One of the impressive things about South Korea is that technology is a culture, or at least that’s how I felt, supermarkets and tiny shops sell smartphones along grocery, vending machines are very smart and interactive, and museums are equipped with latest displays and technologies to add more excitement to your experience.

We started the first day of the tour with a visit to the Samsung Town in Seoul, where we met Samsung’s team along with local bloggers and representatives from Samsung’s ad agency Cheil, warm coffee was served with a warm welcome from our Korean hosts prior to the tour in the d’light shot, a true delightful experience and a playground for tech lovers!

The Samsung d'light Shop in Seoul

The Samsung d’light shop is a 3-storey center where you can stroll down memory lane and explore Samsung’s history while experiencing latest innovations and future vision of the company, and of course to complete the experience you can actually purchase products. My favorite parts of the d’light shop were the LED Lighting Drums, the Smart Window and the Smart Fridge.

The first time I saw a video of the smart window on YouTube I thought it was very far fetched but I got to use while I’m at the d’light shop and apparently Samsung has already started producing these windows and couple of contracts were already signed, watch this video:

The LED Lighting Drums experience was so awesome, touch the wall and thing will change, of course no video can capture the beauty of this experiment but you can watch here, and maybe if you’re in Seoul go experience it yourself.

This is a very amazing fridge, as you’ll see in the video is interactive and smart, you can explorer the stuff inside it.

Here is another example of how South Korea is so advanced when it comes to technology, I came across this vending machine in a museum, it displays video ads, shows more details about the products inside, such an amazing interface for a vending machine!

Some random photos I snapped at the Samsung d’light Shop:

Connectivity and Sharing
The DV300F is equipped with built-in WiFi that connects the camera to other devices including smartphones and computers, which allows you to share photos and videos to your social networks, as well as sending them through email, you can also transfer your files to smartphones, computers and clouds for storage purposes, or play back them on different devices like a TV. The Remote ViewFinder is another WiFi-based feature where you can use your smartphone to control the camera and snap photos remotely.

The camera supports sharing photos and videos Facebook, YouTube, Picasa and Photobucket, and with the use of the virtual keyboard, you can add comments and descriptions when you share your files to your networks. The camera doesn’t support some popular networks including Twitter, Pintrest, Tumbler and Flickr, it also doesn’t support sharing larger video files.

Samsung DV300F Smart Camera

Front LCD
We all try to take self-portrait photos but it doesn’t always come the way we’re expecting, this camera has a small LCD screen in the front so that you can see how the photo is going to look like, pretty useful. The front screen has other uses, if you are trying to get your child to smile for the camera, the DV300F plays a video that can bring some joy to the little ones. Another situation where the front screen can be useful is when are trying to shoot people while they jump, the screen will display a countdown followed by an arrow that tells people to jump, at that point the camera will snap 3 consecutive photos, or it can an animated GIF file.

The front screen is designed to work for three features; Self-Shot, Children and Jump Shot, but it can be activated at any point by pushing the “F.LCD” button, the one next to the power button.

Samsung DV300F Smart Camera

Filters and Scenes
If you are not a fan of setting up your camera manually, you can choose from a selection of pre-defined scene-modes; from sunset to dawn, to landscape and beach, to close-up and night shots. In addition, you can choose from a list of filters that can some interesting effects to your camera like Miniature, Vignetting, old film, fisheye, cartoon, sketch and more. Some of these filters are available for video shooting as well.

But you still have the option to tune the camera manually for both still and video shooting, you can play with the Exposure Value, White Balance, Focus, Metering, ISO and more.

Samsung DV300F Smart Camera

I shot this video of Dubai Fountain using the Samsung DV300F

Photo Editor
The DV300F offers a photo editor that helps in fine-tuning your photos, you change the brightness, contrast and saturation, you can as well do some retouches to the face or fix the red-eye. But the beauty of the editor is that you can add some of the above mentioned filters to your photo, and then save a copy and keep the original.

The DV300F is my travelling buddy now, it enjoys lots of capabilities, it shoots good videos and great photos, and it fits in my pocket!

The left side of the photo, marked with X, was edited using the Face Retouch feature in the photo editor

Salalah Oman

Burj Khalifa Dubai

Sunset in JBR Dubai using the Sunset Scene

The Old Film Filter

Small House, Big Satellite

The Empty Quarter Desert

The invitation was an attempt by Sky News to reach out to active bloggers and tweeps in the country, following the tour that was led by Nart Bouran, Head of Sky News Arabia, an open debat kicked off with different team members of the station, who were keen to listen to what can be the best digital practices that can help the Sky News Arabia to stand out.

