Blue Chi’s

(Photo Credits: ukslim)

Reports are coming out that the US-Oman Free Trade Agreement (signed in 2006) is finally coming into foce on the 1st of January 2009. It took almost two years for the congress to approve the agreement and for Oman to ensure that its legal system was updated to ensure that Oman perform its obligations under the agreement.

The purpose of the agreement is to remove all trade barries between the two countries and to grant natioanl treatment for traders from each country in all sectors. The agreement also includes a chapter on trade that has similar provisions to a billateral investment treaty.

Not sure how quickly it will take us to notice the impact of the FTA, but I suspect that participation of American companies in public tenders will be instant.

MUST READ: FTA summary here.

You can read the full text here.

I was checking Business Today online after reading a post about it on Muscati’s, they seem to be having a special issue on branding. An aricle on online advertising in Oman grabbed my attention.

The article summarizes the problem by saying:

“the lack of quality local websites, reliable content and low penetration of the Internet. “

The article also says that Bank Muscat is currently undertaking a study of the local online market and has been profiling the average web users.

Yet all in all, I thought that the article was rubbish.

..

OK, that was not the nicest way of saying it, but talk about people who have no idea about what’s happening.

Why do companies think that they have to advertise on local websites to reach local users online?

Haven’t they heard of Google Adwords, Microsoft AdCenter, or even Yahoo Publisher.

Using any of these services you can advertise for people in specific countries on any of the partners of the advertising networks without the need to deal with anyone of the websites specifically.

This advertisement could be  contextual, so that it appears depending on the content of the page. For example, if I am checking my hotmail account from Oman, and a friend of mine asked me about the latest phone he bought, the service will automatically detect which country I am accessing the internet from and it will check if there are any advertisements relevant to major keywords in my message, example: mobile phone. If Oman Mobile selected “mobile phone” as a keyword to target then the Oman Mobile advertisement will show up.

The networks mentioned earlier are one of the most popular worldwide and it will impossible for you to browse an internet for one day without seeing an advertisement from one of these companies on a page.

The fact that Omani companies are not making use of these websites has nothing to do with “local websites or reliable content”, Omani companies are just stupid.

We all know that online advertising is the most efficient way of advertising as it provides endless tracking opportunities. You know exactly how many people viewed your website, at what time of the day, which of your advertisements were clicked and which were not, how many clicks converted into a sale, how many clicks were instant rebounds, how many seconds did the visitor stay on your page, and the list goes on.

I have seen advertisements by Oman Air and Nawras on the internet which were served through Yahoo Publisher and AdCenter I think. The article mentions that Nawras might be advertising on YouTube (Google AdWords). So as you can see some Omani companies know the right way for going about with this, which is a good sign I guess.

The saga of favourites of 2008 continues (check out my list of favourite shows and favourite albums of 2008), today I bring you the list of my favourite books I read in 2008. These books were not necessarily published in the year 2008, but I read them in 2008. 

1- The End of Mr Y by Scarlett Thomas

The End of Mr Y is a novel about an English literature PhD student who stumbles on a cursed book and her exploration of a parallel universe called the ‘troposphere’. This is not a fantasy book about dungeons and dragons, but an awesome philosophical tale about fate, life, and the realm of thoughts. Had one of the best endings I’ve ever read. I’m extremely bummed about the fact that Scarlett Thomas does not have many books out there.

2- Girlfriend in a Coma by Douglas Coupland

I read a number of books by Coupland this year, but the one I liked the most was surely Girlfriend in a Coma, the themes and characters were just overwhelming. The story is about a girl who falls into a 17 years coma, the struggle of her family and boyfriend through this period, and then their life after she comes back to life.  The story gets quite dark in certain parts. 

 In the UK, The Guardian described the book as Coupland “becoming extraordinary” (25 April 1998) and The Times as “a disturbing, thought-provoking and moving novel. Girlfriend in a Coma has something of the quality of a fairytale, but it contains a sharp realism that makes the book scarily contemporary” (15 May 1999).

3- The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman

The World is Flat is one hell of a book that describes in detail the impact of globalisation and the internet on our daily lives, business, politics, society, education and just every aspect of our life. It is funny how any topic I get to talk about with my friends can always be diverted into something related mentioned in the World is Flat.

I’m on the top of 2008 list bandwagon (check out my post on favourite web shows of 2008), I thought I’ll share with you my favourite albums of 2008.

