Video and photo sharing craze hits Arabia with ikbis.com

Amman, Dubai. Marking the arrival of the video and photo sharing revolution to the Arab region, tootcorp today announced the launch of ikbis (www.ikbis.com), the first Arab video and photo sharing web site.

With its state-of-the-art-technology platform, fully bilingual (Arabic/English) user friendly interface and attractive Arabic brand, ikbis (which means ‘click’ in Arabic) is set to become the No.1 destination for people across the region who want to store, organize, share and talk about their favourite video clips and photos online.

Through a friendly user interface, members of ikbis can, using their regular browser, easily upload, annotate and tag their videos and photos, create albums and share their shots by email. ikbis supports a wide variety of media types captured using digital cameras, camcorders or cameraphones. Viewing video content on ikbis does not require the presence of any browser plug-in or special software, which means that ikbis content can reach virtually all internet users in a hassle-free, enjoyable experience.

For photo viewing, ikbis features a slideshow function, which elegantly streams user’s photos on the screen on an uncluttered backdrop.

While many users opt to share their videos and photos with the whole world, users can also set the privacy level for each shot so that it becomes viewable only to their close family, their wider circle of relatives or their friends, making it perfect for sharing social events and family photos and videos.

ikbis allows members of its community to rate and comment other member’s videos and photos. These online conversations and interactions add a new dimension of interactivity to the content shared. Every ikbis member has an online profile to which friends and family members can be added, making ikbis not only the first social media sharing site in the Arab region but also the first Arab social networking hub with a popular appeal potential.

“We decided to launch ikbis as we witnessed the accelerating rates of internet penetration across Arab markets and the increasing number of people who can access the net through broadband connections. We’re also seeing the amazing proliferation of digital cameras and cameraphones across the region, so we figured that people would probably would like to do more with the media they’re producing” said Ahmad Humeid tootcorp’s cofounder. “It is clear that audiences are spending more time online and starting to enjoy a video-on-demand experience, which has become possible with broadband connections and new video delivery technologies. But ikbis is more than that. It is about people in our region creating their own content, be it funny, serious, educational or simply personal and sharing it in the context of a global Arab web community. This is the essence of the user-generated media revolution,” Humeid added.

While ikbis is easy to use for regular internet users, advanced users, like the region’s growing community of bloggers, will be happy to learn that ikbis features RSS feeds of its content and makes it possible for its video player to be embedded into blogs and personal home pages. Developers of portals and other web applications will also soon be able to connect with ikbis using a set of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that enable the close integration of the ikbis platform with their applications and products.

ikbis is tootcorp’s 2nd major product. Less that a year ago tootcorp has launched toot: the first Arab blog network (www.itoot.net) which has grown to include 150 of the best Arab and Arab region oriented bloggers. The toot ad network (TAN) offers marketers the possibility of utilizing prominent blogs to reach a highly active internet audience of early adopters and trendsetters. Toot has already signed up major advertisers for the official launch of its ad network.

“The launch of ikbis is part of our strategy of focusing on opportunities created by the user-generated content trend. Our aim is not only to be regional leaders in what can be loosely called ‘web 2.0’, but to also to develop new web platforms that have a global appeal. Our next innovations are already in the development or prototyping phases,” explained Humeid.

For more information:

George Akra
george{at}itoot.net

Or

Karim Arafat
karim{at}itoot.net

Telephone +962 6 5650 466

Last year, around this time, the first ideas that led to toot started bubbling up in our office..

Numerous concepts and approaches were flying around, all of which revolved around the revolution of web based self publishing and sharing.

Since then, the small toot team has really been working hard at developing ideas in several directions. In fact, what is seen today of toot, is really only the tip of the iceberg (ok, a small iceberg :).

In the coming weeks and months some of the ‘fruits’ of our labour will become visible.

As we draw closer to the first anniversary of our launch (which was on 1.1.2006) we also are working harder on making the Toot Corporation financially viable. This too will become evident soon. And just in case you’re wondering: no, it won’t mean that we’ll be giving toot memberships away to the highest bidder :) (Hey! That would be one heck of a business model).

I’d like to quote the founder of Technorai, David Sifry here, regarding ‘making money’, which is the supposed aim of any company. David says that Technorati’s mission is ‘to be of service’ and NOT to make money. But he also says that making money is, to a company, like breathing to a human being. Without breathing, human die. Without making money companies die.

But we, as humans do not exist JUST to breathe! Neither should companies exist JUST to make money.

Guy Kawasaki, another ‘guy’ I would like to quite advises startups to set out to Make Meaning. If a company makes meaning, by being ‘of service’, by empowering people to express themselves, or better their life, then the money follows.

These are standards that are hard to measure up to. I’ve been through enough ventures and have also witnessed enough companies to see how hard it is to stay meaningful and financially viable as well.

Toot has started out as a window onto the Arabian blogosphere. We’ve become a good starting point for many who want to explore the ongoing online conversations around Arabia. Other windows do exist, of course. Ours reflects our own effort to be diverse and inclusive.

As we move on with our new initiatives we will focus on three areas:

* Enable those bloggers who want to go ‘pro’ and earn part of their living via blogging to take a good step towards such goal, while at the same time, remaining wide open to those bloggers who do not want to go pro and who simply see their blogs as their independent voices.

* Enable a wider audience of people to express themselves digitally and connect with other people online.

* Give people tools to create their own cocktails of web media.

Wish us luck on this journey. We hope you enjoy it too.

We at the Toot Corporation, the leading Arab blog network, are delighted, no.. we are overjoyed.. actually.. we are ecstatic to announce that, after tough ‘negotiations’ with The Squirrels, the deal is done: Toot has fully acquired iBaloo6.

Now that we have full control of iBaloo6’s assets, we are pondering what to do with the whole thing. But, for now, we’ll just let our (and your) imaginations run wild.

What shall we do with it? Hmmm…

For those bloggers who applied to be included on the planned iBaloo6 aggregator, well, you now have to apply to Toot. Tough luck :)
One thing is sure.. we never had so much fun in months.. :)

To be continued, for sure!

We couldn’t keep the truth hidden any longer..

When was the last time you told people about toot? If you want to have 10 years of good luck, wealth and happiness tell 5 friends about toot now :). You can use our special form or just use your email to spread the toot!