Digital Digest 40 recent Internet and Technology developments you may have missed from – and/or potentially impacting on - Qatar and the Middle East Issue 5: Nov/Dec 2012 Contact us: [email protected] Twitter: @ictqatar Contents: Issue 5: Nov/Dec 2012 Slides 1. Recent developments in the MENA region 3-12 • 2012 Arab ICT Adoption 4 • Google launch ‘Arabic Web Days’ 5 • New data: Facebook in the MENA 6 • E-commerce – a mixed picture 7 • In Brief: Social Media News 8 • In Brief: Content related news 9 • In Brief: Technology News 10 • In the spotlight – Tweeting in Arabic 11-12 2. Wider Internet & Society Research 13-20 • Research: Social Media Report 2012 – 7 key trends (Global) 14 • Youth: Technology changing reading habits (USA) 15-16 • Technology: Inside Google’s Data Centers 17 • Internet Governance: WCIT 18-19 • Assistive Technology: Stories from MADA 20 3. Coming Up – three emerging issues 21-26 • Research: The end of SMS? 22-23 • Technology: The 100m Club 24 • Governance: Vint Cerf on how we regulate the Internet 25-26 1. Recent developments in the MENA region Including: 2012 Arab ICT Adoption, Google launch ‘Arabic Web Days’; 2012 data: Facebook in the MENA, and Tweeting in Arabic Images: http://bit.ly/WQctXW and http://bit.ly/pP7fgl 1.1 2012 Arab ICT Adoption Six key stats from the “Arab ICT Use and Social Network Adoption report” published by the Madar Research and Development Center, in Dubai. 1. Saudi Arabia has a mobile penetration of 189.24%. 2. All GCC countries achieved penetration rates over 125% in terms of mobile penetration. 3. Mobile phone subscriptions in the Arab world nearly matched the region's population – 346 million at the end of 2011. 4. There are 96 million Arab internet users. 5. Bahrain is the only Arab country with zero narrowband Internet subscribers. 6. Bandwidth consumption has grown at an average of 40% over the past year. Source: http://bit.ly/YEIG4F Images via : http://bit.ly/chFUt and http://bit.ly/ZzR5b1 1.2 Google launch ‘Arabic Web Days’ • In November, Google announced “Arabic Web Days” a month long series of online and offline events designed to boost the amount of Arabic content online. • Arabic speakers make up more than 5 percent of the global population yet Arabic content on the web makes up just 3 percent of the total online digital content. • Partners included: Vinelab, Wamda, Yamli and Taghreedat, as well as Twitter, Wikipedia, TED, Soundcloud, Al Arabiya, TwoFour54 and the Qatari Computing Research Institute. • Activities included Hangouts on Google+ a YouTube Tweet Up in Doha, developer training focused on Arabic localization, webmaster tools, SEO and YouTube for Business, as well as the region's first Arabic infographics competition. • Google also launched an Arabic only blog, and a promotional YouTube video in Arabic to support the initiative. See: www.arabicwebdays.com and youtube.com/arabicwebdays Source: http://bit.ly/107274Z Images: http://bit.ly/V2x7ir , http://bit.ly/W1tV5n 1.3 New data: Facebook users in the MENA • Facebook has grown by 29% in the MENA region during 2012, adding over 10M new registered users. • Membership is growing fastest in Qatar, Libya and Iraq, with more than 115%, 86% and 81% new users respectively. • Egypt has 17M online Facebook users. The highest of any country in the region. • 2.5M new people in Egypt joined Facebook since January 2012, the highest absolute user growth of any country in the region. Source: http://bit.ly/YR7pTl 1.4 E-Commerce – a mixed picture • A report by Booz & Company, in partnership with Google, of 3,000 digital users from nine MENA countries born between 1977 and 1997 noted that when it comes to e-commerce: “They increasingly research products and services online, but they still prefer to buy in person.” “…members of the ADG (Arab Digital Generation) — and the overall population in the region—are reluctant to engage in online commercial activities, due to a lingering mistrust of e-commerce.” • However, Arabian Business referred to E-commerce in the Middle East as a “Virtual gold rush” in an article which stated that e-commerce related transactions is worth about $11bn a year in the Middle East. • The UAE's online spending equated to 55 percent to 60 percent of total GCC e- commerce sales. Saudi Arabia was the second largest market, with an estimated $520m, followed by Qatar ($375m), Kuwait ($280m), Bahrain ($175m) and Oman ($70m) - according to data from Visa. • Wamda and AB also reported on Namshi, an e- commerce site which launched in 2011 selling shoes and clothing in the Middle East. In September it secured $20m financing from JP Morgan Chase and Blakeney Management. Image: http://bit.ly/R6oH8P 1.5 In Brief: Social Media News • There are 17 million tweets every day in Arabic. - That is 1 billion tweets every two months. • 1 