Feedback and Fixes after a Day in Public View
We’ve had a huge amount of feedback from our community in the past 24 hours after releasing the new look Meedan. First off, we have fixed the automated emails generated when you subscribe to another user, reply or send a personal message. Users noticed the links in these emails were pointing to the development version of the site rather than the real live site. I’m glad to say this is resolved – but if you experience any further problems with automated emails do let us know by emailing feedback [at]... Read The Rest →
Bang bang boom! Bring on the Meedan blog badge
Bloggers! Attention! This is going to be fun. So you’ve got your twitter feed and your friendfeed feed and your delicious feed – and they’re all pointing at your blog. Your blog is a hub for all the comments you’re making and links you’re sharing around the web. Good work. But if you’re interested in what we’re interested in, this will only go so far. That means, if you’re blogging about Middle East news, the regional tech scene, the Arabic language or Arab film and culture – you need to... Read The Rest →
Meedan on YouTube: 5 videos to help you join a cross-language conversation
If you haven’t experienced a cross-language conversation and networking experience before, Meedan.net may throw up some surprises. It’s novel to most users that your comments are translated first by a machine and then by other members of the Meedan translator community. It’s also pretty fun to see your blog or article switch into another language. Unlike many other web services and applications, Meedan.net implicitly combines different roles for a successful experience. Middle East enthusiasts, journalists and bloggers may be drawn more towards posting links and writing comments. Arabic-English translators and... Read The Rest →
UPDATE: Why Middle East web projects miss their target audience
There’s been plenty of discussion generated about the role of translation in social web projects since we posted on this yesterday. GV blogger and Meedani producer Eman Abd El Rahman – @lastoadri - is supportive: I totally agree with this post, and actually I was thinking about the same few days ago. You know, we barely have such conferences in the Arab world. Its usually in UK, US.. etc. People in the west have more exposure than we are in here. That’s why when I was in the “Blogging the... Read The Rest →
'Bloggers scream: We are searching for a real outlet for our thoughts, away from surveillance!'
Read the original Arabic article in Al Raya here. Translated by Randa. Cairo- Al-Rayah Newspaper – Raymaa Abdel-Ghafoor: One of the events at the Cairo International Book Fair was a provocative symposium about “Blogs’ literature: Is it just a number of screams or scattered papers?” The symposium was run by the novelist, Youssef Al-Qaeed, in the presence of Shaban Youssef, the poet, and the young bloggers, Ghada Abdel-Aal, Mai Khaled, and Shady Asslan. Al-Qaeed mentioned that the subject of the symposium considers the ideology behind blogs, of which the new... Read The Rest →
1: Born-to-be-blogger Abu Aardvark covers the story when the reporters have gone home
If ever there was a blogger who should have been born blogging, it would be Abu Aardvark. Prolific would be an understatement; his blog is a universe unto itself. This is a web log that sprawls across half a decade, documenting political developments from Kirbala to Cairo through each of those five turbulent years with a fine toothcomb. To the new visitor, it may seem dense. But to the regular these pages are rich and fertile pastures, where curious minds can graze for hours on end. Abu Aardvark may be... Read The Rest →