Nart Bouran, Head of Sky News Arabia in a studio tour

Attention to tension
The Arab world is very rich in Oil, but it’s also very rich in news, even before the Arab Spring, a fact that enticed a lot of local and international players to venture into uncharted waters, with hidden agendas, or obvious ones. Countries like USA, England, China, France, Russia and Iran are present in the region through their own Arabic channels, but compared to their local rivals, Al-Jazeera (Qatar) and Al-Arabiya (Saudi Arabia), they are not that significant.

Al Jazeera is by far the strongest news channel in the region, perhaps the timing and the open financial support played an important role in their success, but personally I think the tone used by the Doha-based network boosted its image, Al-Jazeera managed to build an Anti-West, Pro-Arab image, although I believe they are not, they just tailor their news to suit the mentality of the vast majority. Al-Arabiya on the other hand managed to gain some momentum through its more-neutral attitude, the Saudi-owned Dubai-based station was launched 7 years after Al-Jazeera and doesn’t enjoy the same financial support as its Qatari rival but it seems to be catching up.

I’m not a fan of both Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya but I think Al-Jazeera is more professional, Al-Arabiya made few uncalled-for mistakes, and I’m not talking about core news, mistakes such as the “Microsoft launching Google Wave” statement to the news about the Dubai resident who paid AED1.1 Million to secure the first piece of the new iPad to the Gillette unbelievable baseball catch viral video that was aired on Al-Arabiya as if it was for real.

Sky News Arabia is the only news channel that was launched after the beginning of the revolutions in the region, soon it will be joined by Al-Arab channel, which is owned by Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, Fox News partner in the region. Such difficult times could be so risky to start a news channel but it can an opportunity as well, a new horizon brings new challenges.

Social Media Presence
Sky News Arabia has a long way to catch up with Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya, social media is one of the key tools to do so, being active on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube is needed but it takes time to expand your followers base. Below is a comparison between social media channels owned by these stations:

FACEBOOK: (only the official pages of the main brand, not including other pages like sports, economy.. etc.)
Sky News Arabia has more than 155 thousand fans compared to 2.1 million fans of Al-Arabiya and 3.5 million fans of Al-Jazeera (2.4M on Arabic page, 1.1M on the English)

TWITTER: (only the official accounts of the main brand, not including other accounts like sports, economy.. etc.)
Sky News Arabia has more than 40 thousands followers, compared to 1.28 million followers of Al-Arabiya and 3 million followers of Al-Jazeera (1.7m on the Arabic account, 1.3m on the English)

Both Sky News and Al-Arabiya use hashtags extensively, which is very important, unlike Al-Jazeera, which only uses them in English.

YOUTUBE: (only the official channel of the main brand, not including other channels like sports, economy.. etc.)
Sky News has more than 3,300 subscribers compared to more than 95,000 for Al-Arabiya and more than 467,000 for Al-Jazeera (267k for the English, 200k for the Arabic).

Sky News YouTube channel has generated close to 2.8 million views compared to almost 87 million for Al-Arabiya and close to 598 million for Al-Jazeera (395m for the English, 202m for the Arabic). Seems like English content is working for Al-Jazeera more than the Arabic.

All in all, I think Sky News Arabia has a good digital presence through a neat website and a collection of mobile apps, I also like their font both on-screen and on the website, I think it’s very nice and much more beautiful than the ones used by Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya.

To end my post, I think Sky News Arabia is gaining some ground, but only time can tell how successful and independent they are, both Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya image was slightly damaged during the Arab Spring, which was and still a real test for the transparency of  news stations in the region.

The audience enjoyed a live demonstration orchestrated by Adobe’s squad of Evangelists; Jason Levine, Paul Trani and Rufus Deuchler, the trio showcased the new features through a process that was displayed on multiple screens step by step for a practical experience with the new products.

We spoke to Joe Karkour, the Business Development Manager, Creative at Adobe Systems MENA, and also Jason Levine, Principle Worldwide Evangelist for Adobe Systems; Video Tools, Audio Tools, check out this video report:

Back in March 2010, we created a report about Facebook in the Middle East, at that time the total number of users was 11.1 million, 54% of the users where between 19 – 29 years old, 58% were male, 56% used English language and 62% didn’t define their relationship status. Today, Facebook’s population in the MENA region is somewhere around 40 million users, is it any different nowadays?

