On the Halifax front:

Local developer and Lebanese Honorary Consul, Mr. Wadih Fares, had a good couple of weeks. He was named ‘Businessman of the Year’ by the Canadian-Lebanese Chamber of Commerce, and his controversial 19-story condo building proposal was approved by city council in a historical 21-1 vote. Critics of the proposal involved the usual crew of Heritage advocates, with unbeatable arguments like ‘the building will throw a shadow that may touch a nearby heritage neighborhood’. The same critics are planning to show up en-mass to an upcoming public hearing for another waterfront development project, this one for the $30 Million complex proposed by Halkirk Properties as a restoration/redevelopment of the Alexander Keiths Brewery District.

Canadian News:

CBC lost the rights to the theme song of ‘Hocky Night in Canada’. CTV immediately swiped up the license and locked it in for infinity and beyond. The theme is considered Canada’s ‘second national anthem’. The news prompted this jab from Stephen Colbert.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8BhSXEu3fo

International Business:

As of last week, Iran began pulling out their assets from EU banks to respond to the threat of additional sanctions. A new effort championed by the US seems to be on its way to convince EU member countries to increase their squeeze on Iran’s nuclear program. Before any potential asset freezing takes place, Iran is taking out their foreign exchange assets (reserves valued at $80 Billion USD) and converting it into gold and equities.

To the speculators out there: take note of the following three market reactions to the Iran asset-pull:

1. Gold will increase as a sudden increase of demand for bullion will hit the market through Iran’s bullion buyers
2. Oil prices will increase as the new potential sanctions may have an impact on supply out of Iran, the fourth largest oil producer in the world.
3. Look for investment opportunities in small banks who plan to continue dealing with Iran. Also look at banks in China, Middle East, former Soviet-bloc and other countries that remain friendly (or at least neutral) to Iran. These banks will be getting the windfall from the Iranian assets that will be pulled from European banks.

Technology:

Apple’s iPhone debuted in Japan in association with Softbank. The prospect of success for the iPhone in Japan was discussed in a previous post (click here for post). Meanwhile, Yahoo!’s board of directors is still in hot waters after they botched the Microsoft offer to buy them out. They went back to Microsoft begging for resumed negotiations, but were met with a firm ‘not interested anymore’. Quick to show SOMETHING to their investors and dodge a visit to the guillotine that Carl Icahn is setting up for the Yahoo! executive board, a deal was struck with rival Google to outsource a portion of Yahoo’s search advertising business for an estimated $250 to $450 million of additional annual revenue to Yahoo!.

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That’s it for now. I will try to post more often!

And so they did. Last week at the Advertising Leadership Forum (Advance08 ) Bill Gates unveiled Live Search Cashback: the advertising scheme that will convert traditional web advertising from PPC/CPC (Pay?Cost Per Click) to PPA/CPA (Pay/Cost Per Action). The scheme will reward web surfers who click on search ads with a percentage of what the advertisers pay Microsoft.

While Microsoft may still not be able to catch the vast majority of regular search traffic, their new scheme is a direct strike at the online shopping market and will probably capture some serious market share if Google and Yahoo! don’t respond with similar schemes. With Microsoft’s CPA cashback, a web shopper who has the option to search for an item they wish to buy will be more likely to search for the item using Microsoft’s Live Search since the item’s price will be reduced by the amount the shopper will receive from clicking the item ad that will pop up on Microsoft’s search results page. The video below explains the new scheme.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=delQPYR2XMk

A new software by Boston-based Lebanese tech entrepreneurs Habib Haddad and Imad Jureidini has the makings of the next big Google or Yahoo acquisition. Language Analytics LLC, an internet startup, unveiled Yamli.com, a web-based tool that empowers users to easily use and access the Arabic web. (Yamli means ‘to dictate’ in Arabic)

As an Arabic speaking person who struggles with written communication and web navigation in Arabic, this software is a Godsend! While I operate in a purely English environment using English tools, I often need to communicate with Arabic-speaking businesses or research certain aspects of the Middle East market. With Yamli, I can simply type in English the phonetic iteration of the Arabic word that I want to write and the softwae will convert it automatically to the correct Arabic text! Hatha barnamej 3ajeeb wallahi! (This is an incredible program!)

