Dinner with Yahoo! founder, Jerry Yang

It’s not everyday that you get to meet a founder of the world’s largest portal. In fact, in my case, it was the first time I ever met an ‘Internet-era legend’.

Jerry Yang, co-founder of Yahoo!, was in town as part of his Middle East tour following Yahoo!’s acquisition of Maktoob.com. It was expected that top Yahoo! executives would fly into the region, and they did.

But, undoubtedly, Mr. Yang’s presence generated a different level of excitement and interest in Cairo, Amman and Dubai last week. So, when I got an invitation to an ‘informal dinner with Jerry Yang’, it was an honor indeed.

I arrived early and had the pleasure of welcoming Mr. Yang, who warmly said hello and then gave me his business card, and that’s when I had to say “well, surely I know all about you sir, but thanks for the kind gesture of presenting your business card.” He carries the title of “Chief Yahoo!”. The other side of the card is Arabized, which demonstrates that Yahoo!’s has arrived in Arabia.

Clearly this was not an interview, but a relaxed and joyful evening, therefore the conversation drifted from light business talk to Arab food and customs. I must say that Mr. Yang was humorous, pleasant and he was curious to know more about our region and how Arabs go about their lives. Being originally Chinese, he mentioned to me how similar our cultures were.

I made a concentrated effort to explain to Mr. Yang why Jordan was an interesting country, that there were breathtaking sites to see and that he must come back to town again soon. He mentioned Petra and the Dead Sea, and seemed to know a fair amount of information about both. So it appears an Internet search on Yahoo! yields good results for these two destinations.

Towards the end of the dinner, I asked Mr. Yang if we could have our photo taken together and he kindly obliged. It also started a wave of photos with everyone else at the dinner. Mr. Yang kindly smiled through the whole thing.

Inspiring thinkers and ground-breaking business leaders are a pleasure to meet. As a technology journalist, and as a web entrepreneur, it felt like I was meeting one of my heroes.

A key thought Mr. Yang left me with was the importance of courage and creativity. He said most people you talk to about a venture, won’t necessarily think it’s a great idea, but that’s expected. If they thought it was, they’d think of it first and you wouldn’t be the only one who created it and succeeded!
Indeed, this is probably the story behind the success of Jordan’s best Internet ventures. It’s also the philosophy continuously driving success within organizations when they ‘dream up’ a new service or feature. It’s probably one of the things that made Yahoo! great.

Talking to Mr. Yang re-affirmed that big dreams, hard work and charismatic leadership work. They propelled Yahoo! to success and we can all learn from that.

zanasser@gmail.com

The debut of Microsoft’s “new efficiency”

The Windows 7 launch road-show came to Amman last week, under the slogan of “The New Efficiency”. It generated considerable enthusiasm with hundreds of attendees. The presence of top Microsoft executives from Redmond and across the region underlined the importance of the occasion.

The press conference featured the guest of honor, Kevin Turner the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Microsoft. After hearing the opening remarks, I had the opportunity to ask Mr. Turner a couple of questions.

After commending Microsoft’s demonstration of commitment to the Middle East, I stated the general consensus is that Windows Vista was a dissapointment and said that we were all hoping that Windows 7 would be ‘the solution’, but will it be and why? And, what’s Microsoft’s view regarding the emergence of online office applications, some of which are free?

Mr. Turner first acknowledged that Vista had its problems and that it generated negative publicity for Microsoft, but he said that Microsoft has now built its greatest operating system in 35 years.

“We’re thrilled and pleased with Windows 7, and the feedback so far has been excellent. We expect to sell over 300 million copies of Windows 7,” he said.

Addressing the ‘online software’ question, Mr. Turner explained that Microsoft has its own strategy to deliver online applications, and was focused on the ‘cloud computing’ future. Regarding paid vs. free online software models, he said that “Nothing is actually free, as it may be supported by advertising, but the beauty of what Microsoft offers is the combination of software and services and the resulting savings gained by businesses.”

Next up was a public launch event, in which Mr. Turner spoke again and was followed by Samer Chidiac, from Microsoft’s Lebanon office, who summed it up well when he said: “People have told us that they ‘just want their computers to work’.”

The user desperation is quite evident in that statement, and the willingness of Microsoft to admit that fact is commendable. And, from the looks of it so far, Windows 7 is a product geared towards making computers ‘work again’ the way we want them to.

Maybe there will still be some security holes, and some glitches here and there, but it appears that ‘the new efficiency’ is coming with a leaner OS, faster start-up, more user-friendliness and much more.

Those of us who are Windows users want the new operating system to be great. We want to stop envying our Macintosh-using friends, before we end up jumping ship and joining them!

Windows 7 has a lot of expectations to live up to, and Microsoft is probably at a real cross-road at this point in time, when switching to other operating systems has never been easier. In the coming weeks, early adopters of Windows 7 around the world will deliver their verdict. Let’s wait and see.

zanasser@gmail.com

Arabic language web addresses to be available

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) met in Seoul a few days ago to discuss the proposals to allow web addresses in non-Latin script, opening the way for Arabic and other web addresses.

This is big news, and could impact all Internet businesses in the Middle East, who will first have to acquire the names of their sites in Arabic letters, then decide wether or not to use these domains as their main site addresses, following many years of providing users with sometimes complex latin letter names like “kooora.com” or “D1G.com” or even just long words like “alarabiya.net”.

