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StartUpArabia Weekly Wrapup, 22-28 September 2008

I thought it would be nice to start posting a weekly wrapup of the most interesting news about Arab startups and entrepreneurship that were published on StartUpArabia during the past week for those of you who don’t get to follow news there more closely.

# ShooFeeTV To Broadcast From Jordan Media City
ShooFeeTV has signed an agreement with the Jordan Media City (JMC) to transmit its free-to-air satellite channel from the JMC site in Amman.

# Bahrain’s Mobile Penetration Rate Rises To 138%
By the end of 2007, the number of mobile subscribers in Bahrain had increased to 1.116 million, translating to a penetration rate of nearly 138 per cent; and it has the potential to reach 164 per cent by 2012.

# Tools4Com OIS, A Simple Online Invoicing System
Tools4Com OIS is a new Tunis based startup that enables users to manage their invoices, quotations, pro forma invoices, delivery notes, clients and products online.

# Jordan’s Internet Penetration Rate Grows To 21%
The number of internet users in the kingdom reached 1.2 millions users at the end of the first half of 2008, which represents a penetration rate of more than 20.5%.

# Untiny, A Tool To Expand Shortened URLs
Untiny is a new service that gives you the possibility to take shortened URLs and expand them to retrieve the original web address behind them.

Happy reading; I hope you finding something of interest to you.

[Via: StartUpArabia]

Follow Your Heart And Intuition…

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

— Steve Jobs

Michael Moore Plans Free Net-Only Film Premiere

With the US Election only weeks away now, Michael Moore has chosen the right time to release his new documentary titled “Slacker Uprising“.

His plans are to premiere it exclusively on the internet for free, on September 23rd, hosted on Blip.TV.
This will be followed by a DVD which will be available through Amazon.com and Netflix on October 7th.

The movie documents Moore’s 62-city tour through swing states during the 2004 U.S. presidential election to rally young voters.

Moore hopes “Slacker Uprising” will help spur young people to vote this November. After more than 20 million 18- to 29-year-olds cast ballots in 2004 (an 11 percent increase from 2000), he’s hoping even greater numbers of “slackers” vote this year.

Moore said “Slacker Uprising” cost about $2 million to make and that he will end up paying about $1 million out of his pocket. Neither he nor the distributor, Brave New Films, plans to profit from the release.

To receive the download, people can sign up at SlackerUprising.com.

The trailer can be viewed on YouTube here: Slacker Uprising Trailer.

Abu Dhabi Media Company Sets Eyes On Hollywood

Interesting news from the Abu Dhabi Media Company today…

Abu Dhabi Media Company today announced the formation of a new company that will develop, finance and produce content for both the global and Arabic language markets. Imagenation Abu Dhabi, a wholly owned subsidiary, intends to spend in excess of US$1 billion over the course of the next five years in the creation of both full length feature films and digital content.

From its base in Abu Dhabi, Imagenation Abu Dhabi will enter into partnerships with high-profile US-based and other international producers to develop and produce content for distribution throughout the world. The company’s remit also extends to supporting Middle East filmmakers and Arabian film production.

[…]

Edward Borgerding, CEO of Imagenation Abu Dhabi and Abu Dhabi Media Company, said: “With Imagenation Abu Dhabi, we are bringing Hollywood and the international production community to Arabia. Our aim is to make award-winning films which are commercially successful and appeal to audiences across the world.

“Our target output of eight films every year will make imagenation abu dhabi one of the world’s top producers of feature films and establish Abu Dhabi as a leading centre for content creation,” said Borgerding.

[Source: BI-ME]

Hopefully the movies they’ll be producing will indirectly help pass on a more positive image about Arabs and Muslims, and break the negative stereotypes we see in hollywood movies these days.

Google Chrome, Google’s New Open Source Browser Has Landed

The buzz in the online world these past 24 hours or so have all been around Google’s new open source web browser, under the name of Google Chrome.

There have been rumors about a Google browser for ages now, with people suspecting it will be called GBrowser, or simply Google Browser; but those rumors never materialized until yesterday when Google “accidentally” let slip some comics presenting the new browser; and then followed up with a blog post, announcing a beta would be released today.

I went through the comic book talking about the product’s details and I think it is a great way to present the product and I recommend that anyone interested check it out here.

The beta was officially released some minutes ago, and I got to download it and play around with it a bit, and I have to say I’m really impressed and loving it up to now.

It has a very clean and simplistic interface, maximizing the browsing area; and it is really fast.

The browser uses the WebKit rendering engine, the V8 JavaScript Virtual Machine, an optimized approach to tabs, a homepage presenting most visited websites, and a number of security and privacy options; in addition to other interesting features.

I think this is a really promising product from Google; and I can’t wait to see where they take it, and what it will do for web apps.

Ramadan Mubarak To Everyone

Today is the first day of the holy month of Ramadan in Tunisia and in most other Muslim countries (Libya and Nigeria started yesterday).

It’s a month of fasting, praying, reading the Koran and worship for some people; and a month of eating, sleeping, watching TV, and eating some more for others.

So to everyone, no matter what this month ahead means to them exactly, I’d like to wish you a blessed Ramadan; and may it be a happy and great month for you all.