Social and Community with one button

It amazes me how I get this question popping at every web-app meeting. Can we just go social & add up a community? It’s so easy, add that button that shares the page with other apps and web-portals. So simple?

As much as most of us hate Social Software, the title that is, it is often tossed as the end-solution for every portal’s misery. Just add that button and we’re set.

What got my attention back to this is:

It’s more to social than just a badge, a button, or a Facebook group. And sure is more than a Weyak. I’d like to call that the “Online Viral Model”

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Translate, Rebrand, and that’s another Web Startup

Online Startups, which are rare, putting the fact that they’re mostly not official nor real business entities in the Arabia, most are just an idea that went online with some HTML and JS, no real businesses around them. Rare is the word, but the handful projects are nothing but a projection of other projects that went very popular in English and elsewhere.

Yes there’s hunger for Arabic content, there are a number of initiatives that are encouraging the growth of original Arabic content. But does that mean hijacking other websites content into an Arabized portal?

Video Sharing, Social Networks, Micro-Blogging, and even sites like Techcrunch have been copied. We’re not saying that’s bad, an opportunity call. Why not? Right? So if you write in English anyways, why don’t you write and post to TechCrunch instead? An Example.

What I find disturbing with Arab worlds startups is the fact that they are a projection of the Silicon Valley. Sure some are really valuable, but the fact that 90% are 100% copies, it disturbs and makes up for a market that doesn’t really exist. Reminds me of how back in the late 90s Internet companies made the investors lose faith in Internet ventures in Dubai, it came to a point that companies stopped even believing that websites are good for businesses at all.

You might be in pressure, need to go and get real famous in a record time, follow other people’s success, but for real man, copying the same steps and publicizing upon it? I wish I could name people and companies and still don’t make a chaos. But for real, no one’s hurt but the industry!

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10 Second Car

Out of no where straight away out of bed this “10 Second Car” came into my mind, guess I’ve been thinking a lot about horse power and drag racing. I was wondering how this phrase popped? It’s a kind of Urban word for a fast-tuned car that could do a 1/4 mile in less than ten seconds. So I had to look it up, you’ll be amazed of what I found.

Urban Dictionary, I might be in the dark (and some called me caveman too ) but this was my first time out there, thought I was gonna’ be taken to Wikipedia instead, Urban Dictionary, so here’s their definition for 10-Second-Car.

Photo cortesy of http://www.cardomain.com/ride/364548 did you notice the ride in the URL too? Now that’s the Urban I’m talkin’ about!

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Domains of Branding

How much could your brand suffer if it didn’t own the domain name that reads its name? Obviously the number is out of reach. What brought my attention back to this issue is by dialing Showtime.com. It’s a domain name with an automated landing page at Network Solutions. I’ve never dialed Showtime, I’ve always been taken by a link to apparently Showtime Arabia instead.

A quick look at the whois records of the domain name, it reads that Showtime Tours Incorporated, a company in GB owns the domain name since 2003. But then again this website is down.

Now the interesting part, the website showtime.com has a ranking of 157,224 on Alexa and according to Compete Rank it has 64,427 U.S visitors a month. Now you might think 64K ain’t that a big deal? Okay, how about 64K showtime seekers/followers who have to either click/search/type elsewhere and get frustrated till they find the domain name that actually takes them to their beloved cable network Showtime?

Now I wouldn’t say Showtime couldn’t effort the price, that’d be underestimating their size, uninformed marketers? That wouldn’t be true either, in all the cases, that’s a miss!

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Outsourced Keystrokes

We often relate the outsourcing to IT outsourcing, specially if you could relate in a way like being in the same industry or an IT related industry, some talk bad about it, some exploit it, some just get it to work. Even comedians got outsourcing as something that happens only in IT & Computer World, well, Mindworks gets outsourced for Copy Editing for Journals & Publishing houses. Neat!

Quoting Business Week:

In a squat, gray building in Noida, a leading outsourcing destination 15 miles from New Delhi, is the headquarters of Mindworks Global Media.

What’s fascinating is that with the rising costs of living in the Gulf in General and the Economic downs in the US, and the War economy, cutting the costs of rent, infrastructure, payroll & insurance is no more a profiting strategy but a surviving strategy. I had both my thumbs down for outsourcing back in the day, hats off now. One thing though, only processing work could be outsourced offshore, non-initiative, non-creative, basically things that do not have to be made from scratch, just rolling the wheel, no brainer right? Yet so hard to accept.

Read the full article on Business Week.

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Nokia E71 won over my P1i

Finally did the switch to my first ever Nokia. Slick, Cheque, and Slim. E71. An iSync plugin and I was set with all my contacts and calendar items from my P1. Sony Ericsson is a religion as you know, not just a phone brand, but the delay in their releases kills! Another issue with SEs is that it gets really slow once you have your E-Mail client loaded with e-mails and files all over the directories. Couldn’t wait for the X1 nor the P3 and iPhone is out of question for me (it ain’t my thing).

It’s amazingly/weirdly neat, I’ll leave the review part as Steve Litchfield has written a great one.

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iTunes store in UAE

This is big, finally it happened, just got this through the Emirates Mac User Group, iTunes opened for the UAE and accepts local credit cards, according to Magnus Nystedt of the EMUG.

You may have read about the expansion of the iTunes Store to more countries since yesterday but did you try to get an account with a local credit card? Well I just did and it worked just fine. Unfortunately so far you can only access the AppStore. There is no music, no movies, no TV. But I guess it’s a step in the right direction, right?

Check out the whole deal at EmiratesMac Blog.

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Pro is softer than the down-to-earth MacBook

Spilt coffee on my little white MacBook and had to turn it to the service center for a checkup, it wouldn’t power on. Me need a machine to work on, so I ran to Jumbo and got me a MacBookPro and thought I’d spare the white little thing for another use. Shocked by how delicate the Pro is. I’d throw my MacBook in my car, carry it with a little portfolio and a notebook for meetings, the Pro is not made to be used that way, I thought it’d be tougher and had to take less care of it, it just ain’t.

Sure I get to have better performance, specially when connected to an external display, one other thing I missed on when purchasing the Pro is that screen is Liquid looking and not Glossy like my little white beauty, it’s heavy, okay it’s got the multi-touch trackpad, but really, not so satisfied so far. I sold my MacBookAir a week after getting it, think I might do the same with this Pro Heavy and Bulky, I just don’t feel mobile with it or maybe I’d get used to it?

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And we’re down for another temporary cut-off

dot1ne has been off my own radar for sometime, haven’t posted anything that is worth reading for such a long time, but still, gotta’ keep this blog on hold for another month ’till the end of August until I get my schedule back together and get back on my key strokes.

Visitors and feed subsribers have dropped dramatically, feedburner shows less than 100 subscribers, visits have dropped to an average of 170 visitors a day, so it is in a way dying since the content has been pouring so slow and posts have been all scattered among unrelated topics with no relations. Diagnosed with lack of content and posts. Hoping for a better comeback in September. Expect some random posts whenever I catch something noteworthy to post, short ones though. Thanks for being a reader, hope to get it back together with a redesign in September and/or some fresh ideas.

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