anayou.com, a new trilingual mobile and web platform was launched in public Beta at 10 minutes past 10 am on 10/10/10. Anayou is a product of the du Media lab, a division of du. The blend of Arabic ‘ana’ (me) and English (you) in the title reflects the core idea of the platform as a place for both personal “Ana” digital services and for engaging with the rest of the world “you” – people, communities, brands, and institutions.
anayou.com is a regional destination for the MENA, offering content, applications and games, including access to social networks, entertainment, sports, mobile games, two-way phone sync and a 2GB cloud storage space, called the “Vault”. It is meant to be a platform for the Middle East and Africa’s creative minds to collaborate and share in a safe online environment, developed with the region’s rich cultural mix in mind.
du CEO Osman Sultan commented on the project’s vision, “In recognizing the digital world as a positive driving force in people’s lives, we acknowledge that the people of Arabia deserve more from the Internet than what is presently offered. anayou breaks the existing content and connectivity boundaries in our region and provides not only an exclusive, Arabian-made product available across three screens—mobile, web and soon on the TV, but demonstrates du’s commitment to the Arabian online world by building bridges, bringing people of Arabia together.”
While there are 344 million Arabic speakers globally and Arabic is the seventh most popular web language, less than one per cent of global online content is in Arabic. anayou intends to meet the growing need for content as the region’s broadband capacity grows rapidly. The site will be available in three languages: Arabic, English and French, reflecting the three primary languages of the MENA region.
At anayou.com you can:
• Enjoy the richest and broadest coverage of global, regional and sports in the region on anayou Eurosport Arabia (www.arabia.eurosport.com). Eurosport Arabia was launched in December 2009 and has already served more than 75 million page views with more than 6 Million unique visitors. It is available on the Iphone and Blackberry as a stand alone app and as a mobile site, (m.arabia.eurosport.com)
• Immerse yourself in online social gaming experiences on your PC in two exciting virtual worlds (MMOGs) – Empire Of Sports Arabia and Exalight Arabia. These two gaming environments can be accessed from a PC from anayou.com or directly at www.eosarabia.com and www.exalightarabia.com
• Sync and secure digital content (pictures, videos) and contacts, SMSs with your phone or phones almost instantly from a wide range of internet ready phones.
• Access information in a digital vault from any phone or PC – lost phone; broken laptop? Your data is safe in your vault
• Merge your mobile and web life, importing contacts from Yahoo! Mail, Gmail and Hotmail, consolidating contacts and removing duplicates
• Share what you love, where you want with easy sharing functionality to popular social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and more—or interact and engage directly with friends over the anayou network by receiving notifications, messaging, sharing and tagging photos, videos and commenting on posts
• Enjoy games (solo or multiplayer); share, rank, preview and review music; view movie trailers, cinema listings, show times, box office hits and user recommendations; and get access to local and global celebrity gossip, news and biographies
Aiming to provide a simple, safe and tailored online experience, the site’s is protected with the best internet security to ensure that the user’s private data is not shared without their permission. Pages are optimized for speed, and built for the fastest delivery to mobile and web browsers, and the interface is built for ease-of-use and navigation.
Inviting users to the site, Osman continued, “Although anayou is launched out of Arabia, we encourage internet users around the world to register for the beta, to participate in bringing 21st Century Digital Arabia to life, and to share ideas for making it better.”
anayou is built in partnership with several content, media, and technology providers, including Rotana, Getmo Arabia, Eurosport, MBC, Accenture, Funambol, Hungama, and gaming company F4.
“This is the introduction of a beta offering and the beginning of a fascinating digital journey, not the launch of a finished product,” remarked Raghu Venkataraman, Chief Strategy and Investments Officer for du and interim-MD for anayou. “We are excited to have launched on a cool digital date of 10/10/10. In the days and months to come, we hope to see users from around the region give feedback on what can be done to make www.anayou.com a place of their own. We are listening.”
