Google Search Index v/s Dubai's House Price Index

Below is a comparison of how the Google Search Index varies when the housing bubble burst in Dubai in 2009. From the charts you may notice that a peak in the search of 'Home Financing' category happened few quarters before the bubble burst in UAE. This is very interesting and probably tells a lot about the fact that sentiment plays a very important role in the market movements. Surprisingly, the search for housing information drops before the bubble bursts and stays lower while the prices are wiped off and most of the people lose their homes.

However, at a macro level the trends match and show that online sentiments do determine the demand and supply of a commodity.

There is a surge in the search for property on Google in 2010, which matches with the house price index trend.

Click here to read Google Trends 2011 for Banks in UAE

Image take from - http://www.globalpropertyguide.com

What did Middle East Search in 2011 on Google - Trends Part 2

This series covers Google Trends 2011 for UAE,  Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Oman and Lebanon.

Google has once again released its annual Zeitgeist report, showing the fastest rising searches for countries all over the world. Saudi Arabia and Egypt were covered as part of the MENA region. I have used Google Trends to do the analysis of other countries in the Middle East.

Part 1 covers - UAE, Saudi Arabia and Oman.

Part 2 cover Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan

Jordan 

Youtube and Facebook take the lead in the searches. Saraya a popular news website is also among the top 10 searches. 

Gaddafi is a most sought after person on Google Jordan. 4Share a file sharing site is a popular in Jordan.

Interestingly Chrome browser is a among the top 10 rising keyword searches.

Egypt

Egypt has the highest number of Internet Users in the MENA region (20,136,000 as of 30 June 2011, according to internetworldstats.com). 

With all the political action happening in Egypt, no doubt ‘youm7’; a news website is among the list of popular searches.  Terms like ‘

Tahrir Square

’ and ‘Revolution of 25 January’ are among the top rising searches in 2011. Youtube and Facebook remain in the top 10 searched keywords.

Hossini Mubarak remains the most searched person on Google followed by Wael Ghonim one of the key activist in the Egyptian revolution.

Lebanon 

The country has internet usage penetration of 29%. Most of the searched terms are in English language. ‘Twitter’ is also appearing among the top 10 searched words. 

Applications like ‘whtsapp’ and ‘ebuddy’ are popular searches. 

Lots of users are taking interest in searching for the keyword ‘Syria’, assuming out of interest in the current political situation.

Click here to read Part 1 of this series

Click here to read about Middle East Google Trends for 2010

What did Middle East Search in 2011 on Google - Trends Part 1

This series covers Google Trends 2011 for UAE,  Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Oman and Lebanon.

Google has once again released its annual Zeitgeist report, showing the fastest rising searches for countries all over the world. Saudi Arabia and Egypt were covered as part of the MENA region. I have used Google Trends to do the analysis of other countries in the Middle East. 

Part 1 covers - UAE, Saudi Arabia and Oman. 

Part 2 covers - Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan 

UAE 

The country has the highest Internet Penetration rate of 69 % (via - according to internetworldstats.com) in Middle East. Most of the search terms are in English. After ‘Dubai’, ‘Facebook’ remains the most search term. In the rising searches, ‘Al Jazeera’ and ‘Dubizzle’ are amongst the top 5 searched terms.

Cricket and related websites like ‘cricinfo’ are amongst the top emerging searches, giving credit to the world cup held this year.  

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia – The country with the highest number of Internet Users (11,400,000 as of 30 June 2011 according to internetworldstats.com) in Middle East region. Most of the searched terms are in Arabic, which shows popularity of the language in the online world. ‘Facebook’ and ‘Youtube’ remain popular searches amongst the internet users. Photos and Game are some of the most searched categories in Saudi Arabia. Spongebob and Twitter are also popular keywords among the Saudi users. With the recent investment of $300 million by Prince Alwaleed bin Talal in Twitter, the website’s popularity will surge in the country. 

Oman

Oman – The country has an internet penetration rate of 48.4%. Facebook and Youtube are popular searches in the country. Al Sablah seems to be popular community forum in Oman, which appear in the existing and rising search trends. Hotmail is also among the rising searches in the country. Elakiri Community is another forum listed in the rising searches. 

Click here to view Google Trends for 2010.

Social Commerce drives Online Business

The below article was published in Qatar Today - Oct 2011 issue. The article highlights the way Social Media has redefined itself and a financial perspective to it.

