News
Jordanian Startup ‘Mawdoo3.com’ Raises US$13.5 Million
Jordanian startup Mawdoo3.com, the world’s most visited Arabic website with more than 45 million unique users per month, has completed a US $13.5 million Series B round. The raise was led by UK-based Kingsway, with participation from US-based Endure Capital.
Mawdoo3 is a comprehensive online Arabic content platform, based in Jordan, that uses the wiki system similar to Wikipedia, and provides premium quality Arabic content.
Mawdoo3 logo
It was initially established in 2010 by Mohammad Jaber and Rami Al Qawasmi, and officially launched in 2012. It won the first prize for the Queen Rania National Entrepreneurship Award for the category of universities and academics in 2011.
This investment will enable Mawdoo3 to expand its content and AI technology as it seeks to further its mission of enriching the Arabic language online, with just 1% of web content in Arabic when more than 5% of the world’s population, some 420 million people, speak it.
Currently the website serves 45 million unique users monthly and has nearly 150,000 articles online covering a wide-range of topics, ranging from lifestyle, health, education and food. The site continues to grow at pace, with the equivalent of two novels published on the platform every day.
Earlier this year, the company announced its plans to launch ‘Salma’, an Arabic version of Siri and Alexa, which will be deployed to answer factoid questions from Mawdoo3’s platform, thus adding a new channel for consuming Arabic content. Salma will be used as an Arabic voice interface service for businesses in multiple sectors including travel, automobile, telecom and electronics, enabling consumers to engage and transact with these businesses via voice.
Commenting on the investment, Rami Al-Qawasmi, Co-founder and CEO of Mawdoo3.com, said: “The world’s Arabic speakers are the most underserved online, with the availability of quality Arabic content limited and technology, particularly in voice, not having the same impact as other languages. Our mission is to change that and build on our strong position as the most visited daily Arabic website in the world today”.
“This investment from international investors is a validation of Mawdoo3’s potential. Our success is a result of the trust built over the past six years with our users, which is a motivation for us for an even greater impact in the coming years as we expand our content and the channels through which we deliver that content to the Arabic-speaking world online.”
Tarek Fahim, Partner at Endure Capital, said: “If you think being the number one Arabic destination worldwide with more than 45 million monthly unique visitors is enough, think again: this is just the beginning. Mawdoo3’s unique data sets and technical talents give them a head start on the AI race. We at Endure Capital are proud to be a part of their journey.”
News
Amr Diab Gets Hacked on Twitter
Amr Diab’s Facebook page has announced that his twitter account has been hijacked by anonymous and now tweeting political.
Update: Amr Diab’s Facebook Page announced that “Amr Diab’s Twitter account has been restored successfully and you can follow Amr’s tweets normally now”
Amr Diab got hacked on Twitter
On Thursday 9th of Jan, Amr Diab’s Facebook page announced that Amr Diab’s Twitter account has been hacked by anonymous and now tweeting politics!
Amr Abdul-Basset Abdul-Azeez Diab (born 11 October 1961) is an Egyptian singer and composer of pop music. He was awarded the World Music Award for Best Selling Middle East Artist, three times: 1998 for the album “Nour El Ain”, 2002 for the album “Aktrr Wahid Byhbak 2001” and 2007 for the album “El Lillady”. Amr Diab also won The African Music Awards 2009, Big Apple Music Awards; Life Achievements Awards: Best Singer of The Year in 2009, and Best Male Act in African Music Awards 2010.
He is known as the Father of Mediterranean Music He has created his own style which is often termed “Mediterranean Music” or “Mediterranean Sound”, a blend of Western and Egyptian rhythms.
In The Mediterranean in Music, David Cooper and Kevin Dawe referred to his music as “the new breed of Mediterranean music”.According to author Michael Frishkopf, Amr Diab has produced a new concept of Mediterranean music, especially in his international hit, “Nour El Ain”.
In his analysis of The Very Best of Amr Diab album, Victor W. Valdivia of All music said: “His music melded traditional Arabic sounds and textures with Western rhythms and instruments. The mesh was dubbed Mediterranean music, and The Very Best of Amr Diab displays Diab’s superb skill in creating it.”
In 1997, he won three awards at the Annual Arabic Festival: one for Best Video, for Best Song, and for Best Artist of the Year. Diab received a Triple Platinum Award for the sales of Nour El Ain and a World Music Award in Monaco.
