Dubai, September 2009 - Baraka Ventures, a social entrepreneurship and web technology business incubator and advisory services company, today announced that it is releasing zeedna, a software as a service social publishing platform.  zeedna is the first middle east based social publishing platform that is well suited for institutions across sectors. The platform promises to take advantage of web 2.0 capabilities of social networking, social media publishing and much more.

“The region has 50 million users and is growing at a rate of 1300%. This exceeds the global internet penetration rate of nearly 300%. With so many people online, businesses are wise to use new technologies to enable online marketing.” says Mahmoud Abu-Wardeh, Co-Founder and Managing Director of zeedna in response to reasons for undertaking the 2 year development process to launch Zeedna. Mr. Abu-Wardeh adds that the power of viral marketing, aka word of mouth marketing has had a tremendous impact on US and European businesses who started using social media and online communities.

“zeedna means give us more” adds Mr. Abu-Wardeh, “We are empowering businesses, civil society, education and many other sectors to get more out of their web presence and in-turn offer more value to their clients, investors and communities at large”.

The investment in zeedna will enable Baraka Ventures to:

• become the first regional firm to roll-out a global social publishing platform
• extend its client base beyond its current social entrepreneurs and corporates investing in sustainable CSR programs
• enhance its offer to its existing client base, by providing a tool that strengthens their brand and online community brand loyalty

“We believe that zeedna will have far reaching impact on the region’s businesses, but more importantly on social causes concerned with education, poverty alleviation environment, etc. We subsidise implementations for social entrepreneurs, charities and NGOs because zeedna can broaden their reach and increase their effectiveness ”. Says Rama Chakaki Co-Founder and Director at Baraka Ventures.

Zeedna, is a product in the portfolio of incubated Baraka Ventures, headquartered in the Dubai Media City Freezone. Zeedna includes features such as blogs, social community, groups, and others. Its Co-Founders, Rama Chakaki and Mahmoud Abu-Wardeh, have 40 years of telecommunications, Internet and startup experience between them.