I was invited by Omar Rostom from Nokia Egypt to the #NokiaN9 launch event at Nokia Care Center Dokki.  A full review represented by Tarek Ahmad about the new smart phone from Nokia.

Review: The Nokia N9, one of its kind.

The first time I got my eyes on the Nokia N9 I fell in love with it, the curved design and solid build quality makes it really unique and different in the world of touch screen phones, as most phones look nearly the same. It’s the first phone in the market that comes with an interface that requires no physical buttons. The phone is built around a poly carbonate unibody chassis which has a curved edge Gorilla glass touch screen on top, a volume rocker and power button… Yes that’s it!

The phone is equipped with TI OMAP3360, featuring an ARM Cortex A8 CPU running at 1GHz, fetching data to a generous 1GB RAM. You get two options 16 or 64GB for storage but no MicroSD expansion support. The WVGA 3.9 inch screen is AMOLED which means that it offers gorgeous colors and great viewing angles. The display is PenTile, but at that DPI the text looks crisp and clear, even compared to a Super AMOLED Plus display.

The 8.0MP AF camera has a fast F2.2 wide angle Carl Ziess lens, which translates in a very good quality still shots, not N8 good but close. Video recording is not that impressive at 720p with 27fps, but you still get continuous autofocus though.

Connectivity wise the phone has the usual 3G/WiFi/GPS/Bluetooth options as all phones out there with MicroUSB 2.0 for data transfer and charging. The phone lacks the famous Nokia FM Transmitter and Radio too.

The novelties of the N9’s design don’t stop at the hardware only. The real differentiating factor here is the interface offered by MeeGo OS v1.2 Harmattan.

The interface philosophy here consists of three screens. Feeds is where you get the events, weather, news and social networks timeline updates. Second is application launcher screen which simply does that. 3rd screen is the multitasking panel which shows thumbnails of all open apps. You just swipe between the three screens or dismiss apps by swiping from the edge of the screen. It’s simple as that.

The last element of the interface is the notification area where you click on the top of the screen to have a peak at the incomings. What’s great about the UI is that runs very smooth, though it has lots of eye candy and animations. The system remains very responsive and fast even with more than 20 apps open in the background! I would guess that there is H/W acceleration magic running behind the scene.

The one important thing in the OS of a modern day smartphone is the web browser, an area where Nokia didn’t really excel in before. Luckily the N9 browser is a powerful browser based on WebKit and supporting HTML5, it lacks some features like Flash, text reflow and find on

page. But it makes up for it with a very solid performance that you’d usually get from dual core phones.

You get other neat features like Divx/Xvid codecs and even MKV support in the video player, the built in contacts, messaging and gallery apps are social networks aware and integrate with Facebook, Twitter, Skype, Google, Flickr, Picasa, and Youtube!! Plus the famous Nokia Maps with free voice guided navigation support of course.

The Conclusion:

Nokia N9 is a sad story. Nokia N9’s biggest enemy is Nokia itself… they killed the device even before it got out by ignoring key markets as US and some countries in Europe, selling it at a ridiculous price and simply by telling everyone that it’s the first and the last MeeGo phone. It’s sad because this phone is phenomenal it has an original design and a great OS that has a unique UI which leaves the competition in the dust. It could’ve been the one phone that revives the spirit of the Nokia N95 days. Anyway I hope they do better with their WP planes.

As for you who wants to have something really unique, a phone that you won’t see a lot of people carrying a round, a truly original design and being the type of person that doesn’t install hundreds of apps this phone is for you.

What I like:

• Respectable build quality
• Wonderful display
• Buttery smooth UI

What I don’t like:

• Limited apps support
• Micro SIM card

The event started with discussion panel about need for Social Media and cooperation between Sweden and Egypt.

Anny Carimbr, one of the Arabic website team, spoke about the Arabic website and the need for creating a dialogue among the different people.

Mark Comerford, a journalist-educator and lecturer in structural communication shifts, inspired the audience with short speech about how communications and networking is leading the global change.

