Wassup Dubai..? Ban on Alcohol in Food and British Couple Kissing Issue

Lately there has been some unusual events in Dubai, which makes me wonder if there is a trend shift in lifestyle or are the officials changing their ways of addressing issues: -

Example 1 - The overly hyped British Couple lip kissing issue. I believe if they have violated the decency laws of Dubai, ideally they could be warned for the first time rather than dragging them into courts. Yes, they may have crossed the line and violated the laws but a warning may have done the trick.

Check out the Dubai Decency Laws here. A note to all the tourists - it is important that you follow these rules as a respect to the emirate's culture and traditions.

Example 2 - An exclusive report published in Arabian Business states that Dubai Municipality(DM) has issued a letter banning use of alcohol in cooking, which has moved the hotel industry in the emirate. This could potentially harm the food industry as this could affect the food cooked in many five star hotels and impact revenues. However Dubai Municipality is now expected to issue a revised policy after the industry leaders have appealed to DM.

Oh! BTW – then DM should consider ban on food products sold in fuel stations, since the fuel contains alcohol. Petrol contains aliphatic alcohols like methanol, ethanol, propanol, and butanol. Alternatively they may consider a ban on petrol itself. Check out the exclusive report here..

However, I would conclude that Dubai is still the most liberal city in the Middle East where one can enjoy a decent living.

William Dalrymple at Emirates Literature Festival

This was the only session I managed to attend at this prestigious event, which was utterly entertaining.

The story reciting session with Dalrymple was fun and passed too quickly. The session was about him being a travel writer. He described how modern day India has changed since yester years but continues to maintain its charm.

Speaking about his book, “Nine Lives” he thought the book may not turn out to be as successful as his previous ones. The book has turned out to be the highest selling non-fiction book of all time.

He shared his experiences about staying in India and subsequent effects the country has had on him when he visited the country at the age of 18.

My opinion on authors as being reticent, introvert and in their dreams has changed quite a lot. These people are lot of fun and their one liner are a killer

I happen to meet @ruperbu @moneytmunot @faisalkhatib and the rest of the team who are doing an excellent job covering the event #dxblit

Threat to Social Media in Middle East

This is the Part 2 of the post Death of Social Media. I decided to name it as above to highlight potential threats to this popular communication medium in the Middle East. Social Media is vibrant and booming in the region but the possibility of its sudden death cannot be overlooked. The political sensitivity and formation of agendas against the existing regimes has provoked many governments in the region to block popular social media sites.

Internet Service Provider (ISP) plays an important role in blocking/filtering these websites. In its role as a licensed ISP and in response to customer requests, ISPs have a clear policy that aims to prevent damage to the values of the community from harmful material on websites.

Interestingly enough, the blocked site message on Etisalat says “If you would like the classification on this site to be reviewed, please fill in and submit the Feed Back Form.” At least an opportunity to appeal, don’t know how many of them may have been heard though.

Below is a country wise summary of blocked social media websites and some figures. The information may vary as countries may decide to block/unblock the websites anytime.

Qatar

- According to one user of Qatar Living, popular site "Tagged" has been blocked by QTEL in 2009.

- Has got 265,000 Facebook users

UAE

- Etisalat banned Orkut.com in 2007 upon orders from the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA).

- The UAE also has a ban on a photo sharing website called Flickr ,

- Youtube is filtered and some of the videos are blocked

- Some popular blogs listed on Blogger like Secret Dubai are also blocked

- Rumors of blocking Facebook or Twitter are occasionally discussed on local forums and make rounds in the market. Many users joined a group called “Say no to blocking Facebook” to show their support last year.

- 1.2 million Facebook users

Iran

- Twitter, another popular and rapidly growing social-networking tool, also has been filtered out in Iran.

- Blogging websites like Blogger and Wordpress may not be blocked but a particular blog that may offend the officials is blacklisted.

- Iran Internet Service Providers Blocked Facebook in 2009 amid fears of users discussing about the most controversial Iranian Elections.

- Local social networking site Baltatarin.com is filtered

Egypt

- They blocked the website of the leading opposition party called Kefaya – Egyptian movement for change, in 2008.

- 2.3 million Facebook users

- Has highest number of Arabic Websites in the region

Syria

- Syria has taken the lead in blocking Facebook. The government feared that Israelis are enlisting on the Syrian Networks on the website. This was reported in Lebanese newspaper Al-Safir on 19 November 2007.

- Youtube and Facebook is blocked

Saudi Arabia

- Metacafe Partially Blocked

- Flickr and Orkut blocked

- Access to some of the popular blogs like Saudi Jeans is occasionally restricted

- 1.5 million Face Book users

- 2nd highest country after Egypt to have max. numbers Arabic Websites

- As per a recent survey by IQPC - this is the prime market for Digital Marketing tactics in 2010

Just imagine a hypothetical situation where the ISPs decide to block all the popular Social Networking sites in the region… down goes all the hype about Social Media.

