can offer great deals on the site when they are guaranteed it will only be valid if a certain number of people take advantage. The company decides that number, which they can of course peg to the point where the offer becomes profitable for them.  What an amazing way to market your company, attract new customers and ensure you make money. The site has proven so popular with businesses that Groupon can only accept 1 in 8 offers at this point.

And of course for members, this is a great chance to discover new activities in their city, try a new restaurant or buy a new pair of shoes while on a budget. I checked out my old town’s past deals of the day and saw a bunch I would have wanted, including baseball tickets with a 40% savings, cupcakes (don’t judge!) at a 50% savings, membership at a gym at nearly 90% savings and a cheese tasting class at 50% savings.

To ensure enough people “buy” an offer, the website encourages users to share it with their friends, Tweet it or post it on Facebook. I would be more than happy to push my friends to take advantage of a 50% discount offer for cupcakes – that is not something to let pass by!

Groupon is available in most decent-sized cities in the U.S. and has started to expand globally, with Groupons available in over 20 countries. It hasn’t made it to the Middle East yet (Turkey is the closest), but you can be a member and take advantage of the deals when you travel. All you need to do is join, sign up for an offer, provide credit card info, and if enough people “buy” and offer, you’ll get a “Groupon” in your email to print, then redeem. I would of course love to see this come to Doha and am very much ready to get my Groupon.

ictQATAR Marketing Manager Julia Astashkina explores the booming world of online marketing and how new applications are making it easier than ever to find creative and affordable marketing solutions.

Consumers in Doha have already embraced traditional contests and sweepstakes – who hasn’t received a paper entry ticket to win a car at MegaMart or been tempted to switch banks by generous sweepstakes offers to win your salary times twelve? I know someone who flew to Singapore for free, thanks to a bank promotion. As businesses move their marketing efforts onto sites like Facebook and Twitter, promotions like contests and sweepstakes are becoming even more relevant and easier to manage.

According to Forrester Research, brands that run contests have twice as many fans as those that don’t. The entire notion of social media is built upon interaction and two-way communication. But simply creating a fan page for the sake of just having it in place isn’t going to land results. Online marketing efforts must be social, simple and highly engaging to succeed.

And what could be more engaging than a chance to win something special? There’s a whole industry developing around social media marketing applications, geared to handle online promotions. Some of the best application I have found are Wildfire, Simkl Promo Manager and Flowtown.  For me, Wildfire is on top of the list. It makes it easy for marketers to create professional looking, branded social media marketing campaigns and to simultaneously publish them on social media platforms.

The things I like most about Wildfire are:

1. Scalable — you can run promotions small or big
2. Multiple options — sweepstakes, coupons, photo and essay contests, and giveaways
3. Affordable — starting at $0.99 per day suitable for the smallest blogger or the largest corporation alike
4. Easy integration with Facebook fan pages, Twitter, or a company website
5. Make promotions fun, engaging and interactive

It's easy to create a promotion through Wildfire

Managing promotions on Wildfire is easy. Once you create an account and connect the application to Facebook, just provide the dates of the contest, the types of prizes, the fields for the entry form, specific parameters about contest entry and rules, and upload any additional artwork you want to include.

One example of a highly successful campaign through Wildfire was by KLM’s in flight iFly magazine, which ran a premium sweepstakes using and offered its readers a chance to win a meet and greet with DJ Tiësto in Amsterdam. Over the month long campaign they received tens of thousands of sweepstakes entries from Facebook and Twitter, as well as a sharp growth in Facebook fans.

KLM's successful promotion

There are many more Wildfire success stories, with organizations ranging large corporations, like Pepsi, to small businesses and non-profits. One of the most successful campaigns was for an animal rescue organization in the U.S.  It was based around people uploading stories about their pets and why they love animals. The campaign received over 10,000 entries. In traditional marketing, you would have to spend a lot of money to get similar results.

Bottom line – online promotions are not intimidating to manage at all and with applications such as Wildfire it is much easier to execute a successful campaign You don’t have to be an expert in marketing to do what the most successful brands do to get your target audience’s attention.  Perhaps you can offer a coupon on your company’s Facebook page and collect new emails while you are at it. Or let people know about a sweepstakes for a free chocolate cake for your child’s school fundraiser. The possibilities are endless.

It seems as though Microsoft is about to take on Google Maps, and based on their demo video, I like what I see. Microsoft Research unveiled its Street Slide at a conference last week, showing off some very cool features that make Google’s Street View seem antiquated (even though it is very new). Take a look at the demo of Street Slide and then the one of Google Street View and you will see what I mean.

Now let’s be honest, both of these are very cool applications that take maps to a whole new level. With so many people having smart phones and iPads, using one of these applications (in a city where it is available) makes it nearly impossible for you to get lost. As someone who is not known for his sense of direction, this is very exciting. There have been countless times I was wandering a new city and the paper map they gave me at the hotel doesn’t seem to be accurate. And of course, even when turning to Google, I have had way too many instances where street names don’t match. Having the ability to compare building facades, stores front and do a complete 360 of what is around makes getting your orientation so much easier.