A recent report by The Online Project shows that it’s pretty much the same, Facebook is still male-dominated with an overall gap of 30%, unlike the female-dominated community in the USA, were male users are 10% less. Some of the interesting findings in this report is the gender gap variations in the region, while Iraq showed the highest gap that reached 45.8%, Lebanon enjoys a more balanced community with a gap of 4.6% in favor of male users. This is understandable in conservative communities in the Arab region, many female users tend to hide behind male accounts for cultural reasons, but on the other hand many guys create feminine ghost accounts to make things easier to approach girls through the social networks, I believe this brings some balance to the equation but probably not enough.

Some interesting facts:

• Palestine is the youngest Arab country on Facebook
• 85% of the users are interested in women
• Average number of friends in the Middle East is 59 compared to 133 in the USA
• Average number of profile pictures per user is 25
• Palestinians use Arabic language the most while Lebanese use it the least

Download a copy of The Online Project Facebook Marketing Report, you can also download a summary of the report.

The Online Project Facebook Marketing Report

Dubai, UAE, June 3, 2012: According to Bayt.com’s latest poll, “Corporate Usage of Social Media in the Middle East”, the majority of respondents (46.8%) believe that social media is not being used effectively by the region’s companies. Eight out of every ten respondents (81.6%) claim that the potential for social media to damage a company’s reputation is one of the biggest challenges to overcome, suggesting that proper education in the medium is essential for success.

Aside from the risk of reputation damage, the top three perceived challenges to social media are difficulty in monetizing online presence (11.3%), getting the tone of message correct (11.3%), and keeping up with feedback (10.5%). Other challenges that were cited were the complexity of measuring return on investment and problems with keeping up-to-date with the ever-changing tools and technologies. In fact, a majority (20.7%) stated that they believe all of these factors are challenging.

Bayt.com Corporate Usage of Social Media in the Middle East Report

However, it is worth noting that 12% of respondents do not know what may present a challenge for corporate social media involvement. It is also noteworthy that despite reservations, social media usage is considered to be ‘common’ in the region, by four out of ten (42.8%) poll takers, and half (51.1%) say that their company uses the medium.

“When asked what they consider to be most important in a successful corporate social media page, more than a quarter of respondents said that they want content that is ‘informative and educational’. Companies looking to implement a successful social media strategy should bear this in mind when launching a new page,” said Lama Ataya, CMO, Bayt.com. “Social media is a dynamic force that is being manifested today in both the personal and professional realms. Bayt.com provides essential statistics and tools to assist employers and job seekers in building the most successful online profile in order to boost their recruitment and personal or corporate brand potential.”

Other highly-desired features are that a social media page should be ‘fun and interesting’ (17.8%); provide customer service and feedback (14.9%); promptly answer all comments and queries (13.2%) and that it should be updated frequently (11.7%). In terms of the latter, almost a third (29.3%) of respondents state that their company updates their social media pages once a day.

Social media is viewed as a means of boosting brand exposure, communicating and interacting with customers, promoting new initiatives, recruiting staff and maintaining an online presence. According to 47.5% of the Bayt.com poll takers, social media activity has been largely successful in driving traffic to their company’s website, with a further 38.2% claiming that they have been successful in converting fans into customers.

Along those lines, four out of ten (43.3%) respondents believe that their company’s social media strategy is ‘excellent’, and half say that their company sounds ‘friendly’ in its online interactions.

More companies handle their social media internally than those who outsource (39.1% versus 35.6%), with most (35.9%) assigning the job to a single individual. A third (31.6%) of those who responded to the poll did not know who was responsible for their company’s social media accounts.

Companies with social media presence predominantly appear to involve all of their employees to some degree in their online applications: a collective 62.3% state that their colleagues are either ‘moderately’ or ‘extremely involved’. Roughly nine out of ten (86.1%) would participate in their company’s social media activities, if given the chance.

Almost half of the respondents (47.6%) currently follow a Middle East corporate social media presence, and six out of ten (60.2%) believe that there will be a dramatic increase in the corporate usage of social media within a year.

Despite the high interest employees have in social media, guidelines for its usage are only provided by 40.2% of companies, as opposed to the 45.1% that do not issue any.

Thought aligns with fact in terms of the most popular social networks for companies to use: 72.1% believe that Facebook is the most commonly used, while a majority of 65.5% confirms that it is the network of choice of their company. In terms of popularity, other sites used are Google+ (10.7%), LinkedIn (9.7%), Twitter (3.4%) and YouTube (2.8%). MySpace and Tumblr are used by 0.3% each. A combination of the aforementioned networks is used by 4.2%, while 3.1% claim to use other sites.

