<a href="http://blogs.thenational.ae//2009/07/just-like-twitter-only-popular.html">As we mentioned before</a>, there has been <a href="http://blogs.thenational.ae//2009/07/twitter-in-the-middle-east-the-uae-runs-the-game.html">some interesting commentary in the last few days about Twitter in the region</a>, as well as the role being played by Watwet, a Twitter-style service started by Jordanian entrepreneurs, that aims to be a Twitter for the Arab world. <br/><br/><a href="http://arabcrunch.com/2009/07/twitter-12266-members-in-the-arab-world-vs-watwet-25000-members-neck-to-neck-comparison.html">This post on ArabCrunch pointed out some interesting figures</a>. Watwet has around twice as many users in the region as Twitter is estimated to have, but its userbase is overwhelmingly skewed towards Jordan, and its percentage of active users is even lower than Twitter's. <br/><br/>Quite a few people shared their thoughts on Watwet afterward, and the skeptics among them <a href="/assets/blogimages/i-bbce2f581913106ed390ba350e7693b4-just-like-twitter-only-popular.html#comment-330">were best represented by Salem, who wrote in the comments to our post</a>:<br/><br/> I asked them, I waited (about half an hour) and they answered. Here is what Karim Arafat, Watwet's founder and CEO, had to say: ----------------- 1. Watwet is an extremely tiny startup. With very little resources at hand, and a team of three people, we were able to bring up Watwet as it is today. We are just starting to dig our way out of Jordan to the region. 2. We are not here to compete head-to-head with Twitter or other global social networks. Some news headlines might sound like it, but here at Watwet, we know that we have so much to work on, and we are excited about the coming few months. Our passion lies in popularizing micro-blogging in the Arab World and give a loud and heard voice for the people. We still don't have strong case studies of that happening on Watwet; in the sense of being the source of news. The best case study that we can offer today was during the Gaza crisis; in mobilizing people to volunteer in sorting in-kind donations at Aramex warehouse in Jordan and WEF conference that took place in Jordan; in which several bloggers were covering it directly through Watwet and Twitter too. 3. We believe there is plenty of room for a localized service like Watwet to operate in the region. As a localized service, we work more closely on the ground to make people aware of micro-blogging. We work with citizen media groups to encourage micro-blogging amongst people in areas you wouldn't imagine. It is slow indeed, but it is happening. 4. Given the low broadband penetration in comparison to the mobile penetration in the region, we believe SMS support is very important when it comes to the mass market. Savvy and power users will be most of the time connected, and behind their computers. But most users in the Arab World would not be constantly connected to the web, and need to stay updated by other means; SMS and mobile web. This is where Watwet comes in to the help. We work with mobile operators to make this happen. Admittedly, things are slower than how we would like it to be. Mobile operators are big organizations with many snail-like procedures. 5. In the coming months, we will be focusing more on making Watwet a better tool to mobilize people. We want to see more people using Watwet to share those bits and pieces of their lives with the world, and what is happening around them. We want to see it used to promote and mobilize the numerous causes in the Arab World that need to be mitigated. We want to see companies use it as a marketing tool. Hopefully, some news on some celebrities joining Watwet too. 6. The integration we have with Twitter; in which every watwet update is a tweet, and tweets become watwets, is something users on Watwet asked for, and we delivered on it. We are not looking at building a separate gated sphere on Watwet, but we want it to be open to existing global tools like Twitter and Facebook. The integration with Twitter saves both Watwet and Twitter users from updating their accounts separately. Users can do it on Watwet or Twitter. 7. On the metrics, we do have 25k users; mostly from Jordan. We do not inflate our metrics. 8. We thank every person out there supporting us. There are small groups of people, that we are aware of, that are lending us their unconditional support. We are always flattered when we see that. It re-energizes us. We know how difficult it is to support upcoming and new services. Likewise, there is a small group of people who are skeptical about us. I don't blame them. But between the supporters and the skeptics, there are hundreds of thousand (if not millions) of people out there in the region who don't know about Twitter and Watwet. They still don't know they can have their own powerful voice using these tools. We need to reach these people, and increase the conversation. In doing so, we can make use of some more support too. It is up to the users as to where they want to carry us. --------- For me, point number three is the most interesting. As mentioned before, the adoption of public self-expression online has been relatively low in the Middle East, for a whole bunch of reasons. Watwet's idea of going out and evangelising the microblogging concept directly to different communities, social groups etc, sounds like a great idea. If I remember correctly, a similar approach was taken with blogging in Egypt - some of the early bloggers led workshops and trained people out in the regions, and Egypt now dominates the Arabic blogging community as a result. Anyway, it would be great to hear your thoughts on all of this.