In an earlier article Votes from the Internet - the Most popular Middle Eastern Gulf country, I talked about the popularity of different Gulf countries using a keyword research tool. Dubai is the clear top choice. To push the idea forward, here I’d like to talk about what governments can do to promote their country on the Internet

Why should governments care about online promotion? It is important from Nationals identity perspective!

The Middle East gives a not-so-good impression to foreigners. Let’s look at the numbers

Top keywords associated with the Middle East or Africa or Iraq

It is a pity that all the top 10 keywords related to the Middle East, Africa and Iraq are negative associations. Because of sampling methodology, this may not represent the views of most Internet users, but it does reflect the views of a large number of Internet users. To change how their countries are perceived by foreigners, governments in the Middle East should act

Other benefits from promoting a country online

To name a few, governments can benefit from

• Increased foreign investment
• More tourists and higher tourism spending
• Improved foreign relations

What governments should do - use online marketing techniques like businesses do

It is not rocket science. Governments can take simple steps to promote their countries online

• Create English websites for government departments. Websites of many ministries are in Arabic. One example is Kuwait’s Ministry of Planning. It provides very useful information about the Kuwaiti economy for businesses and potential investors. Yet the information is only in Arabic. The English version has little information, and it was updated in 2001
• Advertise on the Internet targeting specific keywords. Dubai is attracting lots of Internet traffic. If another Gulf country wants to increase its exposure, one good way is to target keywords related to Dubai. If a place like Qatar is competing with Dubai for businesses and tourists, it should advertise on search engines, and aim to display Qatar websites when people search for Dubai keywords. These are the top 10 keywords on Dubai that other Gulf countries can target
  • Dubai
  • Cheap flights Dubai
  • Dubai map
  • Burj Dubai
  • Jobs in Dubai
  • Dubai jobs
  • Dubai hotels
  • Jobs opportunities in Dubai
  • Map of Dubai
  • Dubai hotel
• Create portals to promote their countries. If I google Qatar, Qatar Airways shows up on top. This shouldn’t be the case when a government is serious about promoting its country. On this aspect, Gulf countries can learn from Singapore. If I type Singapore on google, the first result is an official government portal promoting tourism called Uniquely Singapore. The third result is called Singapore Infomap, an all-purpose portal for foreigners interested in playing, working, studying and doing business in Singapore. It is run by the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts

Online promotion needs to be met by offline delivery

If a government really takes the steps to promote their country online, perhaps a country like Bahrain can match the popularity of Dubai with relatively little efforts, at least on the Internet. More importantly, online marketing should be met by actual experience. From the moment when visitors come to a country, they should be able to experience good hospitality. Again, Dubai’s e-Gate is a great success

Read what other bloggers write about the Middle East, some posts touch the government’s stance towards the Internet (good and bad, un-censored and un-official, but these are the stories they tell over the Internet)

Crosswords Arabia

The same technology that enables liberalization and democratization also enables terrorism. Programs that provide almost perfect encryption to reformists in China also hide information about terrorists

An Englishman In Saudi Arabia

Dear Saudis, be ashamed. Be very ashamed. You’re almost as fat as the British and we’re one of the fattest groups of fat fatties you’ve ever seen

Internet Anthropologist CEO

The Saudi Ministry of Islamic Affairs has announced the upcoming launch of a website aimed at fighting extremism and to reform individuals with extremist views. The website, which will have sections in Arabic and in English, is aimed at Muslim audiences worldwide

Expositions of Arabia

Whereas before the advent of the internet, poorly paid expatriate workers were forced to use the services of the MOC to call home at expensive rates to India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the Philippines to name a few places, they now have the opportunity to use cheap internet telephony such as Net2Phone or international calling cards that connect through the internet. However, the MOC has criminalized the use of such services and blocked access to websites of internet telephone services

Deera Chat

Here in Kuwait we have all the basic components we need to have a free internet service for every single person living in the Kuwaiti soul … so why it is not happening and what it happens, how it would benefit me and you?!

Boycott Batelco

The Bahrain Internet Society will be hosting Fahad Al-Shirawi, the managing director of 2Connect at the BIS’ premises in Umm Al-Hassam tomorrow evening (18 June) from 1900 - 2100 to talk about his company’s offering Internet for free in Bahrain

Harith Digest

Oman plans to license several new Internet service providers, in a further liberalisation of its telecommunications sector, state news agency ONA said on Friday

Which is the most popular country among the 6 Middle Eastern Gulf states?

Bahrain? Kuwait? Oman? Qatar? Saudi Arabia? Or the United Arab Emirates?