Bayt.com, the Middle East’s #1 jobsite, currently has a Facebook fanpage with an excess of 72,000 fans. It also enables its community of approximately 8 million active and passive jobseekers to identify which of their Facebook friends work for companies they are targeting and to thereby benefit from tapping into their Facebook friends’ employer networks via references, referrals and information gathering. Bayt.com’s newly revamped platform also allows jobseekers to import CVs from LinkedIn to ease the whole job search process and unify it in all its dimensions for the jobseeker on Bayt.com. Members are also able to track job search progress using state-of-the-art CV tracking and other measurement and analysis and comparison tools.

Data for the Bayt.com Corporate Usage of Social Media in the Middle East poll was collected online from February 27 – May 13 2012, with 15,758 respondents covering more than 12 countries in the MENA region.

Research about Corporate Social Media usage

About Bayt.com
Bayt.com is the largest and most relevant community of professionals interested in the MENA region with over 7,800,000 registered jobseekers and 40,000 employers. Bayt.com has 11 regional offices, over 200 staff and an 11-year track record of successfully matching the region’s top talent with top employment opportunities at every career level, in every industry.

The Google Art Project comprises more than 30,000 high resolution objects, including paintings, sculpture, street art, and photographs from a wide variety of cultures and civilizations including Brazilian street graffiti to Islamic decorative arts and ancient African rock and more, and it’s not only about museums and art galleries, you can actually take a tour in the White House.

Significant technical improvements have been undertaken. Street View images are now displayed in finer quality than the original version. Users may browse the content by the artist’s name, the artwork, the type of art, the museum, the country, collections and the time period. Google+ and video hangouts are integrated on the site, allowing viewers to create even more engaging personal galleries.

Key features of Google’s expanded Art Project:
Explore museums with Street View technology: using this feature, people can move around the gallery virtually on www.googleartproject.com, selecting works of art that interest them and clicking to discover more or diving into the high resolution images, where available.

A specially designed Street View ‘trolley’ took 360 degree images of the interior of selected galleries which were then stitched together, enabling smooth navigation of over 385 rooms within the museums. The gallery interiors can also be explored directly from within Street View in Google Maps.

The Museum of Islamic Art Qatar on Google Art Project

Super high resolution feature artworks:
Super high resolution feature artworks: around 40 museums selected one artwork to be photographed in extraordinary detail using super high resolution or ‘gigapixel’ photo capturing technology. Each such image contains around 7 billion pixels, enabling the viewer to study details of the brushwork and patina beyond that possible with the naked eye. Hard to see details suddenly become clear such as the tiny Latin couplet which appears in Hans Holbein the Younger’s ‘The Merchant Georg Gisze’. Or the people hidden behind the tree in Ivanov’s ‘The Apparition of Christ to the People’.

In addition, museums provided images for a selection totaling more than 28,000 works of art. The resolution of these images, combined with a custom built zoom viewer, allows art-lovers to discover minute aspects of paintings they may never have seen up close before, such as the miniaturized people in the river of El Greco’s ‘View of Toledo’, or individual dots in Seurat’s ‘Grandcamp, Evening’

The White House

Create your own collection:
The ‘Create an Artwork Collection’ feature allows users to save specific views of any of artworks and build their own personalised collection. Comments can be added to each painting and the whole collection can then be shared with friends and family. It’s an ideal tool for students or groups to work on collaborative projects or collections.

Discover, search, and explore:
With such large collection is was important for Googles to provide the tools that allow users to explore across partners using the discover tool, and then further explore artworks by that artist across all collections. A custom search integration makes it easier than ever to browse through collections, and find what your are looking instantly.

Multi platform support:
With this launch Google has brought the Art Project to the tablet. The experience of viewing Art on a tablet and browsing through rich content truly comes to life. Currently it supports the Android platform and will have the iPad version ready post launch.

The Museum of Islamic Art Qatar on Google Art Project

Download the Launching Presentation of the Arab Media Outlook 2011-2015

ADVERTISING SPEND

• Several of the markets impacted by the recent political turmoil are rebuilding their media industry with a greater emphasis on freedom of expression and encouraging private ownership in the print and broadcasting sectors.
• Pan-Arab advertising spend decreased by 12% in 2011. The erosion in advertising spend between 2010 and 2011 was greater in markets such as Egypt (-30%), Bahrain (-45%) and Libya (-45%). “Fringe markets” such as Iraq saw advertising spend grow by more than 85% in 2011.
• Advertising spend for the region is anticipated to grow at a CAGR of 5.9% between 2011 and 2015, boosted by the eminent recovery of the advertising market in Egypt after 2012 and a strong showing by the digital platform in the years to come.