Text Version

Social Commerce drives Online Business

Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver- Ayn Rand

Human beings always like to be in control of things. However, in today’s world humans are being controlled by money. Internet and Social Media are no exceptions to the greenback.

Last week, I was looking for a SLR camera to gift someone that would be easy to operate. While I would never have taken the time to email or call all my friends to ask which SLRs they liked, I felt updating my status on Facebook and asking for help would be a good choice. Guess what within an hour, a stream of comments and suggestions started to list on my Facebook wall. This helped me to take a decision to buy the SLR.

Social commerce is an emerging buzzword that has caught the attention of many including people who called Social Media a fad. It is an area which may redefine the way people engage with social media, and how will they share information. It may also change the way we share information and content with peers.

As we share information and converse with people on Social Media site, the level of trust has increased, so has our comfort level to perform financial transactions. At present, like any other new trends, social commerce is surrounded by uncertainty on issues like

• how will people use the platform to make payments,

• which type of devices will be used to share content,

• how will the brands capitalize on this opportunity

Currently, major developments are taking place on the Facebook platform, as brands want to engage 750 million active users, and develop a platform to purchase products and facilitate payments. This development has been given a new name called F-Commerce

Buddy Media, a Facebook marketing company gives us examples of how successful F-Commerce is: -

• Groupon made 11 million dollars in one day on a GAP promotion

• Pampers – a baby care website, sold 1000 diapers in 1 hour on its Facebook store.

• Ticket Fly – 3.25 average sales generated through Facebook shares.

“Share” (on Facebook) drives Sales; more the people share and recommend better chances of increase in sales.

According to Buddy Media: -

• The predicted revenue for the social commerce market in 2015 will be over $30 billion.

• 90% of all purchase decisions are subject to influence

• 67% spend more online after recommendations

Coca Cola has also got a transaction page set up on Facebook, which enables a fan to purchase branded merchandise directly on the page and make payments.

Take a look at where have Venture Capitalists invested their money in 2011 to ensure maximum returns.

• Groupon (group-buy) $950m

• StoreEnvy (social marketplace) $1.5m

• PlumDistrict (group-buy) $8.5m

• ShopSocial (social shopping/rewards) $1.2m

• Snapdeal (group-buy) $12m

• VillageVines (flash-sales club) $3m

• Baynote (ratings, reviews and recommendations) $13m

• Pose (social shopping/rewards) $1.6m

• Vitrue (Facebook commerce) $17m

All the above sites are closely related to the Share and Buy phenomenon. Your peers recommend a product or a service which may encourage you to buy the same.

Google has also taken a plunge in Social Commerce and is working to commercialize its homepage. This would help balance the competition, as both the giants’ battle for the market share.

The other side to the F-Commerce is the privacy issue, which Facebook has been battling for a while. Some people may not want their social interactions and graphs to be monetized at all. Rather they could do their 'social commerce' on Amazon, or the actual online retail store.

Some brands may actually try to influence their products and services by writing fake reviews. However in the past many brands have been busted for artificially raising their rankings online.

According to techcrunch.com, PowerReviews, a company that provides customer review technology for retailers and e-commerce sites has raised $10 million in new funding this year. This investment brings PowerReview’s total venture funding to $37 million. It shows how powerful online reviews are and how many companies may try to control and get their hands on it.

The social media hype is good for giants like Coca-Cola and Pampers, as they can afford million dollars in advertising. However, the mom and pop stores need to spend significant time to crack a solution which gives them returns. Social Commerce drivers need to give affordable option to small and medium enterprises to break into this stream.

It’s great to see that we are starting to analyze online conversation using numbers which will highlight the results and effectiveness of social media.

Fujitsu Lifebook - T 901

I have recently got a Fujitsu Lifebook T 901, which is an awesome notebook. 

The laptop has some awesome features like: - 

• Finger print sensor
• Bi-directional rotatable display
• Multi touch - screen pad
• Charge you phones/media devices even when the system is turned off via the USB port
• 3G port to help you be connected anytime
• Intel Core i7 vProNext 

Having a Modular bay for an optional second hard disk drive or another battery makes my life so easy and the notebook will become my travel companion. 

The notebook only weighs 2.0 kg, which makes it possible to carry around.

The left hand side pic shows a list of items received in the box, including the accessories. 