It is expected that there will be an approval for initial limited use of "International Domain Names" before the end of the year.

Rod Beckstrom, ICANN's president and CEO, said: “In Seoul, we plan to move forward to the next step in the internationalization of the Internet, which means that eventually people from every corner of the globe will be able to navigate much of the online world using their native language scripts.”

The regional manager for, Baher Esmat, spoke to the press saying that this move will be a a factor in bringing more people in the Arab world online.

ICANN's Internationalised Domain Name (IDN) program is expected to allow the use of characters from other languages such as Chinese, Arabic and Japanese for the complete internet address, instead of just parts of addresses as it is presently.

Baher added that IDNs won't be a solution to all the internet access problems in the region, but will deal with part of the problem and will enable more Arabic content online. Baher goes on to say that certain countries, where people use the Internet mostly in Arabic such as Saudi Arabia or Egypt, the governments are strong advocates for the language, and there would be a pressing need to have IDNs.

According to the latest figures by Internet World Stats, there are nearly 48 million internet users in the Middle East, representing slightly fewer than 3% of the world's online population.

Some commentators and analysts say this is like finally liberating the Internet, as ICANN ends the exclusive use of Latin characters for addresses tomorrow.
This action comes during the week in which the world celebrates the 40th anniversary of the internet's creation in a computer experiment by researchers at the University of California.

This week could also mark the actual birth of the “Arab Internet”.

zanasser@gmail.com

‘Phishing bust’ in Egypt and US

An international phishing scam has been uncovered. It involves cyber criminals in Egypt and the US and Egypt.

Accordingly, authorities have made around 80 arrests, following a two-year investigation into this organized crime gang. Reports suggest that they have stolen around $1.5 million in phishing attacks on hundreds of US bank accounts, and it’s somewhat puzzling to note that the attacks originate from Egypt!

The Egyptian nationals arrested are 47 people, who have been charged with computer fraud, conspiracy to commit bank fraud, money laundering, and aggravated identify theft.

The remaining thirty-three suspects arrested came from California, Nevada, and North Carolina, and it is reported that the US authorities are seeking a further twenty people.

Here’s the story cirulating in the media: “The gang launched the phishing attacks from Egypt to gain account details of customers with two US banks. Once the accounts were compromised, money was stolen from legitimate customer accounts by transferring it into bogus accounts set up by the US part of the gang. The US gang members would then withdraw funds from these accounts and transfer the profits by wire transfer to Egypt.”

The FBI's Los Angeles office led the investigation, calling the operation ‘Phish Phry', and cooperated with Egyptian authorities in what is now considered to be the first joint cyber investigation between the US and an Arab country. Even the US Secret Service and Electronics Crimes Task Force were involved.

This bust is being hailed as ‘an organized response by law enforcement across international borders, which we have seen in this case.’

What worries international police is this emerging trend of cross-country crime, facilitated by the Internet.

Criminal groups can now recruit skilled programmers abroad to help commit organized theft. Hacking, fraud and identity theft, are quite common but utilizing Arab and Middle Eastern talents to carry out such attacks in America and Europe is a new development.

A statement by the FBI includes gratitude to law enforcement partners in the U.S. and the Egyptian government's dedicated cooperation.

This shows that, in the Internet age, borders cease to exist among countries, and that the only way to uphold the rule of law is cooperation.

This breaking story has placed the spotlight on growing Internet-related crime in the region, and you can expect to read more about this topic as international cyber crime evolves. It’s an eye-opener, and an opportunity to start monitoring Internet-related crime in our region.

zanasser@gmail.com

Twit-iquette

Now that Twitter is taking off in Jordan, and across the Arab World, it may be a good time to establish some form of Twitter etiquette, regarding what to tweet and how many times!

Twitter is a tool that means different things to different people.
Teenagers create an account, follow their friends, get followed by them, and then report every minute detail of there lives so everyone knows what’s happening.
Young adults do a bit of that, but mostly Twitter about something they saw, or read or that happened to them. Many of them use it to congratulate one another on occasions and so on.

Users in the 21+ range do a bit of both of the above, but add in ‘marketing Tweets’ which are about their achievements, careers, products and services they offer. In that sense, Twitter is mainly a self promotion tool for them. They also look at it as a ‘networking’ and ‘introduction’ tool to show others that they are interested in knowing more about them- by following them.

So, with all of these different motives behind Tweeting, it’s no surprise my Tweet Deck applications keeps buzzing with incoming tweets.

Accordingly, I wish people stuck to a general guideline of Twitter etiquette, which won’t only be a relief for people tried of their countless, meaningless messages but will also help them maintain their public image.

For starters, don't say something that makes you look like an idiot. Only Tweet about topic you understand, and conduct yourself on Twitter as you would socially in the real world. After all, it’s a ‘social network’.

Don't overly criticize someone or something which will go on public record as your position, making you look like a total hypocrite when you change your position about that person or thing.

For example, government employees in the US are advised not to Tweet, or re-Tweet, news or analysis that may reflect their political position.
Journalists of the Washington Post have received clear instructions from management to “refrain from writing, tweeting or posting anything that could be perceived as reflecting racial, sexist, religious or other bias or favoritism. Because that would tarnish the newspapers journalistic credibility."