Print:

• Newspaper circulation recorded its lowest growth in 2011.
• The pace of migration to online has been relatively slower than other parts of the world; however, some large newspaper groups are positioning themselves for digital migration by leveraging the reach and strong segment focus of specific online properties.
• The sustained yet gradual decline in the contribution of print to total advertising spend, since 2007, is expected to continue.
• Magazines, despite their relatively smaller contribution to total print advertising spend, enjoy a Pan-Arab footprint with new titles emerging in the lifestyle and women’s genres.

Television:

• The Arab television industry is dominated by Free-to-Air satellite (540 free-to-air FTA channels).
• However, audience and advertising revenues are concentrated around a small number of Pan-Arab FTA channels (new channel launches were largely under the umbrella of large Pan-Arab broadcasting groups such as MBC and Rotana).
• Pay-TV providers are combating piracy through the replacement of set-top boxes and lobbying with local governments.
• Nevertheless, penetration of Pay TV across the Arab region continues to remain low given the widespread use of illegal decoders and the quantity of premium content already available on Free-to-Air pan-Arab satellite TV channels.
• The region is also seeing international investment in home-grown content through joint ventures, partnerships or organic initiatives.
• Over-the-Top (OTT) TV and other non-linear platforms are still fairly nascent in the region.

Digital:

• The digital platform has the highest potential for growth given the favourable demographics of the region (i.e. more than 50% of the population is below the age of 25) and the strong uptake of smartphones and tablets.
• Some of the verticals in the online space that have seen the most activity include e-commerce and online gaming.
• The regional landscape of incubators, venture capital funds and technology parks has undergone a significant change with the second wave of successes emerging from these initiatives.
• The region is also seeing the emergence of regional hubs as “centres of excellence” for some verticals of the online space as in the case of Jordan.
• The region still faces a mismatch between the share of digital advertising in total advertising spend vis-à-vis the relative importance of the platform from a media consumption angle. This distortion is expected to be corrected to a certain extent in the years to come.

Radio:

• Unlike more mature markets, the radio platform has only recently emerged as an important platform in the region with the number of radio stations increasing at a CAGR of 37% between 2009 and 2011.
• The liberalisation of the sector in many Arab countries and its strong segmentation potential will continue to drive radio advertising spend in the years to come.

Out-of-home:

• Out-of-home advertising including cinema advertising remains a stable part of the overall advertising market, with variations in its significance across markets.
• Within out-of-home, indoor advertising (e.g. shopping mall advertisements), which is at a fairly nascent stage has been spurred by new entrants in a few markets such as the UAE that are likely to fuel the growth of this sub-segment.
• Cinema advertising, largely driven by the number of screens available, remains a small fraction of the total advertising spend given the low number of cinema screens per capita across the region.

CONTENT GENERATION
The third edition of the Arab Media Outlook highlighted the importance of stimulation and development of local content in the Arab media industry. The fourth AMO analyses the trends in local content development from a platform perspective (i.e. TV, Movies, Sports, Music).

Television

• On the one-hand, consumers are increasingly turning to “ultra local” content in the aftermath of the regional uprisings (i.e. country specific as opposed to Pan-Arab), particularly in countries such as Egypt and Tunisia. On the other, content producers in the TV, movie and music industries realise the importance of catering to the common tastes of a region-wide audience in order to optimise their monetisation potential.
• Local content is indeed becoming a strong focus for Pan-Arab broadcasters and there is an increasing trend towards the development of original content for the region.
• Animation is indicating promising signs of growth.
• However, imports continue to dominate the Arab TV landscape with Turkish series notching high popularity and the success of local versions of international talent shows such as Arab Idol.
• Geographic hubs for TV series production are expanding across the region, with some of the Gulf States making the most of the recent unrest in traditional markets for content production such as Egypt and Syria.

Films

• As regards to film production, the number of home-grown Arabic films is on the rise with some recent success stories in Emirati and Lebanese productions, and increased interaction with the international stage through film festivals and film funds.
• However, the industry as a whole continues to face challenges with regard to monetisation as a result of the limited number of cinema screens in the region (aside from Egypt), widespread illegal downloading of movies and illegal TV movie channels.