The items include:-

• The notebook
• Additional Battery pack
• A carry case
• CD/Manuals
• Charger/Cables
• Cleaning cloth

Check out some more reviews of the Lifebook T901 here.

Emergence of Mocial Marketing

The below article was published in Qatar Today magazine, September 2011 issue. The article highlights innovative mobile marketing technique adopted by brands. Click on the below pics to continue reading.

"Text Version"

Emergence of Mocial Marketing

Mobile marketing has come way beyond sending the 160 character text. With the growing popularity of smart phones the scope of reaching your customer via the mobile channel has grown.

Mobile and social media are merging and this integration of social networking and mobile will change the way we reach out to our customers.

According to Silverpop, an email marketing firm, a survey revealed the following results –

More than 75 percent of the marketers polled stated that their campaigns are only somewhat “mocially” integrated or not at all integrated.

Twitter and Facebook dominate the social scene, while only four percent of respondents are currently using location-based services, such as Foursquare and Gowalla, in their marketing efforts.

  

QR (Quick Response) is one of the popular tools that has been successfully adopted by Online marketers for mocial marketing. QR codes, a decades-old technology that was first used in the supply chain and now has become a way of mobile marketing.

  

A QR code is a matrix or two-dimensional bar code readable by dedicated smart phone (camera enabled).

How do you use QR code: when you see the code on a billboard, magazine page, on the metro, etc, scan it with a smart phone that has the necessary code-reading software. The code can contain a text, image or can a redirect the person to a mobile website.

How can marketers use it – Share your campaign information that can include anything from special promotion and competitions to images. Use it on your print media to share additional info or some other message.

  

Benefit – You can always change the URL code in the QR to show different content. Unlike in print media, if there is a mistake in your marketing campaign you don’t need to reprint the content. When you hand out brochures, collection of data is almost close to impossible unless you conduct a survey later on. QR marketing is able to collect details of each access of the QR Code instantly.

QR Codes Fact Sheet (via Queaar a social communication platform): -

• Q2-2011, QR scanning traffic was rising at an astonishing rate of 9840% vs Q2 2010
• QR codes are scanned more by women (64%) than men (36%)
• 35-44 year old users have scanned the most
• 87% of users expect a coupon or deal when they scan a code
• 68% of scans are done via iPhone
• New York is the leading city in the US for QR code scanning
• The most QR codes scanned globally are in Japan

Who is using QR Codes?

Starbucks wanted to allow their customers to pay for their latte’s via mobile media. They thought it would be an old fashioned way giving them prepaid cards and then swiping them on POS machines. So they decided to develop an app for iPhone to help customer pay and top up their ‘e-card’ using their own mobile phones.

It works like this –

- punch in your Starbucks card info

- verify some details, and the iPhone app becomes the gift/e-card.

- A secure QR code is generated for the store to scan when you pay the bill.

This payment mode is now enabled over 1000 Starbucks stores in USA.

Nissan Motor Company has begun fixing QR codes on vehicle window of their 2012 Altima. The QR codes link users directly to a mobile optimized page that includes videos, features, vehicle inventory levels and more. The customer can give feedback and know more about the car they have bought.

  

Try creating your QR codes on : -

http://www.mobile-barcodes.com/

http://www.createqrcode.appspot.com/

The study of human behavior shows that incentives offered for completing a task, tend to be addictive.

An outright example for this is location based website – Foursquare. The mobile app encourages people to share their location wherever they are. The users try to check-in to locations several times to receive one of the several badges offered by the site.

  

The entire experience of achieving the “Mayor” status of a particular location gives users immense pleasure. The commercial side of this is that many retailers give their customers discounts/freebies upon achieving “Mayor” badge (or any other badge prescribed by the retailer). E.g. Dominos pizza in UK offers exclusive discount to anybody who checks into their outlet frequently and becomes the Mayor of that particular outlet.

As per a report published by ICT Qatar in 2011, on average, each household in Qatar owns 3.9 mobile phones and the country has a mobile penetration rate of 99%. About 57% of the individuals who own a mobile phone access internet via mobile. With access to high speed networks combined with usage of smart phones, makes a clear case of experimenting with Mocial Marketing in the country.

The emergence of this new marketing technique gives marketers a new channel to reach out their customers and build relationships. Customer engagement via mobile would be taken to the next level once brands are able to customize the experience.