And, be careful who you follow because it reflects your interests and general principles.

So, as you can see, Twitter is not all fun and games.

It’s a communication tool which could cause serious damage to your image or that of the organization you represent. To sum up, think before you Tweet. It does not take the fun out of it, it just takes out the potential damage!

zanasser@gmail.com

On Facebook Golan Heights is either part of Syria or Israel, you choose!

If social networks truly reflect societies, then they will get caught up in the debates and controversies that we experience everyday.

The most recent example has been Facebook’s struggle to sort out the “Home Country” of users logging in from the Golan Heights. Should they select Syria or Israel?

Up until recently, The Golan Heights was considered part of Syria on Facebook, until a pro-Israeli lobby group which goes by the conspicuous name of “honestreporting.com” started a group called "Facebook, Golan residents live in Israel, not Syria."

The group attracted 2,500 members in the first week. Shortly afterwards Facebook policy changed.

A CNN reporter got comments from a Facebook spokesperson about this, who said “We have enabled users in Golan Heights to choose either Syria or Israel in the listings. We currently have the same dual-listing options for the West Bank settlement, which is listed in both Palestine and Israel. We deal with the listings for disputed territories on a case-by-case basis, and with Golan Heights we decided a dual listing made sense in this instance."

Well, it seems Facebook has found it’s own solution to the 60-year long Arab Israeli conflict, and has adopted an approach of ‘let every person chose what he/she likes, and let’s all get along together on Facebook regardless of international law ...”
And the result? Delighted Israeli settlers such as Ofri Bazaz who says "It's very important on the Internet when somebody comes to my profile on Facebook they will see Israel and not Syria. I'm not Syrian."

Really.

Maybe Facebook should offer a profile entry that says “I’m an Israeli living in occupied Syrian territory.” You know, just to clear up this person’s problem!

What do the Syrians think of this story? Well, maybe they would be able to do something about it if Facebook was not blocked in Syria! According to the CNN report, this is due to it being ‘very popular with Syrian activists’.

It is dissappointing that Syrians who should be countering this pro-Israeli group can’t.

So, Facebook has officially gone against United Nations resolutions which clearly state that the Golan Heights are “occupied Arab territory”. Simply, due to some pressure from a pro-Israeli group. It seems Facebook and other social networks will unwisely accommodate the wishes of some of their users who are seeking to make political statements beyond the confines of these social networks. Well, then they will have to take the heat of these decisions.

Stay tuned for a follow-up story on ‘Arabs start Facebook group to keep the Golan Heights in Syria!”, or even better “Arabs decide Facebook management is either nave or simply pro-Israeli.”

zanasser@gmail.com

The Maktoob story: A source of pride

The big news this week is the sale of Maktoob.com to Yahoo! Rumours had been circulating for years regarding this deal, but it’s now official and the Internet media scene in the Middle East will never be the same.

To begin with, we should all feel extremely proud of the Maktoob team, especially the founders Samih Toukan and Husam Khoury who launched Maktoob eleven years ago, following a few years of experimenting with web development and Internet projects under their previous company Business Optimization Consultants (BOC), which even launched one of the first recruitment sites in the Arab World, Job Finder.

In 1998 they spotted a niche for Arabic email services and announced Maktoob at a computer show in Amman (METS 98) where the founders wore Maktoob T-Shirts and asked people to sign-up for an account. I remember signing up and grabbing my email address zeid@maktoob.com which I’ve proudly used ever since, having beaten hundreds of ‘Zeids’ that would follow as Maktoob gained millions of email users in record time and its fame went beyond Jordan.

Maktoob (meaning ‘letter’ in Arabic) grew beyond its name to offer so much more Arabic and English content. Your email username and password became a gateway to so many other services.

I’ve been watching Maktoob closely since it started, and have worked with the Maktoob team on many occasions. The patience and determination of the founders and their early investors must be commended. From humble beginnings in a Jebel Amman office, Maktoob now has over 300 people in Amman, Dubai, Riyadh, Cairo and Kuwait.

There are many Jordan-based Internet media ventures that have been inspired by Maktoob, or have simply benefited from the awareness that Maktoob created in the region. When Maktoob opened its Dubai office, it was probably the only Arab website selling online advertising professionally in the Middle East, educating clients and advertising agencies about the future of marketing as we know it today.

It took years for proper revenues to materialize, but perseverance and leadership have been awarded now with this recognition from Yahoo!, whose acquisition of Maktoob will send a message worldwide regarding the emergence of the Middle East as an Internet media market.

It will also tell the story of Jordanian entrepreneurship against all odds. A story that involved hundreds of team members over the years, all of whom feel this success is theirs too.

The outpouring of support and congratulations to the Maktoob team following the announcement of this deal has been heartwarming. No matter what direction the new Yahoo! Maktoob takes, its place in the region’s Internet history is secured as the trailblazing industry-maker, born in Jordan. Congratulations to us all.

zeid@maktoob.com

Yahoo! to acquire Maktoob.com

Yahoo! has agreed to acquire Maktoob.com, the Arab world’s largest online community, marking the first major investment by a U.S. technology company in a region where internet penetration is still in its infancy.

The global internet giant said on Tuesday it has entered into a definitive agreement with Jordan-based Maktoob Group to acquire Maktoob.com for an undisclosed fee. Maktoob Business is a part of Maktoob.com.