The ad-spend in UAE was approximately 1.46 billion for 2009. Social media would form approximately 15% of this total spend. We know who would take the first financial hit…

-Marketing Agencies would suffer a major blow, as they would have lost a considerable amount of revenue in the form ad-spend.

-Many companies who have diverted funds to Social Media would not take any chances and marketing strategies built around this medium would go down the drain.

- People who interact with their friends/families would be frustrated, as social media has been one of the prime communication medium for them.

Most of the countries in the region block Skype and other VOIP services. As far as freedom of speech and press is considered, United Arab Emirates scores highest marks in the region for being quite liberal but it has a long way to go.

Recent alliance of Facebook with Connect Ads shows the confidence level of the social media sites in this region. I am a great fan of this medium and would like to see this thrive in the region.

Users in Gulf countries like the UAE and Saudi Arabia are worried that their authorities could follow suit after some countries have blocked these websites. So much for the political chaos in the countries….that the new medium of communication has to suffer.

UAE Rains 27th Feb 2010

Come on let it rain, let it rain down on me Let the rain touch my hands - Melissa Etheridge.
Check out the videos of the heavy rains filled with thunder storms.Click here to view the pics.

VIDEO 1

VIDEO 2

Death of Social Media in Middle East - Part 1

Social Networking in the Middle East is a completely different living thing, that has some how slithered into our life. The approach to social media from a commercial point of view needs to be fundamentally different from the global trends, which may not work here.

Past few years marketers have been trying to convince the Senior Management of their respective companies to allocate more budgets for Online Marketing, in which they have partially succeeded. The sudden buzz about Social Media has definitely helped the cause but most of the companies in Middle East still feel that sheer presence of their brand on Twitter and Facebook completes the cycle.

Social media" implies a broad range of topics and has several different connotations. Social media may refer to a combination of various elements on the Internet, for example, blogs, forums, vlogs, video sharing sites, dating sites, picture sharing sites etc. Some of the many forms that Social Media can take include instant messengers, blogging, music sharing, wikis, podcasts etc.

Marketers may have actively engaged in one of the above Social Media form at least once. The lack of engagement with the customer in these online forms can lead to severe issues, which is currently a major hurdle for the brands in Middle East. Majority of them manage to create a Facebook group or a Twitter profile, but they don’t have a clue on what to do with them.

Do you listen to your customers online? How many companies have a team monitoring their brand on the internet? Once you are online you need to be there forever; this is a continuous engagement process.

If a customer writes a letter to a newspaper editor, most of the companies in Middle East have a corporate communication department to address the customer complains. If the same customer posts an issue on an internet forum the issue is never seen escalated to the company, but the brand damage stakes are much more higher due to the viral nature of internet. If you need to research on the market trends, monitor the local forums. Customers are giving their feed back on these forums at no cost and there is a huge opportunity to get insights. Most of the companies are busy extracting email of users and then bombarding their accounts with their latest offers. I hate some of the Twitter accounts who fill my twitstream with their latest product offers. Remember once you are online you may fetch compliments but be open to criticism.

I would like to commend @DubaiMallNews on handling the Aquarium Leakage issue yesterday. They were honest enough to post a note on the twitter about the leakage and then inform the customers that the situation has been contained. This was just an example of how can you communicate with your customers on social media.

Continuous threat to shut down some of the popular Social Networking sites in the region can lead to sudden death of this medium. This is a highly discussed issue in Middle East which can have serious business impact and will be covered in Part 2 of this series.

Facebook team’s up with Connect Ads

Trevor Johnson, head of strategy and planning for Facebook EMEA, announced Facebook's recent alliance with Connect Ads, who have been named the site's official representation partner in the region, at a press conference on Wednesday

Facebook hopes that the deal with Connect Ads will give exposure to advertisers in a socially conservative Middle East region where online marketing is in its early stages and social media sites under threat at times from the service providers.

I had an offsite meeting in Marsa Alam, Egypt in 2008 where I met the Connect Ads team. It was a pleasure meeting Mohamed El Sayad GM – MSN Arabia and Amr Al-Masri who is an account executive at Connect Ads. Connect Ads makes an excellent team to work with. They were busy launching MSN Maghreb then and today they have managed to seize control of Facebook in the Middle East.

The Cairo-based advertising booker already handles sales for Microsoft Corp.’s MSN regional portals and other local sites namely MSN Arabia, MSN Maghreb, ArabFinance.com, Masrawy.com, Otlob.com, Yallabina.com, Mazika.com, CareerMidEast.com, YallaKora.com, Barca Arabia, and El3ab.com

There are about ten million active Facebook users in the Middle East and North Africa region, making up about 2.5% of the social networking site's total base of 400 million active users worldwide. United Arab Emirates has an average of 1.2 million Facebook users with more growth expected from the Middle East as a whole over the coming years.