Author: Mohamed Marwen Meddah

Mohamed Marwen Meddah is a Tunisian-Canadian, web aficionado, software engineering leader, blogger, and amateur photographer.

Bits & Pieces

Wow, it’s been over a week since I blogged here, mainly because I’ve been very busy working on StartUpArabia, and on some new extensions and side projects for it, but also because I haven’t really been in the mood to write a well-rounded post.

This post should pretty much sum up a number of my random thoughts and some interesting links that I’d like to share.

– USA: It’s about time Hillary Clinton stopped acting foolish, it’s time for her to drop out of the race now. Barack Obama is clearly going to get the nomination, and he deserves it.

– Zimbabwe: It’s going to be a run-off now between Mugabe and Tsvangirai, even though I’m quite sure there was no need for one. Anyway, I hope there won’t be any more violence, that Morgan Tsvangirai wins and that Zimbabweans can turn a new page starting this year.

– Lebanon: What a shame! Hezbollah using their arms against Lebanese people?! Do we really need that? Thank God this situation has passed, but this has to never happen again. And would you choose a President already, for God’s sake.

– Tunisia: The Tunis Sports City project has gotten the green light from the parliament, and should be officially launched this week. It’s a huge project, only shame is that I think a lot of trees are going to have to go to make place for it.

Enough about all that though, here are some interesting links that I enjoyed and thought I’d share with you:

– Not Always Right (Funny and stupid customer quotes)
– FontStruct (Create your own fonts online)
– Geek and Poke (Funny web2.0 comics)

High Morale Makes Creativity Cheap

“In my experience, the thing that has the most significant impact on a movie’s budget — but never shows up in a budget — is morale. If you have low morale, for every $1 you spend, you get about 25 cents of value. If you have high morale, for every $1 you spend, you get about $3 of value. Companies should pay much more attention to morale.”

— Brad Bird, Pixar; ‘Pixar’s Brad Bird on fostering innovation in the workplace‘

[Via: Kottke]

Tunis International Book Fair 2008

Something you can know for sure about me is that I never miss a book fair; as a book worm, that’s the stuff I live off of.

Tunis’ annual international book fair opened yesterday, mainly today for the public, and so the plan was clear, we’d go book shopping today.

As has been the case over the past years, there’s a big percentage of religious books, the same ones, just published and packaged differently, all over the fair; some uninteresting politics books here; some children books there; some whatever elsewhere; …etc.
And the big challenge is to dig through all of that to find some real gems and interesting books. As I never miss these book fairs, I know where to go now to find the stuff I’m looking for, although I keep an eye open for other surprises.

The booths I always visit are:
– Dar Al Saqi, Lebanon (For Arabic books)
– Maktabat Al Madbouli, Egypt (Arabic books)
– Univers du Livre, Tunisia (English books)
– Maktabat Jareer, Saudi Arabia (Arabic books)

I’m quite happy with what I’ve accomplished today and the books I got to buy, both the ones in Arabic and the ones in English.
I’ll be going back again, maybe tomorrow, to revisit some booths, and to maybe get some French books too.

If you have some other must-visit booths, please do leave a comment telling us about it.

links for 2008-04-18

StartUpArabia, Everything About Arab Startups

StartUpArabia

Recently, I’ve been very busy working on a project that I’m very passionate about and that I personally view as an important community project really.

Today, I think it’s gotten to a stage where I can launch it for everyone to check out and have access to.

The project is StartUpArabia, a weblog dedicated to new Arab technology startups and services, profiling and reviewing them, providing interesting market news and information, and sharing tips and advice for the entrepreneurs behind them.

In addition to covering these new startups, existing services and companies that are making interesting new changes and big steps in the Arab world will be mentioned and discussed.

The idea and goal behind this project for me is to give a push to Arab entrepreneurs and the startups they’ve started by shedding the light on them and introducing them to a wider audience, and providing them with information that could come in very handy for them.

Another goal is to help promote a whole Arab startup culture that brings entrepreneurs, to-be-entrepreneurs and people who are interested in startups from the Arab region together, creating a better buzz, opening more doors, and really making the Arab world a new hub for creative ideas and projects.

Something my friend Isam Bayazidi said when he took the blog for a beta spin, and which I think portrays one of the main reasons behind me launching this project in the first place is that, and I’m paraphrasing here: It’s easier to hear and know about a newly launched one-man startup in San Francisco than an Arab startup that has been working hard for the two past years.

