Arabic poetry goes web 2.0 on Sejaal.com

Jeeran –The World’s largest Arabic user generated content portal- announced the launch of Sejaal (sejaal.com) in its efforts to enrich the Arabic internet with a new type of genuine content and a new breed of users.

“As a result of our deep understanding of our users and of the gap that exists in Arabic content on the internet today, we came up with this innovative concept that allows Arab Poets to create beautiful poetry online in a fun, challenging, and rewarding environment” stated Laith Zraikat, Jeeran’s Co-founder and Director of Innovation.

A “Sejaal” is a traditional activity that Arabic poets used to enjoy throughout ancient times.

This form of poetry has faded in the last century due to the invasion of modern lifestyles, as well as cultural dilution. The web site was specifically designed to replicate the real life experience of a traditional “Sejaal” and therefore revive this form by riding on the most popular medium today –the Internet- making it available to anyone, anywhere in the world.
“Sejaal adds new value to the Arabic internet and will contribute in increasing the amount and diversity of Arabic content, as well as increase internet penetration by drawing in a new crown of people to go online” Zraikat Added.

With the beta version launched earlier in January of this year and even though sejaal is still an invitation only site where only the good poets are allowed to join. This is very important in order to maintain the level of quality of the poetry at this very early stage; over 300 competitions were created, the topics of which reflected the general mood of events taking place in real life. For example, a competition on the sad events that took place in Gaza was started by Sejaal users through which the poets wrote 50 verses criticizing the attacks against Palestinians and encouraging the resistance of the Palestinian people.
Sejaal’s vision is to be the place for poets from around the world, and to provide poets with tools that help them express their talent and share their creativity with other poets and people online.

“Our mission is to make it possible for everyone in the Arabic speaking world to create content and share it with the world. We will continue to maintain and grow our leadership in Arabic user-generated-content by developing innovative services that enhance people’s lives and give them one more reason to get engaged” Concluded Omar Koudsi, Co-founder and President of Jeeran.

Tags: Jeeran, Laith Zraikat, Omar Koudsi, Sejaal

Jeeran Launches an Exciting Marketing Tool for its Bloggers and Users

Middle East’s largest UGC community, Jeeran.com, announced the launch of a new marketing tool that allows bloggers and users to get insights about the traffic on their blogs and pages on Jeeran.com. The new service can be reached on: http://www.jeeran.com/visitors/?lang=e

The new tool, “Visitors”, features statistics and charts of the number of visitors each page/blog receives, with the ability to track number of pageviews, top viewed content, visitors’ countries, and much more.

The launch of Visitors comes in line with Jeeran’s vision that aims to offer a unique user experience, where Arab users can enjoy convince and comfort while surfing and contributing to the web.

Jeeran, Arabic for neighbors, is a pioneer Arab online community that offers a variety of web 2.0 services including blogging, photo and video sharing, as well as web hosting, these services are backed with state-of-the-art technologies that powers a platform for individuals to create their own presence on the internet, with minimum technical knowledge.

Commenting on the new tool, Laith Zraikat, Director of Innovation and Co-Founder of Jeeran.com, said: “We are so excited about Visitors as it puts our users in control, it’s very user-friendly and easy to operate, and it doesn’t need any installation or technical efforts.”

Mr. Zraikat also added: “With the growing popularity of user-generated-content communities such as Jeeran, bloggers and websites owners, as well as photo and video sharing enthusiasts, are in need for a free and reliable tool to evaluate their contribution to the web.”

Over the past few years, the community of Jeeran grew-up to host more than one million active users, in addition to 650,000 websites, and a growing community of bloggers that exceeded 120,000 blogs, the largest blog community in the Arab world.

Omar Kudsi, Jeeran’s President and Co-Founder welcomed the launch of Visitors, and quoted: “Our tracking system is user-friendly and comes in both Arabic and English, which offers a convenient Arabic-language tool to measure visitors and traffic.”

Mr. Zraikat pointed out that Visitors is already available for all users on Jeeran without the need of any installation, he also stressed on the fact that many features will be added to the system soon.

Kudsi concluded: “We strive to offer Arab users a top notch web experience that empowers them to contribute, communicate and interact, and Visitors is just the beginning of a series of features and products in the pipeline.”