Javeria Rizvi Kabani, a Project leader for YLVP and She entrepreneurs at Swedish Institute (SI), spoke about The YLVP and the efforts to build a culture exchange and relations with the Arab young people during the last four years.

Economic expert and journalist Mohamed al-Dahshan shared some good examples and insights about the social media and business and how to manage a successful social media initiatives.

The Egyptian entrepreneur Doaa Kassem spoke about the YLVP program and her experience with partnership. Doaa also spoke about social media benefits and how her startup can help resolve social problems that could affect the Egyptian society.

Swedish Ambassador to Cairo Malain Kiir announced the launch of the Arabic website to cover the Middle East and Arab region which creates culture relation between Sweden and Arabic speakers to achieve the dialogue among the peoples and to support social relations, economics and education.

Special regards to the embassy for the friendly atmosphere, the music and the great team.

Thanks to Jasmine El Nadeem for organizing the event and for the invitations.

Facebook Page: Sweden_AR

Twitter: Sweden_AR

By Yasser Ahmad

Social Media Consultant

Cairo, Egypt

ArabNet is organizing a not-to-miss 2-day digital conference in Cairo, Egypt!

This is an opportunity to access one of the two largest markets in the region, and be in the presence of 40 renowned speakers exploring the latest trends and issues in the web industry.

ArabNet Cairo will involve 600+ attendees, and include the Ideathon and Startup Demo competitions, discussion panels, keynotes, world-class networking, and specialized workshops.

http://arabnet.me/conference/cairo/

http://arabnet.me/conference/cairo/register/

Forbes Middle East

Topping Forbes‘ list is Sultan Sooud Al-Qassemi (@SultanAlQassemi), a renowned Emirati Twitter personality, columnist, and fellow at the Dubai School of Government. He tweets primarily about developments in the Arab World, with particular emphasis on the Arab Spring, and has accumulated over 70,000 followers.

The highest ranked women on the Forbes list are #48 Aseel al-Awadhi (@aseelalawadhi), one of the first female members of the Kuwaiti Parliament, and #52 Amira al-Hussaini (@justamira), the Bahraini editor of Global Voices Online’s Middle East and NorthAfrica section.

To find more about the list please check SMEXBeirut and top 100 Arab Twitter presences

Posted By

@YasserAhmad

• 30.2 million social media users
• 15 million Facebook users
• 5.5 million Twitter users – 40% from UAE
• 240% increase in Twitter users in Saudi Arabia in 2010
• ~70% of companies increased digital media budgets in 2011
• Most social country: UAE

ArabCrunch reports:

Other interesting figures from the report is that there is 15 million Facebook users, that number however might not be accurate as in Q1 2010 our sources inside Facebook estimated the number around 16-18 million users.

The complete inforgraghic is below, we have another two reservations, e-marketing budgets from the Arab world does not include banners ads spending as it focus on email marketing, smart phone apps, SMS marketing, social media marketing and google adwords. Another one it does not mention the source of the numbers for Twitter users!

Ari Kesisoglu – Regional Manager, Middle East North Africa said that online ad spending in the MENA region is between 110 to 130 Million USD annually, thus the report should include banner ad spending to offer a complete picture.

Now it is time for me to explain why I don’t believe that “^XX” signature is a good tactic for social media marketing on twitter.

