This week has been amazing. Things have come together in a really good way. I have not been as excited about a project in the past few years as I’ve been this week. What is great is that with a small of really good people, we have been able to build this site from scratch in a relatively short time. What started as a little prelaunch experiment has evolved into something which we feel is promising.

We still have to go through a proper selection of sites that we want to feature. What we have now is by no means the final list. But just the thought of being able to bring together the posts of diverse, interesting and engaged bloggers from ‘Arabia and beyond’ on toot is very exciting. Add to that that toot visitors will be able to give votes to bloggers they like, is adding to the site a democratic aspect that we find fitting.

Tonight, most of the toot team, Karim, George, Wael, Jad and myslef, was in the office. A big thank you to Jad, who over the past two days (and over the past few weeks in general) worked hard to pull our ‘pre-alpha’ site together. And another thank you goes to Wael, for translating our ideas and initial prototypes into this good looking design (at least we think so :).

I think we reached a milestone today.. Let the harvest begin!

I just noticed Imaan’s blog on Gaza. I am really glad you featured it. I am convinced of the importance of women in the development of a prose writing culture. (Incidentally, it is said that the first novels were written by women, with Lady Murasaki’s 源氏物語 a leading contender.) Also, it is impossible not to be impressed by how powerful this blogging phenomenon is in the Arab context, partly because it is such a diverse Arab world.