out of 4 tweets written in Arabizi – (Arabizi is slang/an alphabet used to communicate in the Arabic language over the Internet) Source: Kaveh Gharib, localization project manager, Twitter via http://bit.ly/12hwCX3 • 40% of all Arabic tweets, half of Wikipedia’s Arabic content and 35% of all Arabic content on the web comes from Saudi Arabia: http://bit.ly/12peESt • Twitter now offers its mobile Web site in Arabic and Farsi. This was made possible through the support of their community of translators. • The main Twitter site has been available in these two languages, as well as Hebrew and Urdu, since March (the first time Twitter was available in right- Image: http://bit.ly/TAzhdh to-left languages). Source: http://tcrn.ch/SPzyFv 1.6 In Brief: Content related news In December Apple launched the iTunes Store, in the GCC (including UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman), featuring local artists such as Nancy Ajram, Myriam Fares and Amr Diab. Users could previously buy and download apps through Techcrunch's Darrell Etherington iTunes in the region, but not songs. reported that Apple "now reaches 60.96 percent of the world population Tfour.me notes however that “users in the region still cannot through its music stores, well ahead of purchase movies or TV shows, as they have been able to do for Microsoft’s next closest 16 percent.” years in the US and many other countries.” Source: http://tcrn.ch/YZyeG0 Source: http://bit.ly/SGX2fI “Kuwait and Qatar have been showing very strong GDP growth over the past couple of years and due to the size of them – they Online daily deals provider Groupon is planning have a large expat community – it’s an to open offices in Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait interesting market becauseImage: http:// youbit.ly/YbjmD can go in0 and several in Saudi Arabia. Source: http://bit.ly/P1xAPo there and start business very quickly.” Groupon CEO Alexander Kappes Half of the Arabic content on the Internet is replicated on different websites and written in weak Arabic, according to Fayeq Oweis, Arabic localization manager at Google. c.33 per cent of it is restricted to members of online forums inaccessible to the public: http://bit.ly/V5Mztw 1.7 In Brief: Technology News • Nationwide LTE comes to Kuwait. Zain Kuwait has launched 4G services under the brand name Wiyana Connect 4G LTE. It is available for all compatible mobile phones, tablets, routers, hotspots and dongles. Source: http://bit.ly/WKnD0v • Oman’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) is working to provide basic telecoms services to over 150 villages in remote and rural areas of the country. http://bit.ly/MBhpVv • A price cap for Kuwaiti ISPs by the Ministry of Communications in Kuwait is anticipated to see prices drop by up to 40%: http://bit.ly/VqhKhY • BBC News reports that Saudi male guardians are now receiving automatic text messages when their female dependents leave the country: http://bbc.in/UiVEBP Images: http://bit.ly/W1DAcm and http://bit.ly/12OB6ns 1.8 In the Spotlight: the rise of tweeting in Arabic In previous issues we have explore the increased importance of Arabic language across social media communities. Data from the 4th edition of the Arab Social Media Report, produced by the Dubai School of Government shows some of the extent of this growth. *new slide, insert figure 17 and the source: http://www.dsg.ae/en/Publication/Pdf_En/1032 01211214516440000.pdf - page 41 NB: Confusingly chart 17 (page before) has data right to left, chart 16 runs left to right. But the above shows a discernible spike in Arabic tweets across many of these countries. 2. Internet & Society: Wider Research Update Includes: Nielsen’s Social Media Report 2012, how technology is changing young people’s reading habits and Google’s Data Centers. Images: http://bit.ly/WKpDpo and http://bit.ly/PliCVP 2.1 Social Impact: Wider Research Nielsen published their “State of the Media: The Social Media Report 2012” It identified seven major global social networking trends (below). 1. Mobile: More people are using smartphones and tablets to access social media. 2. Proliferation: New social media sites continue to emerge and catch on e.g. Pinterest. 3. The Global Living Room: TV-watching is becoming an immediate, shared, experience. 4. Social Care: Social media is an increasingly important channel for customer service. Nearly half of U.S. consumers reach out directly to brands and service providers to voice satisfaction or complaints, or simply to ask questions. 5. Social Word of Mouth: We are tapping into group beyond people we know. 6. Hyper-Informed Consumers: Using social media to make purchases based on other consumers’ experiences as well as to find deals. 7. Opportunity for Engagement: “Roughly one-third of social media users