We are very excited about launching the first mobile app we developed for our art and culture client, ArtintheCity. The new app is now available for download from the appstore via the following link: http://itunes.apple.com/app/artinthecity/id472336188?mt=8

Here are some interesting statistics by Google on women in the region.

The stats show that women are more active in blogging and setting up websites than men, with women in the UAE leading this trend in both aspects.

Check out the link for more details:

http://www.itp.net/585785-women-in-mena-lead-blog-website-creation

A study conducted by Phil Mershon who is is a strategic marketing consultant specializing in customized events, mission-driven campaigns and creative communication strategies. He is also director of summits for Social Media Examiner.

The Study took place over a period of 3 years (2009-2011) and it was based on how small business benefit from Social media.

The Study revealed:
82% of respondents said that social media has generated exposure for them.
72% of respondents said that social media has increased traffic ans suscribers.
62% of respondents said social media has increased their search rankings.
56% of respondents said social media has ...

So today is my Final day working at Baraka Ventures and surprisingly I am not feeling the excitement or joy that I thought I would feel when I was done with this internship but on the contrary I feel sad.

I have learnt and grown so much in the month that I have worked here as they provide a great learning and working environment here at Baraka Ventures. I have also had the opportunity to meet and work with a great, talented and devoted group of people that have been a great set of role models and teachers to ...

This is my third week interning at Baraka Ventures,

Everything so far has been great and i really love working here as the experience im gaining is priceless including the things im learning on a daily basis on how businesses are run, not that i have been running a business but im seeing from the amount of wrok people put in just how much effort and dedication it takes to really have a succsesfull business.

Hopefully in the future if i ever think about starting my own business or even partner up with someone and open up an ...

My second week of interning at Baraka Ventures,

Everyday i have been working here i have learnt something new and exciting. Truly and honestly my favourite day of the week is Wednesday because i get to go to Dubai Eye radio and tweet for two hours. That might not sound exciting to everyone but it is soo much fun and such a good experience to go and meet new people, tweet and learn how to deal with listeners in respect to what can be said and what cannot be said on air in the UAE. I feel very ...

I am currently an intern at Baraka ventures on my second week running and I already feel like I am learning and growing with everyday that passes. I am presently working on Zeedna which a Baraka venture.

Zeedna is a very interesting technology that Baraka Ventures has created to help companies create and customize their own websites as a method of social media. Zeedna helps small and larger business to gain the power of social media to their online presence. Zeedna enhances a business online presence depending on their needs and wants through the different packages they ...

So this week was the first week of my internship that i started on the 22nd of June and so far it has been a really good experience.

Having to wake up early every morning and go to work when all my other friends that are on summer holiday is hard, but at the end of the day it benefits me much more to come to work and learn new things everyday compared to getting those extra 2 hours of sleep which really wont make a difference to my future.

Everything so far has been going great and as ...

Social Media benefits to small and large businesses, an article by Jim Blasingame an award winning host of the the Business Advocate

http://www.smallbusinessadvocate.com/small-business-articles/social-media-builds-customer-communities-2535

The variety of topics covered in addition to the speaker and audience diversity - googlers, marketeers, female engineers, students, entrepreneurs and NGO and business owners - was unique to Google Serve 2011. It was great to be present at such an event.

Check out the pictures that have been posted on the website homepage at https://sites.google.com/site/gservedubai

Also, the presentations can be found on https://sites.google.com/site/gservedubai/presentations for those of you who missed the event or want to revisit the information.

Google's Gulf Regional Manager Mohammad Mourad's gave great statistics on internet users, globally and regionally, and spoke ...

We attended Social Entrepreneurship: The Social Impact, a great event organized by Dubai for Acumen where we showcased zeedna, and met many wonderful people. 

The video will be out shortly, for those of you who were not able to attend or those wanting to keep a record of the evening.

For the time being, you get to see the pictures! Check out them out on http://zd.ly/JL

You know that friend who takes your stories and spreads them like wildfire? You mention one fact and within minutes, your entire community knows the story... well, social networks work online as they do in real life. 

Information is passed through connectors.. connectors are individuals who link us up to the world (The Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell); they have wide social circles, i.e. know a lot of people and love to pass on information.  These individuals are a key to your community's success. 

You want to grow your network.. identify your ...

You, our clients, love your homepage banners and site rotators..but the process of updating their content was painful.. send a ticket, wait for a response.. too long!

Don't get us wrong.. we love to hear from you.. you can still send us requests through the support system.. many of you said you want control.. and we've listened..

Now, you can manage rotators on your own.. we introduced this feature to control the main site banner and other rotators.  You can add images or link to pages or external videos using the new zeedna manage interface. You can delegate authority to ...

For a better look and performance, the zeedna team has added this feature which will give the user messages of the last activity done on the site.   This feature was produced with a matching design.

The growing role of social media and its relationship with social activism has been one of the most covered topics in the recent months, with the Middle East undergoing pivotal changes in the political sphere caused by a strong emergence of the voice of the masses. 

You must be receiving cool looking graphics email invitations to events, blog entries and eCommerce products.  Now you can send these out and link back to your zeedna sites..

Netrasal, a newsletter service provided by Baraka Ventures broadens your reach and reminds your contacts of your community and the activities happening on it.

And here's how:

• You can send out daily, weekly or monthly selective updates through HTML email newsletters to your members, a different form of communication to promote your goals 
• You can maintain your own distribution lists, records of email sent and received, and analyze ...

Last week saw one of the seminal events in the tech calendar of the Arab World. It was the week of ArabNet Shift Digital Summit 2011. So far this year we have seen a lot of change in the Arab World - change in which social media has played a significant role. Against this backdrop, we realized that the gathering was about more than the technology - it was more importantly about how web and social media technology can be used as tools for progress, empowerment, transparency, sharing and collaboration. The panels covered the whole gamut of subjects from funding, entreprenership, mobile, citizen engagment, social media marketing and gaming so there were topics, discussions and ideas galore for all to take part in whether they felt like just sitting back and listening or wanted to be more actively engaged.

Small is beautiful! BUT if growing the number of your online community members is what you're aiming for.. then here are five tips to do it..

1. Create Content - and I mean create! don't just replicate content you see on other sites.. come up with material that is relevant to your community, and do it regularly.  Your commitment to  publish frequently is important .. even if the content is minimal.. it can be a photo, a question or a poll.
2. Communicate with your exsiting members -  It is a social network.. you want to engage ...

We have added a "Report Spam" button to our messages module to get your users to help with the fight against unsolicited messaging.

As your community grows, some people may join it only to try and abuse your hospitality and start spamming your community members with unsolicited or unwelcome messages peddling stuff that really has nothing to do with your community.

Our development team has developed a new feature which is dedicated to serve the site owner and to enable sending messages to all members by just one click from the new user friendly management interface.