That is so true, we have many talented people who come up with very cool ideas and projects, some of them work on them and launch them from their own bedrooms or garages, some of them have a company behind them to support them a bit more, and they all do some really great work, but many people don’t even hear about them in the first place, they don’t get the chance nor the support to keep their projects going, and they end up by shutting them down. StartUpArabia aims to change all that.

I know the project sounds very ambitious, but believe me that’s only the beginning of what I have in mind and where I want to take this, and it’s all very possible. Up to now, I’ve had some very positive and encouraging feedback from the people I shared the project with.

Please do take the time to pass by StartUpArabia and take a little tour, I’ve already put up a dozen or so interesting posts for you to read. If you have any ideas, thoughts, suggestions or anything at all, please do not hesitate to share them with me, they are more than welcome and will be greatly appreciated.

If you have any startups you’d like me to write about, please do share, so that we can spread the love even more and get more people covered and promoted.

Is Content Becoming a Commodity?

An interesting conversation has been going on these past days on different blogs about fractured blog comments, how bloggers are losing control and how content is becoming more and more of a commodity these days.

Here are some selected quotes about this, the first by blogger Steven Hodson in which he worries about the devaluation of his brand:

“We are being told that once we have written our posts we no longer have any say over what happens to them. In effect we are having to give up the vary basis of what gives our brand its very worth…So as we watch our pageviews and revenue streams decline because it’s now okay that the conversations can either be taken over by other services…It’s okay that someone else can build a brand off of our now non-important brand. It’s okay that any conversations over our original thoughts can take place anywhere because the home we have worked hard to build for our brand isn’t worth anything anymore.”– Steven Hodson, What Are My Words Worth?

 

and the second by Sarah Perez, over on ReadWriteWeb, in which she explains what it all means for us bloggers:

“What this means for us as bloggers and new media creators is that the very technologies that we have grown to love are the same forces that are turning our efforts, be them our words, our videos, our music, our photos, or anything we create, into a commodity – something that has little monetary value on its own, but in aggregate, can become something of value.”– Sarah Perez, Content Is Becoming a Commodity

 

Finally, I go back to a quote by Louis Gray in which he advocates adapting to where the conversation is being held:

“As a blogger, I am a content creator. I don’t want my content stolen, or reposted without attribution or under somebody else’s name. But I am also a huge advocate of RSS and continuing to adapt where the conversation is being held. Just as my blog’s RSS views have undoubtedly eclipsed my blog page views, I would not be surprised to see that more comments on my posts might eventually live outside of my blog. It would behoove me and other bloggers to be aware of the other places the conversation will be taking place, and to engage there, in my opinion, rather than railing against the continued evolution of how we’re consuming content and engaging online.”– Louis Gray, Should Fractured Feed Reader Comments Raise Blog Owners’ Ire?

 

What do you think?

f/10 Group Photography Expo

Four of my friends and colleagues, all very talented and passionate photographers, will be showing some of their work, along with some other photographers, as a group they called f/10, in a photography expo that will be opening on April 15th at 18:30 at the El Teatro space in the El Mechtel Hotel in downtown Tunis, Belvédère.
The expo will go on until April 28th.

f/10 photography expo

The expo is really worth checking out, so make sure you add it to your schedules and pass by to enjoy some really interesting photography work.

Yahoo Launches Video On Flickr

Yahoo rolled out video sharing on Flickr this week. They’re trying to position Flickr Video not as another video-sharing site and YouTube rival, but as a useful addition to Flickr’s core business: a web platform for adding and sharing photos.

Flickr will make video available in eight languages: English, French, German, Italian, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, and Chinese.

Users can upload up to 90 seconds of footage, with a maximum size of 150 MB, from any recording device. They can organize and share videos the same way they handle photos, using tags, geotags, sets, and privacy settings.

Videos can be uploaded to photo streams, alongside photos, and embedded on third-party Web sites.

Personally, I’m not really happy about this bit of news, I think Flickr should have stayed for photos only. I don’t think photos and videos really belong together, even if they try to present videos as “long photos”.
And obviously, I’m not the only person who feels that way, as I’ve already been invited to a number of Flickr groups opposing the addition of video.