Everybody has a different answer in their mind. I did a little keyword research to find out what Internet users think. Here are the results generated by a tool called Wordtracker Free Keyword Suggestion Tool

Voice of the Internet - Dubai, Dubai, Dubai

Surprising? Dubai, which is a small emirate (not even a nation), attracts almost as much traffic of all other countries combined. Saudi Arabia, which exports more oil than any other country in the world, is far behind. Another noteworthy observation is that the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the country in which Dubai belongs to, attracts only 1/10 of the attention that Dubai does

Note that the Wordtracker network only captures a small portion of web searches, so the absolute number of daily searches is probably much higher. Relative to each other, the ranking tells a good story about popularity of Gulf countries against English-speaking Internet users. My guess is that, if the searches were done in Arabic, Saudi Arabia will be number 1, due to the sheer size of its population

Why is Saudi more popular than Oman? Is it related to GDP? No

I tried to uncover what is driving the frequency of searches. Let’s first look at the GDP of the 6 countries by digging through the World Bank database

Saudi, by virtue of its massive oil reserves, is clearly the largest country in terms of GDP. While data is not available for Dubai, it’s reasonable to assume that Saudi has at least 3 times the GDP of Dubai. This is because the Dubai is the 2nd largest among the 7 emirates within the UAE (Abu Dhabi is the largest), while the whole of UAE’s GDP is USD130 billion

Money does not translate into more interest by web surfers. What attracts their attention then?

Is it related to population? No

If a country has more people, this should result in more interactions with them by the outside world. Is it true? Another World Bank database tells the story

The fact that Qatar’s population is less than 1/3 of Kuwait doesn’t deter it from being a more sought after place by Internet users. A similar contrast can be drawn between Bahrain and Oman. Clearly, other factors play a key role in attracting Internet users to websites of one country over another

Internet users should surf the sites less-traveled

Beyond the symbolic Dubai, there are lots of places worth looking at. They have rich cultural traditions, diverse populations, and huge economic potential. It’s always good to exchange ideas with websites in Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain. You will learn a lot from them, and discover their unique charm

If you want to know more about lives in the Middle East, here are a few blogs that talk about the 6 Middle Eastern Gulf countries

Oman Community Blog - latest developments, good and bad, of the country

“Omanis in general are diverse and their experiences are assorted. My views come to you from across the world, usually in the form of a proud Omani looking at the developments and change from far away”

Bahrain For Ever - Views on Bahrain’s social and political issues

“Now I refuse to believe that all Bahrainis won’t work as labor. Just look at ALBA for example, they work in the heat of August and in front of melting Aluminum pots, much worst then construction, yet most of the workers there are Bahrainis”

Cat in the Gulf - life in Qatar and Dubai, mainly on the lighter topics

“Some things in life can be truly learned only by your own experience. Here is some midnight knowledge for you:

1. The opposite of love isn’t hate.
2. Desperate Housewives and Godfather have answers to all possible midnight questions”

Forza Kuwait - Kuwaiti with some free time and much internet browsing

“In an Interview with Alwatan Daily in Kuwait for the Week Topic ( which was about blogging , more like attacking bloggers ) , the Secretary of the Kuwaiti Journalists Association said what is on his mind about bloggers .
which is amazing what he think of blogs , and how many times he show that he demand they be closed or controlled , and that coming from a guy who is supposed to ask for more freedom of speech is priceless irony”

Saudi Jeans - Blog on Saudi, from Saudi

While working on this blog over the past three years, many people have complained to me about the small number of available resources on Saudi Arabia in English, online and offline alike. I think this is one of the reasons behind the increasing popularity of Saudi blogs, mine included

UAE Community Blog - voice of the community

No more sex in dubai
It appears Etisalat has decided to block the popular blog Sex and Dubai

To me, Arabic is a language that’s fun to learn. I’ve recently started learning it, and discovered many free resources online that teach Arabic to foreigners. Here are a few. I recommend Madinah Arabic, but that is just my personal preference. Other sites may suit your need better. Enjoy!

Madinah Arabic
Comprehensive site that offers 2 free courses, Arabic Reading Course and Arabic Language Course. Arabic Reading Course aims to help you learn the Arabic script, before learning the language itself. It suits me best because I want to learn reading, writing, speaking and listening. Also native Arabic speakers said that it’s much easier to learn conversational skills if I can read the script

Gulf Arabic
It teaches the Arabic dialect spoken by people in Gulf countries, i.e. UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the Southern part of Iraq. The whole website is in Roman (English) characters. Therefore, even if you don’t want to learn Arabic script, you can still learn Arabic for casual conversation purposes

Islamopas
It focuses on letter recognition, with each lesson teaching you a few characters. The short lessons, may not teach you the most number of words, but ensure that you remember most of the words being taught

Arabic 2000
It is a commercial site that offers a full Arabic language curriculum online, at a price. It offers 1 free lesson, which is indeed quite long, starting with basic grammar

Despite all the fun we have in Dubai, there’s one thing in common that most people are annoyed by - Internet censorship

If you travel to the United Arab Emirates, you’d probably find that some of the sites you like suddenly go down. In fact, the dominant ISP, Etisalat, use proxy server blocks certain websites that they deem inappropriate to be viewed. An exact account of what sites they block is not publicly available, but hearsays suggest sites are blocked for the following reasons

1. Political
- Sites related to Israel or Jihadism
- Terrist organizations
- Sites on how to bypass censorship

2. Social
- Homosexual behavior, e.g. the Gay and Lesbian Arabic Society
- Online casinos
- Pornography
- Certain online dating websites

3. Economical
- Internet phone services such as Skype. As Etisalat is also the incumbant telecom operator in the UAE, things that can put its revenues at risk are banned

A site called hrw.org contains more information on censorship in the UAE

Whenever there’s censorship, there are ways to get around it. Numerous websites publish tricks on bypassing the Etisalat proxy server (some are still not blocked). I’m not detailing the how-tos here as it’s politically inappropriate to do so