Don’t have a blog? But you love taking pictures? Great! We here at the toot headquarters want to toot your pictures as well. All you have to do is start a Flickr account then add your pictures to the toot photogroup. This way, your pictures will be squeezed out of Flickr and into toot’s various photostreams.
For more on how to add pictures to Flickr groups, check out these FAQ’s.

You can add photos to our public group on flickr called toot!. Your photos will appear in the photostream!

يا شباب ويا بنات تووت! اليوم استيقظت مبكراً قبل طلوع الشمس وبدأت اعمل على بعض الأمور المعلقة فيما يخص تووت، ثم شرد ذهني بالتفكير بأشياء أخرى عن تووت. فأصبحت أحاول أن اعرف ماذا يفكر زوار تووت والمدونون الذين نستعرضهم عن تووت. فعندما بدأنا تووت، أردنا لها أن تكون مفهوم جديد في عالم المدونات، بحيث تكون تووت حلقة الوصل بين المدونين المتحمسين والقراء الذين يريدون قراءة أفضل المدونات في العالم العربي. وقد قررنا أن يكون ذلك باختيار ما نعتقد انه من أفضل المدونات ابتداءً، ثم تعريف القراء إلى أفضل الكتابات الموجودة على هذه المدونات المختارة.

أعتقد أن تووت هي جهد جديد مفيد للمدونين والقراء في العالم العربي، حيث يجدون ما هو ممتع ومفيد للقراءة كما انه أصبح أسهل لهم متابعة المدونات من خلال تووت، خاصة مع ازدياد عددها في العالم العربي. وأظن أننا نغطي مدونات تتناول مواضيع مختلفة ومدونين من مناطق جغرافية متعددة من العالم العربي وخارجه. وطبعاً نحن مسرورون أن ما كتب في المدونات والصحف العربية والإذاعات الأجنبية عن تووت كان ايجابياً. ولكننا لم نسمع إلا القليل من الانتقادات لموقع تووت.

هل تعتقد أن ما تقدمه تووت هو مفيد وسهل الاستخدام؟

هل تعتقد أن موقع تووت مرح أم جدي؟

هل تقدم تووت مادة ممتعة للقراءة كل يوم؟

ماذا تود أن ترى في تووت مستقبلاً كمدون أو قارىء؟

From commenting on the latest political events to challenging taboos and crossing red lines, citizen journalists, or bloggers, across the Arab world are busy trying to make themselves heard. Analysts agree that Arab bloggers have made sure to get a big share of the blogging pie in a time when citizen journalists across the globe are scrutinizing the mainstream media with their subjective take on the political and social arenas.

So says Jordanian blogger Natasha Tynes in her blogging feature for ‘G21′, where she takes us on a trip around the Arab blogosphere. In the feature, Tynes covers various issues related to blogging in the Middle East, including anonymity, country-specific blogging, and podcasting.

The feature reads,

“Bayazidi, who runs a blog at http://isam.bayazidi.net/, foresees remarkable growth in the Arab blogging scene. ‘According to statistics from Arab service providers and large blog service providers world-wide, the number of blogs from the Arab world is currently estimated at seven thousands blogs,’ Bayazidi told G21. ‘What made a mark in 2005 is having three blog service providers from the Arab world, providing blogging templates that enable posting in Arabic with great ease,’ he explained.

[…]

Another Arab blogging community is the newly launched itoot, which is a pan-Arab portal that selects the scribbles from Arab bloggers on a daily basis. The portal also allows readers to vote on what they see as the best Arab blogs.

‘[Itoot ] is about showcasing the best of Arabia blogs and giving readers a good starting point to explore the Arab- related blogoshpere,’ said Humeid who is also the founder of itoot.

It is the first human driven aggregator in the Arab world. There is a real daily effort in selecting the blogs featured on toot and sifting through the multitude of posts everyday to feature a bouquet of interesting opinions, rants and raves,’ he explained.”

Read all of Natasha Tynes’ article here

With the Avian bird flu making appearances in Syria, Iraq, and now Egypt, the bloggers on toot are reacting to the states of paranoia taking over some of the Arab countries.
The folks over at “Or Does it Explode?” link to a story on the “Chicken Revolution”, a demonstration outside the Syrian Prime Minister’s office by hundreds of Syrian poultry workers. In Syria, Avian Bird Flu has its first major political consequence:

“…The authorities[’] large-scale culling policies meant as a preemptive move to contain Bird Flu, coupled with popular boycott of poultry and poultry products, have hit hard against the interests of the over 2 million Syrians who work in the industry. And the government, it seems, was doing nothing to ease their suffering.”

Paranoia seems to be striking Egypt more deeply though, the Big Pharaoh is reports,:

The Egyptian government has ordered the slaughter of all poultry kept in homes, as part of efforts to stop the spread of bird flu in the country. The government has called on Egyptians to stay calm, and not to dispose of slaughtered or dead birds in the roads, irrigation canals or the Nile River. Correspondents say the sudden arrival and spread of the disease over the past few days has caused widespread panic among Egyptians.
Everyone is panicking. Millions of chicken and other birds are kept in homes in all Egypt, in literally all cities of Egypt. The economic impact will be devastating. The poor paultry seller was ordered to close down his shop. Farm owners lost millions of pounds as they had to slaughter all their chicken. This is very serious.

Freedom for Egyptians has a very thorough post on this matter.

The Egyptian Sandmonkey, meanwhile, tells us about the general state of horror on the Egyptian street while adding a bit of comic relief:

“The latest rumor of the day: The Bird Flu virus is in our drinking water, because some farmers threw their infected chicken in the nile. The Horror. The Horror. Better not take a shower Boys. Better yet, Birds in the air maybe carrying the virus. Don’t breath for the next hour or so until the air force chases them away. Can’t be too safe now can you?”

Over in Jordan, a country bordering both Syria and Iraq, there have been no outbreaks of the flu, but people are already reacting. Khalaf writes about the speculations in regards to the bird flu in Jordan:

The worldwide Avian Flu panic has hit Jordanian poultry farmers hard. Consumption of eggs and chicken has plummeted, along with the prices of these commodities, and some farmers are close to going out of business. The Jordanian Veterinarians Association blames the government, implying that it’s high profile attempts to stop the disease are panicking customers.