1- Beyonce: I am… Sasha Fierce

Beyonce’s third album was the biggest come back of the year. The album was a two-disc feature, the first is called “I am” and the second is called “Sasha Fierce”. “I am” is all about super vocals and deep lyrics, while the second one is all about the beats. I loved “I am” to bits, but my most favourite song in the entire album had to be the powerful “Scared of Lonely” in the second album.

2- Brandy: Human

It saddens me to realise that Brandy is no longer on  ”top of the world“. Her recent album, Human, came a couple of weeks ago and barely anyone knew about it. In the UK I couldn’t find the album in the new releases section of HMV or Zavvi and had to browse deep into the store to find the album burried in the Urban music shelves. Brandy is such a good singer and Human is a delicate and soulful album, unfortunately the market does not necessarily reward talented singers. My favourite tracks in the album are “True” and “1st and Love“. 

3- OneRepublic: Dreaming Out Loud

The best new musical act I got introduced to in 2008 is undeniably OneRepublic, their work is amazing musically, vocally, and lyrically. I just can’t get enough of these guys. Ryan Tedder is also super talented and I now track down every single song he works on. My favourite OneRepublic songs are “Say“, “Tyrant” and “Dreaming Out Loud“.

4- Marwan Khoury: Ana Wl Leil

Marwan Khoury is now my favourite Arabic singer, he’s been pretty popular for a number of years now, but this was the first album I actually guy for him, my favourite tracks were “Awlak”, “L Karar”, and the super hit “Ya Rabb”.

I’ve recently became a fan of many web shows, I stopped watching TV a while ago, but it wasn’t since I started subscribing to video podcasts a couple of months ago when I got really hooked up on several web shows. Here are some of the my favourite TV shows which I make sure I never miss an episode of:

Diggnation

Diggnation is a weekly show that talks about the most popular user submitted stories on Digg.com. I used to think that Alex Albrecht was sort of a loser, but I now think that he is really funny. I can’t miss a single episode of this show now. Shows last about 45 minutes or so. 

Tekzilla

Another show by Revision3, the same web production company that makes Diggnation, this one is a strictly technology show that features reviews, tech news, and user questions. The weekly episodes last about 45 minutes or so, a short 5 minute tip is released on daily basis.

CollegeHumor Original Videos

CollegeHumor is probably the funniest thing ever made on the internet. The videos they make are crude, offensive, vulgar, and extremely funny. This website is not for everyone and it is BLOCKED IN OMAN. Many of the CollegeHumor videos can be seen on YouTube though. News came out a couple of days ago that CollegeHumor got a deal with MTV to make proper TV shows for that network.

The Onion News Network Videos

I’m sure many of you have seen the Onion, this website looks and sounds like a newspaper website, but the whole thing is actually fake. They have CNN-esque video shows and reports which are totally insane. Again, a lot of this is offensive and not safe for work. 

Last week I also discovered Tiki Bar TV, the concept of the show is extremely stupid as the show goes on like a TV sitcom when in fact the whole point behind it is to introduce a new cocktail, but for some I reason I find it extremely entertaining. Episodes are less than 5 minutes in length and I’m not sure about the frequency of it. 

I also still regularly watch WebbAlert, but I already talked about this show last year.

Does anybody else subscribe or watch any web shows? If so what are your favourites?

Don’t get me wrong people, I like Oman Economic Review, it is the only Omani publication I would (and I have) paid money to read. It usually has two or three good articles to read: I love everything that Oliver Cornock writes, and I find it fun to read about Omani CEOs and stuff in Oman (even though most businesses in Oman are family owned or government supported, but who cares). 

Anyway, so I was checking the latest issue online and I found out this in depth article in the management section about the Best 10 of 2008 which lists down the best 10 items in five random categories (and by random, I mean really random): Government Initiatives, People Who Made a Difference, Most Impressive Sports Cars, Most Technologically Impressive Gadgets, Best Selling Books. (What is the connection?)

I don’t want to get too philosophical about the “biggest” initiatives list, but how can be the ‘start of production’ at Sohar Aluminium an initiative? That company was formed in 2004.  How does the start of ‘supply’ of Dolphin Gas to Oman a 2008  initiative, the project is several years old. I don’t understand the standard by which these “initiatives” are selected. Dolphin was an initiative in reaction to a horrible lack of forsight on the government’s side to its own needs. Oman exports gas and oil to other countries, how the hell does the fact that we import gas now becomes an initiative worth bragging about?

And don’t people know the story behind the “Human Rights Commission”? Hasn’t anybody heard about the infamous US Report on Human Trafficking and Oman’s shameful rating. We had to establish this commission because of political pressures. It is not something that society or the government personally appreciate. 