Yahoo! said it expects the acquisition to be completed in the fourth quarter.

Read more

Internet filtering by MENA Governments increasing

OpenNet Initiative recently released a report delivering an an updated view of Internet content controls in the Middle East and North Africa region, comparing findings to an earlier global survey carried out in 2006-2007.

The new study shows that Internet censorship has “continued apace in the region.”

Fourteen countries in the Middle East and North Africa, out of eighteen countries surveyed, filter Internet content using technical means.

"Our latest research results confirm the growing use of next generation cyberspace controls beyond mere denial of information," says Ron Deibert, ONI Principal Investigator and Director of the Citizen Lab at the Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto. "The media environment of the Middle East and North Africa region is a battle-space where commercially-enhanced blocking, targeted surveillance, self-censorship, and intimidation compete with enhanced tools of censorship circumvention and mobile activism."

Apparently, Internet censorship in the region is increasing in both scope and depth, and filtering of political content continues to be the common denominator among filtering regimes there.

Governments also continue to disguise their political filtering, while acknowledging blocking of social content, and censors are catching up with increasing amounts of online content, in part by using filtering software developed by companies in the U.S."

Examples of issues that the ONI research reveals include Qatar's blocking of online educational health content such as the Web site of the Health Promotion Program at Columbia University; Syria's blocking of political Web sites such as Facebook; the UAE's blocking of a number of sites that present information on Nazism, Holocaust deniers, and historical revisionists, and sites that are hosted on Israel's .il domain; and two Yemeni ISPs' use of Websense.

Regarding Jordan, the OpenNet website reports that, “Access to Internet content in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan remains largely unfettered, with filtering applied to a single news Web site.”

OpenNet Initiative (http://opennet.net), is a partnership among groups at four leading universities: Toronto, Harvard, Cambridge, and Oxford, funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

The 2008-2009 Middle East and North Africa regional overview and country profiles can be accessed at http://opennet.net/research/regions/mena. n

zanasser@gmail.com

“Scareware” is big business

According to a study by Panda Security, fraudsters are making approximately $34 million per month through what is being called “scareware attacks”.

These are scams designed to trick surfers into purchasing rogue security packages supposedly needed to deal with threats which don’t really exist.

Also termed as “rogueware”, distributors of such software are successfully infecting 35 million machines a month.

Utilizing the concept of social engineering, whereby information on such fake security software is marketed through social networking sites and tools, user are tricked into visiting sites hosting scareware software, downloading it and telling a friend. Other tactics to find users include manipulating the search engine rank of pages hosting scareware.

Panda Security believes that there are over 200 different families of rogueware, with more new variants coming on stream all the time.

The technical director at Panda Labs explains that "Rogueware is so popular among cyber-criminals primarily because they do not need to steal users' personal information like passwords or account numbers in order to profit from their victims. By taking advantage of the fear of malware attacks, they prey upon willing buyers of their fake anti-virus software, and are finding more and more ways to get to their victims, especially as popular social networking sites and tools like Facebook and Twitter have become mainstream."

And the figures support the concern that this trend is growing. In the second quarter of 2009, four times more new strains were created than in the whole of 2008, primarily to avoid signature-based detection by proper security packages.

Another technique, behavior-based detection, is an approach that works well with Trojans and worms, but is limited when applied against scareware packages.

The real issue now emerging is how sacreware is emerging as an organized crime. There are dedicated software creators and distributors of scraeware. They go through a set of procedures: writing the rogue applications, establishing distribution platforms, payment gateways, and any other back office services.

There are also affiliates (distributors) tasked with the job of distributing scareware to as many victims as possible in the fastest possible time.

Stay out of this cycle. Don’t be ‘scared’ into downloading anything. Only obtain well-known industry standard security software. Forget about small, unknown vendors. Just applying common sense is the best protection against scareware, rogueware or any kind of new ‘threatware’.

zanasser@gmail.com

Wireless broadband will dominate our region soon

It is clear that wirless Internet use will exceed ‘wired’ use worldwide. Internet access delivered across mobile phone networks and Wi-Max networks will be the dominant form of connections soon.

Already, we can see several service providers in Jordan providing such services, including UMax from Umniah, Zain e-Go, Wi-Tribe services and others.
But the main service channel will be mobile GPRS, whereby phone owners will add Internet services to their cellular phone plan or package.

A recent study of this trend in our region, by Dubai-based consultants Delta Partners, confirms that almost 70 percent of broadband subscribers in the Middle East and Africa will use wireless networks by 2011, up from about 38 percent today.

This is partially driven by the region being the world’s fastest growing in terms of mobile penetration in recent years. Fixed line penetration has stagnated at 20 percent in the Middle East and 4 percent in Africa, meaning that any growth in Internet penetration will have to be via mobile.

The lack of coverage seems to be the main obstacle at the moment, but that is set to change with the arrival new submarine cables and aggressive investments in 3G networks from mobile operators.

“This will translate into a significant growth potential for mobile broadband in MEA, with subscribers expected to grow from 2.5 million today to about 40 million in 2011. At a strong ARPU of $10-15 this will represent a market worth around $6 billion in 2011 versus $1 billion today,” says Joao Sousa, partner at Delta Partners.
The report goes on to explain that operators should gain access to international connectivity at competitive prices, create an efficient network operation and develop an effective marketing policy.