1. Twitter is not a customer service platform only. Twitter is about engagement and building relations between the company brand and the tweep.
2. Twitter users need a solid relation between them and the “Brand”. How you can provide that while you represent always a person to the front line with his signature at the bottom of the tweet?
3. If I have a question to the brand in morning and another one at night, I believe that each time I see a different signature I would feel it is related to person not the brand itself.
4. Sometimes I see it moving to a personal level of conversation. I witness a lot of personal problems between the @VodafoneEgypt moderators and the tweeps and they don’t really want to engage with the moderator tweets anymore. The reason for that, once they didn’t like his reply or maybe they don’t like his tone. Anyway the problem turned from relation with the brand to relation with a person. Now tell me is that good thing for the brand while you are socializing your brand? Is replacing the person would help me as a tweep when I see different signature?.
5. Personal level doesn’t mean it is Social. Being social is about being supportive, witty, speedy and much more. It is not about being a human only who sticks his signature at the end.
6. We all know for sure that companies accounts on twitter managed by human. It might be one or two or a big team so why the company needs to announce this moderator everytime they reply or tweet? That’s the question.
7. Boring to see always the signature coming at the end of each tweet. I already knew that you is you.
8. We have seen in the court a lot of legal problems between social media moderators and companies because some companies believes that even your personal account belong to them. You got a famous because you have been a part of the company social media campaigns. Now how can we separate this unless from the beginning we have very good strategy and guidelines which explains what kind of personal exposure you may get from the company social media initiatives.
9. All social media consultants keep saying that you ruin your social media accounts if it is managed by the traditional marketers or customer service people. You have to build your brand socially. It is all about mentality and not just marketing or customer support.
10. If your moderators announce themselves into the company tweets so what is the social relation I build here with the brand itself? I need a relation with the company logo I see on your avatar not with the “^X” “^Y” “^Z”. That’s the main focus after all.

Question to you: Which is more famous as brand “CocaCola” and “Pepsi” or “Starbucks”?
Another question: Who spend more money on advertising and marketing “CocaCola” or “Starbucks”?
One last question: “Dell” is unknown brand?

My reply is:

• CocaCola followers on Twitter:  241,430 followers
• Pepsi: 61,000 followers (!!!!!)
• Dell: 5,000 followers (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

While Starbucks: 1,373,000 followers.

I think know you now who were really able to provide a good social account by using good social media strategies.

You might come with a note to me saying: why you compare? I would ask you why not? We all on twitter and we all looking for better marketing and brand awareness.

Social media is all about how to engage socially. Because if you don’t fit fast and creatively you will be left behind.

Social media doesn’t need a one year old guideline because it is a whole world changing around the hour.

Social media experts doesn’t exist as you can find in any role because we just follow what is going on and try to fit. It is only tools that keep changing. So please forget about the dummies books and those old fashion “marketing style” rules and hit the social networks stream effectively.

Now lose the tie and wear a cool tshirt…. Oh I mean lose the signature and shift your brand into a social cool persona!

By: Yasser Ahmad

Google Egypt

Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Blogs, ummm.. Do I need to explain more or you already got it? That’s the social media and I don’t have to explain such tools because we are using it all the time. I don’t have to take you into those explanations of how it works and how to use it because the basic principle about social media “it is social”.

Let’s go and figure how social media is affecting the Egyptians life online?

The need for communication
“nfacebook, ntweet, nupload, nshayr, ntag, npost, nchat, nzabatttt..;)”

Social Media have been the most effective reason of attracting the Egyptian users to be more active online and to communicate more. With the revolution of social media Egyptians started to join the global impact of those channels it might sometimes starts with curiosity but later on you find out that you cannot be left behind.

Example, a friend wants to communicate with you would ask you “do you have facebook?”.

The quick tools of communications and the great stream provided by the social media have been the basic reason of changing the Egyptian users behavior from only checking emails “once every while”, downloading movies “all the night while I am sleeping”, chatting to people over messenger “usually relatives or close friends” and finally getting lost digging into Google search results trying to find something really interesting.

Social Media changed the online life style and the internet experience. Social media channels and tools made the Egyptians online life more engaging and rich experience.

Communicating more easily and effectively is one of the benefits that brought social media to our life.

It keeps you updated, it keeps you involved and it keeps you a part of this active life.

Being Social.. Being Networked
The internet “el net” used to have negative image for the Egyptian families few years ago, they used to warn their kids all the time not use it.