And lets not even start with ressellers of mobile phone services, nobody knows if these people will add any value to the market by just reselling the crappy service of Omantel.

Now, top people who made a difference in 2008, I am fully aware that HE Macki is one of the most powerful people in the country, but I do not see what difference he made in 2008. I just don’t. Am I missing something? Can somebody please tell me what difference Maqbool Hameed Al Saleh, HE Yahya bin Said Al Jabri, or even Ali Al Habsi made in 2008? I know that all of these are great people who are probably doing their job properly, but I just don’t see what difference they made. I mean, did Ali Al Habsi do ANYTHING in the year 2008. I really do not know. CAN SOMEONE POINT OUT A SINGLE INITIATIVE STARTED BY THESE PEOPLE WHICH MADE A DIFFERENCE TO ANYONE IN 2008?!

I’m moving straight to gadgets because I do not know anything about cars, and I have no idea why a business magazine would have a section on the best sports cars of 2008.  The number 1 most technologically impressive gadget of 2008 is … A CAMERA. OK, it is an HD Camera, but WHO REALLY CARES. How can a natural progression in technology be the most impressive in a whole year. Other stuff include a pocket size DJ kit, and a dinasour toy… SERIOUSLY NO COMMENT.

Urgh!

Article Link:  Top 10 of 2008

(Photo credits: Miskan)

I would like to start by saying that I really hate the Omani Internet, I cannot think of a single website to visit when I’m bored and just feel like browsing something weird, funny, or entertaining. If it weren’t for blogs there would be no such thing as Omani internet… well, you can still argue that it does not exist, but that’s beside the point.

I usually look down all Arabic literature because it is irrelevant and out of the touch with the rest of the world. We do not have a literature industry similar to that found in the English speaking world, people generally do not read anything other than newspapers and magazines, and 90% of the books found in the horrible annual book exhibition are religious books.

Recently I discovered a number of Omani Arabic blogs which changed my opinion in Omani Arabic literature, they made me fall in love with Arabic all over again. The content of these blogs is topical and local, yet it is written in awesomely classy Arabic full of figures of speech. I just love their style and how they write in formal Arabic yet integrate local Omani dialect terms to explain a ‘cultural’ concept the same way you would use a French term in an English piece to describe something sophisiticated.

I would like to highlight this article by Blogger Muawiyah describing Omani stereotypes. This post is not comical or even really critical, but merely descriptive of the of the aspirations and beliefs of Omani people. It is a relatively long post, but I really enjoyed it.

Another nice Omani Arabic blog is written by Hamed Al Ghaithi, I loved his post on “Daily Visions” in which he describes several unconnected scenes he was in recently. Most of them are completely random, but yet very personal and vulnerable. It was amazing how the post ended in a new paragraph simply saying “regardless of all the let downs and the failures, life is still fun and delicious” [my emphasis].

I’m so in love with Arabic blogs, I’ve been wanting to start blogging in Arabic for a while. I hate the fact that I am not confident in my Arabic anymore for the lack of practice, it is shameful and stupid. ARABIC IS MY FREAKING FIRST LANGUAGE. Maybe I should start blogging in Arabic to regain my confidence.

Got tagged by Diablo to list down five things people probably do not know about me:

1. People think that I’m a spoilt only child of my parents, but I actually have three brothers, four sisters, one half sister, two nephews and a niece.
2. Many of my family relatives do not know I exist.
3. I don’t have a single illegal application installed on my computer or phone.
4. I don’t know a single Arab person in Southampton.
5. I read the local headlines of Omani newspapers on daily basis online.

Nawras Shababiah! You can visit it here.

I have no idea what happened to Nawras. They usually work with professional branding agencies, but this website about their latest new ‘thing’ is atrocious! I do not know if this was made internally in Nawras or by a cheap computer shop in Ruwi. The last month of the year 2008 starts tomorrow, but this website has every single design and usuability flaw seen in websites made in the year 1998.

For God’s sake, point me to a single decent website made in 2008 that has a Flash intro (WITH FREAKING SOUND TRACK) that plays automatically when you open the wbsite? The website looks ugly, defies all the logical rules for proper navigation, does not have a logo or a title at the top of the page, and does not even have a title tag. The Arabic version of the website has grammatical errors in the first line of the first text page and does not have a freaking full stop at the end of the first paragraph.

This is a service made by a mobile network operator and yet there is no mobile version of the page! How smart is that?

For some reason, I still think that if this website entered the Oman Web Awards it will come in the top three if not at number 1. Now how wack is that?