Simply, what this means is that pricing should be attractive, and there is a need for more awareness among consumers.

At the moment, generally, users understand the concept of wireless broadband, but are not yet widely adopting it, probably due to prohibitive pricing.

Just like mobile voice services were expensive then dropped in price, mobile data/Internet services will follow. That’s when we shall all be able to enjoy full Internet connectivity, at all times, through any device. Analysts believe we are two years away from such a reality. I hope they are right!

zanasser@gmail.com

A quarter of a billion users on Facebook!

The Facebook phenomena continues, with 50 million people signing up on to Facebook in the last three months, bringing the grand total to over 250 Million active users!

The means that approximately 4 percent of the world’s population (Around 6.70 billion) is now registered on Facebook. If Facebook were a country, it would be the fourth most populous after China, India and the United States.

Back in April, Facebook announced that it had crossed 200 million active users.
It also took around three months to grow from 150 million to 200 million before. So, it seems growth remains consistent.

Supporting Facebook’s massive growth, which is yet to yield profits, has been a major issue for Facebook management. But, a Russian-based investor came to the rescue. Digital Sky Technologies invested $200 million and the social network now has the funds to keep going, and to serve this massive online population.

Facebook is experimenting with various services that could generate revenue. For example, Facebook Connect lets external sites use Facebook login credentials and some profile data. It has been a success, and Facebook now plans to build a powerful advertising network around it.

Also, Facebook is considering launching a “virtual currency system” which could be a very lucrative product. There are more ideas, but for now all the focus is on acquiring and serving users.

Founder and CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, sums it up saying, “For us, growing to 250 million users isn't just an impressive number; it is a mark of how many personal connections all of you have made, and how far we at Facebook have to go to extend the power of connection to the billions of people around the world.”

It’s clear he’s not done yet, and is planning for the next quarter billion Facebook-ers. Millions of them will probably come from our region, now that Facebook offers an Arabic interface. Already, the majority of ‘online Arabs’ are aware of Facebook, and other social networks.

Social networking is a global revolution, and it spans all age groups, breaking communication boundaries of the past, and some cultural norms. The Arab World will never be the same.

zanasser@gmail.com

Michael Jackson falls, and the Internet follows

If you live on planet earth, then you know that the biggest news story this week, doing the rounds on TV stations and in newspapers, has been the passing away of Michael Jackson, the king of pop, who became famous long before the Internet existed, but is probably the biggest global celebrity to be deceased in the Internet age.

And the impact on the worldwide network was profound, as some reports even go as far as saying that “Michael Jackson broke the Internet!”

On June 25, 2009, Jackson's death caused Twitter outages, and pressure on Google servers, whereby “users experienced difficulty accessing search results for queries related to Michael Jackson," according to a Google spokesman. And these searches also brought the Google News server down, and caused havoc to Google Adsense servers worldwide.

At the peak of his death hysteria, Google Trends rated the Jackson story as "volcanic”. But Google was not the only one feeling massive pressure, other sites were ‘faliing’ too and impatient users where moving onto other sites immediately.
TechCrunch.com reported that TMZ, which first broke the news, had several outages, then users switched to Perez Hilton's blog, which also struggled to deal with the requests.

CNN reported that traffic and visitors increased five-fold in just over an hour, receiving 20 million page views in the hour the story broke. Wikipedia saw close to 500 edits made to Jackson's entry in less than 24 hours and the site was "temporarily overloaded." The Los Angeles Times, the first news organization to confirm Jackson's death, suffered outages. The site also reported that AOL's instant messenger service was down for approximately 40 minutes.

Mobile marketers believe people were checking news headlines from work or on the move as the news broke, probably making it a historic and record-breaking day for mobile too.

So not only was the Michael Jackson story drowning out the Iran elections crisis on traditional media, it was also preventing Iranians from using the Internet and mobile to get their word out regarding developments.

Commentators are calling it “a seminal moment in Internet history.” I believe that this incident proves again that the Internet is the ‘barometer’ of public interest, and regardless of varying opinions regarding Michael Jackson, the overwhelming majority of users worldwide have spoken, and the Internet struggled to cope. That’s big news in its own right.

zanasser@gmail.com

Within a week, Bing gets more searches than Yahoo

Microsoft’s new Bing search engine (www.bing.com), launched last week, has already overtaken Yahoo! in the number of ‘global searches’.

Bing.com is positioned as a ‘decision engine’, which aims to serve up results that help users to make better decisions in four key areas: making a purchase decision, planning a trip, researching a health condition or finding a local business.

Visitors able to explore images, videos, shopping, news, maps and travel content from the site. Already, a beta Arabic version is available for Middle Eastern countries; try it.



The launch of Bing followed Microsoft’s failure to acquire Yahoo last year at $40bn. With Bing, Microsoft seems to be realizing it’s search engine ambitions now, even exceeding Yahoo, at a cost that is probably much less.

According to StatCounter, Bing has gained 5.62% of the global search engine market which is a considerable market share that it has grabbed from Google.
In the first week of June, Google’s market share declined to 90.45%, while Yahoo had 5.13% and Bing had the rest.