Of course, once you do manage to figure out where you are, with the interactive features you will be able to find out information about important buildings (“this looks important, what is it?”), restaurants and shops. And don’t forget to use your foursquare account to check-in to the places you discover.

There are definitely more players in the digital maps space than Google and Microsoft, such as MapQuest, but they seem to be the most innovative right now. I look forward to seeing if Street Slide is added to Bing in the near future and also look forward to seeing how Google plans to keep up. With all this progress in digital maps, hopefully there will no longer be a need for this:

I am not lost. We are right here.

David Banes, Deputy Director of Mada, Qatar’s Assistive Technology Center (and frequent Digital Qatar commenter) shares his insight on what accessible technology truly is – and how it is really for everyone. Look for more guest posts from David soon!

So, you’ve been reading this blog for a while now, lots of exciting and innovative things keep appearing, web 2.0, video conferencing, communication, collaboration. All things that we digitally enlightened get excited about, but now and then another word creeps into discussions, and it’s an important one for the future of ICT here in Qatar and globally. The word is “Accessibility.”

Have you wondered what we mean by that term, and what some of the implications are for the development of ICT in Qatar? If you have, and even if you haven’t, here’s a quick primer to help.

Accessibility is used to refer to ensuring that IT products and services can be used by everyone, regardless of individual or special needs. Accessibility is about ensuring that a design is inclusive and reaches all possible potential users.

Who does this include? Well traditionally, we thought of accessibility as being about ensuring that people who were blind, deaf or physically disabled could use the same technology as the rest of us. The area where it most commonly referred would with reference to operating systems or more recently websites. So that’s both platform and content, that’s pretty wide ranging before we start.

However, accessibility is about a much wider community than people with “obvious” disabilities. Accessibility is also about people with reading and writing challenges, such as Dyslexia. Accessibility is about people who as they age find their sight failing or hands becoming painful. Accessibility is about people who get confused easily, those with learning disabilities or Alzheimer’s disease. Accessibility is about people who find themselves with sore eyes, back, shoulders or wrists when they use a computer. In other words accessibility is about all of us. Microsoft estimate that something like 70% of all users benefit from ease of use and accessibility features, reducing pain and strain and increasing their productivity and efficiency.

Of course as technology evolves, so do the platforms which we are all using. Whereas once we were just talking about PC’s now we need to think about websites, ebook readers, mobile phones, MP3 players, even digital television. These are all channels by which people connect, communicate and collaborate. As a result they are all channels where accessibility and the principles of universal design apply.

What happens if we ignore these needs? The truth is that to be digitally excluded is to be socially excluded. Exclusion means that we struggle to be part of an education system, we find employment increasingly hard to enter or maintain, and ultimately we are unable to be play a full part in the communities within which we live. If accessibility is something that has the potential to impact upon each of us, a decision to ignore the issue may one day place any of us on the wrong side of the digital divide. That’s not a place where I want to be, and I’m sure readers of this blog feel the same way

It’s not an issue you need to address alone. Here in Qatar there is the new Mada, the Qatar Assistive Technology Center, on the 7^th Floor of Al Nasr Tower. At the Mada Center you can explore the range of technologies that make ICT accessible to all, attend training on technologies, and try out solutions that might even help you today.

We all have a part to play in making sure that everyone has the opportunity to reap the benefits of being connected, and remember that “everyone” means you and I as much as anyone else.

-          David Banes

I have no clue if we are alone, but I think it’s very cool that there is an organization dedicated to finding out – and they are seeking the help of the open source community and citizen scientists in their attempts to discover alien life. Dr. Jill Tarter, Director for SETI Research at the SETI Institute was a keynote speaker at OSCON and made an impassioned plea for the many developers in the room to add their talents to the search for alien life as part of SETI Quest – an open project searching for cosmic life.

The SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute is a non-profit organization with the mission to explore, understand and explain the origin, nature and prevalence of life in the universe. They are using the latest technologies in their quest to discover alien life, something Dr. Tarter sees as a way for humans to gain a better perspective on their own lives. “We all have a common origin in stardust. Discovering extraterrestrial life would show that we are all the same. It would trivialize the difference between humans,” she said at OSCON.

Dr. Tarter was the recipient of a 2009 TED prize and with her wish, called on all Earthlings to continue their search for cosmic company. In the following TED Talk, Dr. Tarter shares some very cool stats on why she doesn’t think we are alone – such as the sun is only one of 400 billion stars – and she makes her pitch to humankind to join in SETI’s efforts.

So where does the global open source community come into Dr. Tarter’s quest? SETI plans to share all of its research data and satellite coding information openly on a cloud, allowing developers and researchers to analyze the information, enhance it, modify it, etc. For developers, they can play with the satellite programming codes to potentially find ways to make them more efficient and powerful. Why wouldn’t a developer want to take part in the SETI Quest? Think about the geeks points you would score!

So while we may not come face-to-face with an alien any time soon, and while whatever we find is likely to just be the technological footprint of an alien form from thousands of years ago, wouldn’t it be cool to know that we’re not alone?