Enough With The ‘Online Advertising Is A Failure’ Talk

Between yesterday and today, I’ve read at least 3 posts/articles that talk about how online advertising is a failure, one of them on TechCrunch yesterday by a guest writer (Eric Clemons), one on the Economist, and another on MediaPost’s online video insider.

The latter focuses only on online video advertising, and it’s quite an interesting read, that raises some clearly valid points that are worth considering by anyone making a foray into online video advertising. I wouldn’t go as far as saying that online video advertising is dying as the writer has done; I think that it’s just still maturing, and needs a bit more time for it to fit in perfectly into the whole online advertising puzzle and get to where everyone wants it to be.

Anyway the first two articles I read just feel like they’re a blast from the past, it’s as if they were pulled out of the archives from back in 2001 after the dot com bubble burst and a bunch of online companies went down in flames.

In fact, it’s as if some people are blaming the woes some online companies are going through now because of the bad economic situation on the fact that online advertising is a failed model. As if everyone is doing perfectly ok, and it’s just internet companies that are having problems.

It strikes me how many people still don’t get it.
You’d think that by now, after all these years, more people would have seen the light and recognized that online advertising, when done right, is the most effective, most targeted, and most measurable form of advertising there ever was.

I mean, no matter how skeptic you are of online advertising, you can’t argue with the power of being able to target an ad at a specific person who perfectly fits the profile of your potential customer, and who is actually interested in what you have to offer, and then measure exactly how effective your campaign was and how much you made out of it.

It’s true that not everyone can rely on online advertising 100% as a revenue model to sustain their business, but that doesn’t make it any less important or effective as a model; all it means is that every internet business has to have its own combination of ways to generate revenue as part of their business model, which holds true for any type of business, not just online ones.

In the end of the day, if a bunch of restaurants fail and shut down, it doesn’t mean the model of selling food to people doesn’t work, it just means that those restaurants did something wrong: either choosing the wrong location, not marketing well, choosing the wrong type of food to serve, providing bad food or bad service or whatever other reason.

Tunisie Telecom To Launch BlackBerry In Tunisia At Last

Tunisie Telecom, Alcatel-Lucent and Research In Motion (RIM) have announced that Blackberry will finally be launched in Tunisia.

At launch, Tunisie Telecom will be offering its customers the BlackBerry Pearl 8100, BlackBerry Pearl 8120, BlackBerry Curve 8320, BlackBerry 8800 and BlackBerry Bold 9000 smartphones, as well as service on BlackBerry Enterprise Server and BlackBerry Internet Service.

According to the company, based on its distribution agreement with RIM, Alcatel-Lucent will take advantage of its strong local presence in the region to provide Tunisie Telecom the end-to-end implementation, launch and on-going support for delivering the solution to the market.

According to Tunisie Telecom’s site, the unlimited email and navigation plan is at 60 Dinars per month, which sounds pretty good. No details were provided on the site for how the devices themselves are priced.

More details about the available plans and prices are available here: Tunisie Telecom BlackBerry Solutions.

[Via: Trading Markets]

Tunisia To Get A New 50 Dinar Banknote

Ah so it seems we’ll be getting a new 50 Dinar banknote in Tunisia… (I know this news is about a week old, but I just found out about it.)

The Governor of Tunisia’s Central Bank (BCT), Taoufik Baccar, announced that the bank will issue a new 50 dinar banknote.

Baccar said that the new banknote will represent the literary scholar, Ibn Rachiq Al Kairouani, ten days following the launch of festivities celebrating Kairouan as Islamic Cultural Capital for 2009.

Mr Baccar who made the announcement during the international colloquium on “Numismatics and the history of money coins in Tunisia”, also said that the choice of the scholar to illustrate the banknote was in line with Tunisia’s rootedness in Arab Moslem sources.

Ibn Rachiq Al Kairouani (999-1063) who was born in Mhamdia near Tunis, was a poet, writer and literary critic. He is known for his magisterial “Al Umda”, a treatise of literary criticism in two volumes, written during the golden age of Arab culture.

There are currently three types of banknotes in circulation in Tunisia, ten dinar notes, twenty dinar notes and thirty dinar notes.

[Source: Tunisia Online News]

This actually makes monetary sense, especially with where prices are going; now if they’d only kill that damn stupid 30 Dinar note! I mean, what the hell were they thinking?! Someone must’ve been seriously drunk the day they came up with that.

It’s quite funny though how because Kairouan is the Islamic Cultural Capital this year, Tunisia is all of a sudden trying to revamp and present itself as a very Islamic country, very in touch with its Muslim roots and all, even inviting Sheikh Qaradawi (who has been very critical of Tunisia before) over.
It’s certainly very convincing, don’t you think? (Yeah right!)

The Problem Of Dubai: It’s Not A Melting Pot

I’ve been in Dubai for almost three months now (oh, how time flies by), and being the highly adaptable person I am, I have managed to fit in rather comfortably very quickly, and I have to say that I really like it here and am enjoying my time a lot.

One of the things I love about Dubai is how mixed it is, and how you get to meet people from all over the world every single day; That is always a great thing to me and a very enriching experience.
A friend of mine called it a World City (Global City) because of that, and I agree. 

There is another side to that coin though, which is behind the problem of Dubai. Unlike other global cities, Dubai is not a melting pot, and that’s where its problem lies.