Of course, any market analyst will tell you this is due to the “novelty effect” and it remains to be seen if Bing will retain and grow its first-time users. For now, the feedback Bing is getting is good. Reviewers say it works fairly well as a general-purpose search engine, outperforming competitors in some areas and improving the usability of mobile Web searching. Search results include a ‘clever bonus’, which is a preview of each page's text that appears when you float the cursor to the right of each result. The advanced search options on Bing are more accessible than Google's, because selecting them doesn't take you away from your current search results.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer made a statement that summarizes Microsoft’s new approach to the search engine space. He said that “Today, search engines do a decent job of helping people navigate the Web and find information, but they don’t do a very good job of enabling people to use the information they find,” said
Backed by a $100 million marketing campaign, it seems that the only company who could realistically take on Google, even in a recession, is Microsoft.

In the past, Google was the upstart and ‘lovable brand’ while Microsoft became the evil money-grabbing empire. Google’s total dominance has seen it lose some of that popularity. So, it’s ‘game on’ now between two giants, as consumers take sides in the next battle of search engine supremacy.

zanasser@gmail.com

Google doodle for Jordan's Independance Day!

In honor of Jordan's Independence Day, Google designed a special "Doodle" that can be seen on May 25th at www.google.jo.

If you're not familiar with these doodles- are you an Internet user?- they are Google's way of celebrating events and occasions, whereby the plain Google logo that shows up on the home page is replaced by a themed Google logo.

This Independence Day doodle is a nice touch by Google, demonstrating its appreciation towards users of its services in Jordan.

I'd like to think that a couple of high ranking Jordanians I know at Google might have had something to do with this, but it's probably part of a wider initiative to celebrate national or independence occasions in all countries in the Middle East and North Africa region.

Queen Rania is now Twitter-ing too

Her Majesty Queen Rania has been utilizing ‘new media tools’ to communicate her messages regarding topics she adopts such as economic and social development, equality for women, educational opportunities and others.

Apart from the well publicized YouTube Channel, which won Her Majesty plaudits across the world and now boasts nearly 3,000 subscribers and millions of views on some videos, Her Majesty has also had a Facebook profile for some time now with over 30,000 fans and is now also quite active on Twitter too!

The World Economic Forum, held at the Dead Sea last week, attracted global attention to Jordan and to Her Majesty’s Twitter-ing. In fact, Her Majesty conducted an interview on Twitter, with questions and answers being within the 140 character limit that Twitter allows. You can see this interview at Her Majesty’s Twitter profile (twitter.com/QueenRania).

Her Majesty answers questions from the “general public” via her Twitter account (@QueenRania), and seeing as she can’t answer all the questions received, around 40 of them were put to a public vote, of which Her Majesty replied to the top five questions.

The rather frank questions selected touched on somewhat sensitive topics such as Jordanian-Palestinian relations, but mostly covered social equality, education and technology, and promoting greater understanding between East and West.

Her Majesty’s efforts to communicate through social media must be commended. Social media is probably the most efficient means of communication in the 21st century, to promote greater understanding of Arabs and Muslims, in a time when predjudice exists online and offline. What better or more powerful tool is there to convey positive messages, and fight against negative propoaganda. I believe we all have a responsibiluty to utilize such tools. Let’s get started, and follow Her Majesty’s lead!

zanasser@gmail.com

Global losses from priacy exceed $50 billion

For the first time, a rise in losses of 11 percent means that piracy levels have now reached $53bn. These are the latest findings by International Data Corp. (IDC), who perform an annual study on software piracy.

Experts say this is due to unprecedented growth in the IT industry in parts of the world where there were no committed efforts to control piracy.

Overall illegally-copied programmes represented 41 percent of all software sales, three percentage points more than in 2007. Global piracy had increased as a direct result of unprecedented growth in the IT industry in parts of the world where there were no committed efforts to control piracy. The spread of the internet and access to high-speed broadband had contributed to the problem pirated software has moved from the streets to the internet, he said.

The information publicly released by the IDC highlights the status in specific areas of the world, including the Middle East.

A press release issued by the IDC reveals that the biggest disappointment in our region is that losses from software piracy in the GCC has leapt by 48 percent. Gulf states lost $590m to software piracy; yet, the only bright spot in our region was revealed to be the UAE, ranked as a low-piracy country. It was in the 20th spot in the 2007 report, and is at the 21st spot for 2008.

Otherwise, the situation in Arab countries seems disturbing, especially the region’s largest IT market, Saudi Arabia, in which piracy is up a whopping 60 percent in 2008. Details on every country are available to those who obtain this report from IDC.

People take the discussion of piracy lightly. But the reality is that piracy has a significant impact on the economy, in every country.

A previous IDC study estimates that a ten point reduction in PC software piracy in Jordan would deliver nearly 500 new jobs, $14 million in tax revenues, and $47 million in economic growth.

Government who implement strict policies against trading in pirated software and conducted a number of raids can possibly gain some of these benefits.

Additionally, countries who take a serious stance on piracy, experience an increase in direct investment from international software firms, and can develop as regional IT centers. This is something that Jordan seeks to achieve.

But, history has shown, that the education of users regarding piracy, and the establishment of incentives to ‘go legal’ have been the best measures. Delivering value to users, and understanding the economic reality of specific regions is one way to promote legal software use. Amidst this global economic recession, this approach may be the only viable one for the software industry!

zanasser@gmail.com

The IT Graduate Internship Program (GIP) takes off

One of the long-running complaints voiced by IT companies in Jordan has been that graduates of IT universities and colleges are not adequately prepared for careers in the software industry. Universities always countered this arguement saying they wanted to build relationships with the sector and required more on-the-job ‘internship’, for the students.