After the success of the previously shared overall analysis of Sherine’s new album “Ana Keter” and her social media presence, we decided to fulfill your requests with more details and additional insights.
The report is from Jan 15 through Jan 31, 2014; however, starting Feb, we noticed that Sherine’s team has enhanced and developed how they engage with fans on Facebook.
Still, there’s more to do; please review the slides below to know what exactly they are missing with recommendations.
Check out the report:
Key take-outs in 15 days after the launch:
- Album gained 11 million views in 2 weeks on YouTube
- YouTube Channel subscribers boosted by 90K subscribers in 15 days out of 127K total subscribers overtime
- Buzz reached 15K tweets/RTs since the launch on Twitter
- How do people talk about the album/Sherine on Twitter?
- People are sharing songs from YouTube & SoundCloud
- +90% positive sentiment on Twitter
- Sherine’s Twitter account is excellent at spreading the news about the album’s success.
- People are tweeting the song’s lyrics.
- Sarcastic tweets about Sherine & few songs (regular) - Almost zero negativity about the album
- Album teasers on Facebook created credibility for Sherine’s page, reflected in the page results after the album’s launch in the next 15 days with 92K Interactions & 312K New Likes.
- The album received tremendous engagement on the launching date of Jan 15. However, no posts for four days after the launch negatively affected the interactions.
Recommendations:
Sherine Abdel Wahab’s Facebook page would have received double or maybe triple new likes and interactions if the improved posts’ quality; please find below the points taken:
- Long updates with no extra value-added will lead to losing your fans’ interest
- The text-only format isn’t preferred, as it is well-known that they generate less reach than other content (Facebook announcement)
- A call to action is essential to generate leads & increase engagement
- Each post has to have its visual, audio, or video so you can attract/engage your audiences
- Understand the situation and act upon it, always be relevant to the time and avoid posting irrelevant content at the wrong time.
- Revise the tone of voice in future activities.
To recap - Overall performance is average to good - Enhance your content formatting - Improve the tone of voice on all networks - Be creative to engage your fans better - Be Consistent - Start your SoundCloud account.
News
Putin, Obama war on social media starts with unfriend on Facebook
New stage of the cold war, is it?
The Social media war between Putin and Obama started with UnFriend, this is the action taken by Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the Facebook diplomacy with American president Barack Obama.
The unfriending comes after an official White House update about the possibility of a US-Syrian war. President Putin revealed that Obama’s updates about the Congressional debate on a possible war with Syria have annoyed him.
After unfriending, President Putin update status on profile “Something I should have done a long time ago”
Also, He said to Russia’s Pravda News Service “President Assad and I, we are the Facebook friends. We like the same pages, we share pictures of cute women and all that. Obama needs to lighten up on there, it’s not for serious stuff,”
President Obama’s latest posts about the possibility of the war in Syria have been reported by someone and he received a warning from Facebook that he will be prevented from posting on his profile for 24 hours.
He has also commented “Really, Putin needs to grow up. If he didn’t like that [post], he could have just hid it from his news feed instead of creating all this Facebook drama,”
JOE BIDEN “Vice President of the United States” announced to reports that President Obama has signed into his Twitter account to unfollow Putin.
The turmoil generated between Putin and Obama over their dispute on the Syrian crisis. Expanded to reach the social networks
Putin and Obama on social Networks
The question now is, are we witnessing a new stage of the cold war between the two countries, will they continue the war online instead of the military tactics and old spy war?
It’s obvious that social media is really changing the game in everything, and now it’s taking over on a very high level.
Keep an eye on Digital Boom and we will keep you posted with more news and updates on the cold war and even more…
-
Startups9 years ago3 Creative Egyptian Women Who Master E-commerce
-
News10 years ago11 Talented Egyptian Photographers on Instagram
-
Campaigns8 years agoVodafone Egypt Brings Generations Together, Unlocks 4G Power
-
Marketing9 years agoWhich categories will suffer most from increased prices in Egypt?
-
Apps8 years agoRadio Garden Live Map of The Globe’s Radio Stations
-
News8 years agoTop 10 Egyptian Fashionistas to Follow on Instagram
-
Campaigns8 years ago7 Big Stats That Show Which Ramadan Advertisements Resonated Most
-
Opinion9 years agoF*** Being a Founder, Be a Follower