First reason, hmmmm! “Porno”.. terrifying enough!
Second reason, “waste of time”..  For Egyptian parents “go to study” is the holy sentence they chase you everywhere with.
Third reason and most important reason, they didn’t see the benefits of it “my mom didn’t start to like the internet until I made money out of it”.
Families now believes more in the internet as another essential communication tool “my mom asks now for a facebook account to be able to see her grandson pictures.. I refused because I don’t like the idea if some single old man sends her a friend request!!!” terrifying idea!

It is very important now for you now to network with your friends. The idea of being social through a network is much easier than communicating outside a network. You can simply network with a friend of your friend than communicating with a stranger, at least you have something in common even a friend.

Group communicating is a rich communication experience because it allows you to see others contributions on the same thing, it is more fun to see several comments from different people on the same personal status or picture or event or news, it is more live and rich experience. that’s the benefit of social networks.

The need for networking with friends, school mates, relatives, work colleagues and potential girl friends   is easy to manage from one place like facebook.

Awareness… The need for feeds
You are updated and social media is doing all the job.

Searching have been always the motivation of using the internet, you are always searching for something, you are asking Google your terms and interests, you open your email and your eyes searching for what is important to open, you check the news portals searching for what is new and what is happening. You have hunger for the stream and social media now is bringing it to you, you don’t have to search websites for news as before as you already follow on twitter those who feed you with fresh news and links. You don’t need any more to ask your friends how they are doing and what the latest news is. You just see it on your facebook newsfeeds and your twitter stream.

You don’t have to search Youtube for interesting videos as you used to do, you don’t have to dig the internet for interesting music or websites. It all comes to you by sharing and like. Daily you have enough amount of stream coming to you from people have the same interests you are networked with.

Because of the social media Egyptians are able to know what is happening in Egypt every morning; it all comes to you with the buzz coming along.

I define it as one big wave starts somewhere around the web and it will rich you in very short time, thanks to social media!

The great thing of the awareness driven by social media is that you don’t only get the feeds but you also get to know what other thinks about it.

I personally adore the Egyptians comments on political articles? It worth reading than the article itself, they drive the stream into hilarious comedy using their usual sarcastic style J

Following the stream
I need to be part of it so I “tweet, retweet, hashtag” on Twitter, I “comment, share” on blogs and news. I “comment, share, like and join” on facebook. That’s one of the greatest things about social media, it allows you to be a part of the thing and not just a follower.

Increasing your visibility over the virtual life is one of the best things you can do.

When we ever have a tweetup (a meet up organized by people using twitter while everyone is invited) after meeting with several people you will notice that you all already know a lot about each other!! It is because the great visibility of using twitter “some people already knows what type of coffee I like and what is my political opinions because I did tweet about such things”.

Bloggers are everywhere. It is awesome, isn’t it? Everyone have something to say, thousands of posts daily about politics, life style, technology, poetry, live journal, food and many other things.

Fun and Entertainment
Social Media increased the share of entertainment with:

Groups, you join the groups to be always updated

Events, you get to know more about what is happening in the city (Opera, culture wheel, art galleries, social events and much more).

Blogs, Egyptians blogs are filling the gaps and bringing a lot of the written content to the Egyptian online scene. You can find political opinions, Book reviews, Movie Reviews, Interesting dairies. Publishing houses printed few blogs into books, one of those books brought a lot of attention and now on screen as comedy tv series “3awza atgawez”!

Egyptians life over the blogs is really active and full of great contents.

Share/Like alot of interesting links, videos, pictures and much other stuff will visit your wall daily because of the sharing features. If you would remember how it was boring and taking time to forward an email to group friends. Now because of social media it is much easier to share it or just hit like and all people connected to you will see the funny clip you liked!

Video do you remember the time you had a lot of videos on your hard disk or when you used to roam around with your hard disk in your hand asking friends for some cool clips or songs to share with you, uhh memories! Now all the funny and interesting clips come to you from Youtube. Bass khalas!!!

Games my 35 years old friend is only and the time is around 4 am. I asked her: why you are up so late? She said: collecting the strawberry from my farm. Hmmm I said:  you have a farm for real? She said: no dear it is farmvile and this is the only time I can collect my strawberry! End of the story.