There seemed to be a bit a deadlock in these positions, mainly because companies didn’t want to spend the time or incur the costs of training students who may or may not return, and who cannot work the hours required to produce; while academics in universities, despite their good intentions, simply could not significantly change curricula and coursework to focus on more practical skills or industry-level training.

Finally, it seems we have a program in place to solve this issue.

The Ministry of Information and Communications Technology (MoICT), in cooperation with int@j, has launched the “Graduates Internship Programme”, whereby the government subsidizes 50 percent of the salary of newly employed graduates in the first 12 months, and 25 percent in the following 6 months, leading up to a total of 18 months of subsidized employment, in addition to providing those graduates with ‘soft skills’ training.

This has opened the way for companies to step in to benefit from this opportunity.
Already, one of the country’s largest software developers, Estarta Solutions has joined the Graduate Internship Program, whereby Estarta will provide a number of interns with on job training in their respective fields of specialization

An agreement signed between ESKADENIA Software, another large software development company, and Princess Sumaya University for Technology (PSUT) even takes matters several steps further.

ESKADENIA will establish working offices within the PSUT campus for the development, management and operation of software products and services, in close cooperation with the students and the academia. The facility accommodates around 30 full-time students and employees. There will also be a number of students and graduates working at the ESKADENIA head office on on-going projects.

MoICT and int@j must be applauded for this program, which will help achieve a national ICT strategy objective of increasing direct employment in the sector reaching 35,000 jobs by 2011.

It’s good to see positive movement in the sector, and such a cooeprative and action-oriented approach can solve other pending issues facing IT deveopment in Jordan. The future look brighter when we all parties work together. Long may it continue! n

zanasser@gmail.com

PC sales drop in MEA region, for the first time

It is now clear that the PC market is not recession proof. Sales figures coming out of our region, the Middle East & Africa (MEA), suggest that the days of soaring growth are over.

International Data Corp (IDC) has revealed that sales growth was flat from quarter four 2008 to quarter one 2009, and have even showed a decline year-on-year during the first quarter. This means that the double-digit growth of the past few years may be over.

The IDC numbers show that a total of 3.5 million units were sold into “the channel” between January and March, this is but 6 percent lower than a year ago. It could have been worse, if there wasn’t such a high demand for portable PCs.

It is important to note that the Middle East and Africa numbers include sales in the huge markets of Turkey and South Africa, which may ‘tip the scales’.

Which brings us to the country level. In the Gulf, shipments of desktops and notebooks in Saudi Arabia increased 10 percent year-on-year during the first quarter, but the UAE contracted 6 percent over the same period. This is understandable, considering how connected the UAE market is to the global economy, whereas Saudi Arabia seems somewhat recession-proof up to this point.

The notes made by Stefania Lorenz, research director CEMA systems at IDC, don’t provide much comfort. She says that the MEA region was negatively affected by a 13 percent decline in desktops, but notebooks saw a 2 percent growth year-on-year, driven by the stronger uptake on mini-notebooks. So, it would seem the Netbook phenomena may rescue overall sales.

She goes on to explain that that IDC had been used seeing much stronger growth in the region, up until the fourth quarter of 2008 when the financial crisis hit.
That’s why IDC’s prediction for 2009 is that we shall have a “flat or slightly negative” market situation.

Although this sounds bleak, it’s better than the worst case scenarios for the Middle East, when there were fears that the PC market was in free fall.

A quick look at the ‘bigger picture’ shows another neighboring region doing even worse. When IDC includes Europe, and looks at the EMEA region, there’s a slump of 10 percent year-on-year to 21.5 million, as units sales in Central and Eastern Europe have crashed 41 percent. So, it seems we’re doing relatively alright.

Regarding the top vendors, IDC reveals that HP continues to maintain its lead in the MEA region, with 21 percent of the market, Acer is second claiming 11 percent, overtaking Dell who now holds third position. Toshiba occupies the fourth position, followed by LG and Fujitsu Siemens. Apparently, brands still matter to consumers, as the top five players performed better than the market average.

zanasser@gmail.com

Nationals may soon replace Jordanian IT staff in Gulf

We all know that a considerable number of Jordanians, Egyptians, Lebanese, Syrians and other Arab nationalities are working in the IT sector in Gulf States. Without their involvement, IT would not have grown as it has in the oil-rich Gulf which has always been lacking in human resources.

The relative technical-savvy of Jordanians, coupled with the large-scale IT projects in countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, have provided a ‘marriage of convenience last’ for all parties involved, and the Jordanian economy has also benefited from these professionals’ income flowing back home.

The question has always been, how long will that last!

Surely, as Gulf nationals grow in numbers, and acquire technical degrees and skills, other Arab nationals will be in less demand. Or, at some point, a major shift in policy may occur due to a major event - such as the current global financial crisis. Already, international organizations are advocating this change, and predicting a shift sooner than later, mainly due to the recession.

The executive director of the research arm of the international business school, INSEAD, spoke recently about this saying that “countries such as the United Arab Emirates and Qatar need to improve local skills to reap the full benefit of ICT investments in the region.”