Music

• As in other geographies, the music industry in the Arab region is seeing increasing fragmentation of genres.
• Some high profile Pan-Arab artists (particularly Egyptian and Lebanese) remain popular, while there is an increasingly large market for artists catering to local tastes in different Arab countries.
• From a monetisation point of view, recorded music sales are already low in the region and will continue to decline in the short-term.
• Going forward, the music industry will need to rely on digital revenues for growth with the gradual introduction of legal music download sites in the region.
• Live entertainment is likely to provide a significant revenue stream for the industry going forward, while some significant changes need to happen in intellectual property rights regulation and enforcement to see growth in music publishing revenues.

Sports

• Sports viewership on TV remains particularly high in the region; however the maturity of the sports industry, in terms of monetization of broadcast rights, currently lags behind markets such as the US, Europe or India.
• Monetisation of broadcasts rights for domestic leagues across the region is still relatively low as compared to international leagues, despite the popularity of the local leagues which has been strongly evidenced by market research.
• Further, while some countries in the region and the GCC in particular are becoming hubs for international sports events, there is still a need to invest in sports infrastructure and academies in order to foster the development of local leagues. To best leverage the impact and legacy of Qatar World Cup 2022, the region still needs to harness its local talent and develop champions who will drive the interest for sports across the Arab world.

Read about the launch of the Arab Media Outlook

Arab Media Outlook 2011-2015

Click here for the latest news about the Arab Media Forum 2012

Arab Media Forum 2012

Matthew Glotzbach, YouTube Managing Director EMEA, announced the 8th local domain is the region, the UAE joins Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Yemen in having a dedicated homepage for content coming from across the Arab Emirates, Glotzbach explained that a local domain displays local videos that either have been uploaded from that country or believed to be related to that country.

YouTube Hangout in Dubai with Matthew Glotzbach Managing Director of YouTube EMEA

One of the interesting points that Glotzbach mentioned is the future of content on the internet, last year I came across a foresight by experts claiming that 90% of the consumed content on the internet by 2014 will be video, and seems like YouTube is sharing the same vision with everyone.

During our interview with Mr. Glotzbach, he mentioned that YouTube is launching the first phase of monetization in the region today April 22nd, video advertising on the home page should be available starting today on local domains of Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt and Morocco. Publishers can start monetizing their channels as well with overlay in-video ads and in-stream ads on their videos.

Matthew Glotzbach Managing Director of YouTube EMEA Speaking at the YouTube Hangout in Dubai

During the event, we learned some interesting facts about YouTube, both regionally and globally:

• Daily views on YouTube grew up 50% compared to last year
• YouTube playbacks in the MENA region have doubled in the last year
• The MENA region ranked second, after USA and before Brazil, in terms of the number of daily views
• Saudi Arabia ranked number 1 globally, the Kingdom has the highest number of YouTube views in the world per Internet user
• Saudi Arabia leads the region with the most playbacks followed by Egypt, Morocco and UAE

Global YouTube Statistics:

• YouTube has more than 4 Billion views per day up 50% versus last year
• 60 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute

MENA Region YouTube Statistics:

• There are 167 Million video views a day in MENA
• There are 90 Million video views in Saudi Arabia per day
• One hour of YouTube video is uploaded in MENA per minute

Country specific data of YouTube usage in 2011 versus 2010:

• Saudi Arabia: Number of uploads jumped 200%, number of views increased 260%
• Egypt: Number uploads jumped 150%, number if views increased 220%
• Jordan: Number of uploads increased 140%, number of views increased 240%
• Tunis: Number of uploads increased 420%
• Yemen: Number of uploads increased 100%, number of views jumped 150%

Matthew Glotzbach Managing Director of YouTube EMEA Speaking at the YouTube Hangout in Dubai

Matthew Glotzbach
Managing Director, YouTube EMEA

Matthew is responsible for the strategy, development and management of YouTube’s business and product direction in EMEA. Previously, he lead the Apps and Enterprise product divisions within Google. In 2007 he launched Google Apps, Google’s cloud computing suite for business. In the same year he played a key roll in the acquisition of the security and compliance company Postini, Google’s third largest acquisition to-date.

Matthew has over 15 years of experience in Internet technology, product strategy, enterprise product management, marketing and sales. Prior to joining Google in 2004, Matthew was a senior member of the management team for the computer industry business unit at Trilogy, an enterprise software company based in Austin, TX. Matthew holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanic engineering from Cornell University.

Samer Marzouq (me) with Matthew Glotzbach Managing Director of YouTube EMEA during the YouTube Hangout in Dubai