Social Media and Business
I am ironic enough to say that the majority of Egyptian companies and candidates fail to use the social media when it comes to business. I do social media business consultancy and it takes me a lot of time to convince corporate companies to be social. The social media is free and easy way to reach your clients or create brand awareness or drive more traffic to your website, but yet this is not easy as it seems.

Advertising is controlling the market in Egypt and since advertising is usually about selling or promotion advertisers or sales people cannot gain much success or influence via social media channels.

Basics steps Egyptian companies needs to consider if they are joining the social media:

• Hiring the wrong people to do the job won’t help, get a cool social people who are brief and knows how to join a good conversation or create a statement . People who are able to be fun and people would like to follow or to spend time around.
• No social media plan “be el Baraka” won’t take you any further than medan lebnan traffic jam. Draw a plan, set goals, monitor results and pay attention to it because social media is not anymore a luxury or fun tools, it is taking over the world wide web.

I am done now, do you have any questions? Follow me on twitter or foursquare “as I am trying to be social ahoh”

By Yasser Ahmad
Mot3ahed Social Media wa khelafoh

After a successful launch in Beirut (Lebanon) and Amman (Jordan), the Young Leaders Social Media Cafe comes to Cairo (Egypt).

Egypt’s Social Media Leaders:
Wael Abbas, Maha Al-Aswad, Nevine Lotfy, Nasry Esmat, Maissan Hassan, Maged Hassan, Emad Nassef, Ahmed Esmat, Dareen Khalifa, Engy Ghozlan, Jasmine EL-Nadeem, Mohamed El-Dahshan, Tarek Mostafa and Dina El-Bansaly

Why we want you to be there?

Learn how you can make a difference by just using the “Social Media” apps on your mobile phone…

Know how “Social Media” can create public opinions?!

Experience how as much as”Social Media” has become part of your every day social life, it can be a big part of your every day responsibility towards your community as well…

Cairo’s Young Leaders Social Media Cafe is going to introduce Egypt’s first “Sexual Harassment Map”

If social media was able to gather 500 million people around the world, it sure can gather Egyptians to fight back “Sexual Harassment”

Be Social .. Be Positive .. Be Part of the Change

Cairo Young Leaders Social Media Cafe – 5th November Agenda:

7:00 – 7:15 Welcome remarks
Javeria Rizvi Kabani – YLVP Project Manager
Alexandra Rydmark – Representative of the Swedish Embassy in Egypt

7:15 – 7:30 Joakim Jardenberg – CEO of Mindpark and Sweden’s leading media profile speaking about the role of Social Media in Making Social Change

7:30 – 7:45 Heidi Harman from Geekgirl will be present to share inspiring stories about her entreprenurship journey.

7:45 – 8:00 Wael Abbas, Egyptian Journalist and Blogger will be talking to us about “The role of Social Media in Creating Public Openion – Show Case sexual harassment in Egypt”

8:00 – 8:30 Engy Ghozlan, Sexual Harassment Map Co-Founder will give us an Introduction to the Sexual Harassment Map

8:30 – 9:00 Coffe and Band Perfornace

Organized by:
Sara Eldemerdash

Event:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=127600950627030

Posted by:
Egypt Social Media Cafe

There is too much noise on the Internet. Why the hell do we spend so much of our time attempting to sift through the tidbits on a hundred sites to get to the important things that make a difference in our lives? Why are we wasting precious time trying to fit ourselves into proper categories of people?

Figure out what it is YOU want out of a social networking site. Where do you fit? Which site just feels like home when you log in? That is the place where you should hang your proverbial hat. There comes a point where we have to decide enough is enough and eradicate the extra noise. When it becomes impossible to hear and be heard, you know you’ve stretched yourself a little too thin. Pare it down, folks. You don’t need to be everywhere in order to make a difference in this world. You simply need to somewhere.

Original Post: http://chris.pirillo.com/how-much-social-networking-is-too-much/

BY: @ChrisPirillo