This is part of the finding of the INSEAD and World Economic Forum annual report on Global Information Technology. The highest ranked Arab country in this report covering 134 countries happens to be the UAE at a respectable number 27- no surprises there.

It tops other MENA countries such as Qatar at 29- quite close behind- and Bahrain at 37, Tunisia at 38 and Saudi Arabia at 40 and Jordan, unfortunately, is at number 44.

Anyway, the point is that the Middle East is one the fastest regions across all regions in the world to move up in the “e-readiness rankings”, but Gulf countries have a relatively small population and rely on external expertise to drive ICT unlike other countries.

Therefore, experts see the key to the future of ICT growth in Gulf States is the ability to develop local skills; which means a need to see more engineers, programmers, architects and managers who are Emarati, Qatari, Saudi and so on. At the moment, it appears Gulf nationals do not lean significantly towards these scientific and technical professions. That, of course, could change. As leadership in the Gulf begins to ‘absorb’ these recommendations, things may change.

As lay-offs begin, the last last staff to be laid off will be nationals. So, in some ways, the recession may speed up this whole process. Perhaps it is time for authorities in Jordan to start planning for this change. If you’re an IT professional in the Gulf, beware!

zanasser@gmail.com

97 percent of email is classified as ‘unwanted’

It’s been reported before, but the numbers are just not decreasing! Spam and ‘unwanted’ email continue to constitute an amazing 97 percent of all email circulating around the world. Imagine how much more efficient email services would be without this load!

These findings come from a new security intelligence report by Microsoft, which looked at online activity during the second half of 2008, and suggests that these unwanted messages are either spam, have malicious attachments or are used as phishing baits by cyber-criminals to steal valuable information such as credit cards, user IDs and passwords.

While most modern email and instant messaging programs are configured to block the transmission of potentially dangerous files by extension, attackers are now using common and less threatening file formats such as Microsoft Office or Adobe Portable Document Format (.pdf). These formats are used legitimately by people every day and can’t be blocked, making them an attractive target for malware creators.

More than 91 percent of attacks exploiting vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office were using security holes that had been plugged by updates that had been available for more than two years. Attacks using PDF files rose sharply in the second half of 2008, the report noted.

Part of the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report also examines security breach incidents around the world and finds that stolen equipment, such as laptops, is the most common reason for data loss, coming in at 50 percent of data loss occurrences. That is even higher than security breaches caused by hacking or malware, which are only responsible for 20 percent of all data loss.

The report also pinpoints the countries that are suffering from the most infections of malicious software, or malware. Russia and Brazil top the global chart of infections, followed by Turkey and Serbia and Montenegro.

Apparently, the type of malware varies from country to country. In China, several malicious web browser modifiers are common, while in Brazil, malware that targets users of online banks is more widespread. In Korea, viruses such as Win32/Virut and Win32/Parite are common.

It’s a cat and mouse chase, as criminals keep coming up with ways around anti-virus and network security software. You need to protect your PC, but watchhout!
Apparently, criminals are also putting out ‘scareware’, which are fake security programs that falsely tell to install software to protect your PC from an attack; but scareware actually steals personal details!

Where will all this end? Rest assured that it won’t, so educate yourself and be suspicious of all emails you get. Better safe than sorry.

zanasser@gmail.com

Leaving PCs on costs millions in electricity bills

If you keep your PC on, when you’re not in the office, thinking no harm will be done, you are wrong, especially if left switched on overnight. A computer uses energy even when it appears to be idle.

A study of British businesses showed that it costs more than £300m a year in extra electricity bills!

1E, a power management firm funded the research, and found that leaving a PC turned on overnight for a year costs £17, multiply that by hundreds of thousands of systems and you get an idea what damage it does to the economy and environment.

In the US, it’s even worse, as half of corporate computers are left on overnight which is costing US firms some $2.8bn a year.

Apparently, it is a ‘standard policy’ in many large corporates that machines are left on to allow software patches and virus updates to be remotely installed while the machines are not in use.

However, amidst this recession, it becomes more important to shut down PCs when not in use. It helps businesses significantly reduce costs. Also, from an environmental perspective, it reduces the dissipation of PC heat, and helps reduce the levels of CO2 and other pollutants from electricity power plants.

Gartner estimates the IT and telecom industry generates 2 per cent of world carbon emissions. PCs and monitors account for 39 per cent of that total.

It’s interesting to note that these figures were actually higher a couple of years ago, which may signal growth in the awareness of employees and corporations regarding this wasteful practice.

Harris Interactive, which polled 2,000 staff members of companies in the UK, carried out similar research two years ago and found that half of British computers were left on overnight. The numbers today are less, so it’s possible there’s more awareness.

Conducting such studies in the Middle East could yield interesting results, especially in the Gulf were a culture of business excess may result in appalling numbers! But, to be honest, I sense a study in Jordan would provide shocking results too, especially in large companies which now employ tens of thousands of Jordanians with PCs at their desks.

Even before you install and turn on a PC, the materials and energy-intense production process to manufacture your unit will have contributed to environmental pollution and climate change. And there’s the growing problem of discarded older machines being dumped and causing ‘high-tech’ pollutants, but that’s another story all together.

For now, let’s each do our bit for the environment, and reduce the electricity bill. Turn off your PCs, I know I will!

zanasser@gmail.com