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.