If you take any of these other cities, you’ll find that the majority of people have moved there to settle down, build a life, invest in their future; and as a result of that they work hard, they blend in to the fabric of the multi-cultural society, they build strong personal relationships, they develop a sense of belonging, they care about the city, and the country, and they contribute to its growth and its cultural richness; because it is home to them, and their lives and those of their children are closely tied to it.

Dubai, on the other hand, is just considered a station by the majority of people living in it; they come here and they’ve already decided that it’s going to be only for a few years, and then they’ll be moving on to somewhere else, or back to their home countries. That means that they’re not as involved, they don’t develop a strong sense of belonging, they don’t really invest much into personal relationships, they never really care enough.

And that makes a world of difference, and everyone visiting Dubai feels it. Not everyone knows how to put it in words, but some of the things I’ve heard most, from before ever setting foot here, are that it feels ‘fake’, that it’s too materialistic, that it lacks identity …etc.

And why is it this way? Simply because it’s almost impossible for expats to be granted citizenship, and so sooner or later they’re going to have to leave, if not at their own free will, it’ll be because a point in time will come when they’re no longer allowed to stay.

And so people plan it in advance, they don’t let themselves get too attached, they don’t invest more personal effort than they have to, they don’t feel they have any obligations towards the city or the country, and their time is reduced to revolve around a main mission, which is in most cases acquiring money; which all explains the feeling visitors get.

Of course, I understand the point of view of the government here, and that opening the door to immigrants from all over the world, from different backgrounds, cultures and religions, will permanently affect the country in many ways; and of course it is a choice, and one where there is no absolutely right or wrong answer.

Personally, as with every other expat in Dubai, I know that I’ll be here for a few years only before I move on, but as with every other place I’ve lived in throughout my life, I’ll be blending in, I’ll be building friendships, I’ll be playing my role and contributing whatever I can, and I’ll be enjoying myself along the way.

Home to me is where my little family is, and where I lay my head down to sleep at night; and for these coming years, my home is Dubai.

Flickr Now Totally Blocked In The UAE

Today, Du followed the lead of Etisalat and went ahead and blocked the photo sharing service Flickr, meaning that Flickr is now no longer accessible from the UAE through any of the ISPs.
I’m guessing it’s because of all the x-rated material that is available on Flickr. But, it’s not like blocking Flickr is going to stop people who look for that kind of material from finding it.

This totally sucks! All my photos are hosted on Flickr where I have a pro account, and now I’m unable to access my photos or upload any new ones because of this.

In fact, before even moving to Dubai, my mind was made up that I’d go for an internet connection with Du and not Etisalat, specifically because of Flickr, and now they’ve gone ahead and let me and so many other people down with this move.

The following is the message anyone on Du will face when they try to access Flickr starting this afternoon.

Du Block

I’m not sure yet what I’m going to do for my photos now and whether I’ll just join another service or just launch a photo blog section here under Subzero Blue. I’m currently leaning towards the latter option; at least that way I’ll have more control over my photos. Will keep you updated.

Robert Fisk: Leaders lie, civilians die, and lessons of history are ignored

We’ve got so used to the carnage of the Middle East that we don’t care any more – providing we don’t offend the Israelis. It’s not clear how many of the Gaza dead are civilians, but the response of the Bush administration, not to mention the pusillanimous reaction of Gordon Brown, reaffirm for Arabs what they have known for decades: however they struggle against their antagonists, the West will take Israel’s side. As usual, the bloodbath was the fault of the Arabs – who, as we all know, only understand force.

Robert FiskLeaders lie, civilians die, and lessons of history are ignored

[Via: AquaCool]

My New Year Kicks Off In Dubai

For me and my little family, January 1st 2009 was ushered in really quickly with a little break between preparing my luggage, organizing a bunch of papers and coming close to panicking, as only 5 hours into the new year I was heading to the airport to move to Dubai.

The one great thing about traveling on January 1st and so early in the morning is that not that many people are mad enough to do it, and so I ended up on a Tunisair A319 Airbus plane with only 22 other passengers, which meant more space for everyone, and a more pleasant flight.

Almost 6 hours later I landed at the Dubai International Airport, where things went quite smoothly. Once out of the airport though, it took me a while to get to the company apartment as the taxi driver had no idea where it was.  Anyway, once there I was greeted with an awesome view from the apartment balcony. The bad thing though is that there’s no way I’ll be able to get a view like it when I actually rent an apartment of my own.

Night At The Marina

On my second day here, just 24 hours after landing in the city, I got to attend my first meetup, which was a WordPress meetup, where I got to meet a bunch of cool people, some I already met last time I was here, others I only knew online through Twitter, and some I was getting to know for the first time.
Matt Mullenweg, the founder of WordPress, was also present at the meetup, so it was really cool to meet him here.

I also got to check out the Ibn Battuta mall really quickly yesterday, and was pleasantly surprised to see they had a Tunisia-themed court, which was pretty cool. 

Anyway, my main priority now is to get my residency sorted out quickly so I can sponsor my wife and son to join me here asap. I’ll also be on the lookout for some good/cheap apartments in the areas around Dubai Internet City, so if anyone knows of any good deals, do let me know.

Another point on my mind is getting a driver’s license to be able to get a car; I’m hoping that won’t be much of a pain.

Other than that, I’m looking forward to the adventure that is living and working in Dubai, hoping it will be some good fun and that I’ll be meeting lots and lots of very interesting people.