To give you an idea of the opportunity here, consider the potential size of the market, its need for this product, and the number of current suppliers. According to German search company Seekport (who are also targeting the same market need), there are currently around 24 million active Arabic internet users, less than 10 per cent of the total Arabic population. Arabic internet users are expected to grow to 43 million users by 2008. Despite the size of this user group, there is no search engine geared specifically for Arabic language users.

An excerpt from the press release notes:

“The Arab world has one of the highest internet usage growth rates. Yet, access to and development of Arabic content has been difficult, mainly because of the complexity of typing Arabic. Although Arabic keyboards are available, the vast majority of Arabic-speaking Internet users are accustomed to an English keyboard. Users often resort to spelling Arabic words out phonetically using English characters, a process known as transliteration. Yamli allows users to convert these English characters into Arabic words.”

The release explains that Yamli’s initial release encompasses two tools: Yamli Search and Yamli Editor. Yamli Search allows users to search the web using Arabic keywords with Google. Users can search for general web content, videos, news, images and blogs. Yamli Editor allows users to write Arabic text that can then be copied into any electronic medium.

Co-founder Imad Jureidini says: “The Arabic web will truly take off when people can do two things easily: find and write Arabic content. While there are many applications for our technology, we sought to address these two fundamental needs immediately.”

And he couldn’t be more right. As I noted to Mr. Haddad, I see this service going cross-platform next. The software is so versatile that it works for internet and non-internet applications. Aside from providing a desktop version of the software, here are some possibilities that will see patent-pending Yamli become the service of choice for anything to do with English-Arabic transliteration:

1. Yamli widgets and plugins, for use in
- blogs (wordpress, etc.)
- Content Management Systems/Software (Joomla, etc.)
- Browser plugins, to quickly convert text without having to open another window for Yamli. (firefox plugin, etc.)
- Instant Messaging (Yahoo IM, ICQ, MSN Messenger, etc.)

2. Yamli mobile, for your cell phones or smart phones
- for mobile internet search and navigation
- for mobile email
- for text messaging

These are some ideas right off the top of my head. Monetizing them is a whole other issue, but it’s not very hard once you have a proven software that works.

Yamli, like the Arabic video sharing website , is on track to being the next YouTube-ish success story. With Google’s entry into the Middle East earlier this year, and other search and software giants taking notice of the opportunities in multi-lingual accessibility, I bet someone will be ready to pay good coin to gobble up and integrate any established platforms that support their efforts to dominate the lucrative Arabic internet market.

If Ikbis and Yamli play their cards right, I think we’ll see another significant purchase by a software/search giant in the coming 2 years. Between advertising revenues, licensing revenues, and possible kick backs from service and device charges (ala the Nokia-Ikbis scheme), please do let us know when you float your stock, Habib. I won’t miss out on this one!

Online marketers should pay special attention to what sites are on this black list if they plan on reaching consumers in the MENA (Middle East & North Africa) market through viral or non-viral online marketing initiatives.

The folks at code.ae are having fun with the impact of internet censorship in the United Arab Emirates.

Despite the inconvenience of censorship, an OpenInitiative study cites an interesting statistic from a 2002 UAE government survey of subscribers to the government-controlled internet service provider ‘Etisalat‘. Etisalat (Arabic for ‘communications’) blocks anything “inconsistent with the political, moral, and religious value of the United Arab Emirates.”

60% of survey participants indicated that “its (Etisalat) role in protecting users from offensive material is considered to be an acceptable form of censorship.” Government intervention is seen much like Parental Control options offered by Canadian ISPs.

Many North American ISPs have fallen into controversy when providing services in countries with ‘unique’ cultural requirements. Anyone remember last year’s controversy over Microsoft deleting all the intellectual content of the Chinese blogger Zhao Jing? Or in 2005 when Yahoo! released personal email information to the Chinese government of Chinese journalist Shi Tao, who was then charged with “leaking secret government information” and sentenced to 10 years in jail?

Are you or someone you know affected by internet censorship? Do you have a story to share?