Cloud961- November 2013

CLOUD #6 - NOVEMBER 2013

REIGN OF TECHNOLOGY

www.cloud961.com

MOHAMMAD HIJAZI

Maurice Rustom

Piotr Yordanov

The Education Revolution

Social Media and E-Learning in Lebanon

Start-ups in Lebanon Lack Maturity and the Online Community is Full of Hate

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Boost your classroom experience:

The relationship between teachers and students in a classroom has varied between formal, sometimes scary, admiration, friendly, and respectful to name a few. In most of the cases, rigid barriers exist between... P10

Tweep Gets Shot in Hamra:

Bayan Bibi is showing the world that she is still very strong despite all that she has gone through. She engraved the bullet that shot her and punctured her lungs just a few weeks ago while walking in Hamra... P16

blog of the month: www.missfarah.com

Most children tend to think that their teachers are drab adults out to make their lives miserable while they count the days until summer comes.

Yet Farah Ghazale’s blog, Miss Farah, drastically changes that image... P11

INTERVIEW:

Geekfest Beirut 6.0 Dinner & Movies – A Mouthful of Fun Over 400 geeks, tweeps and onliners attended the latest Geekfest Beirut on October 2nd at City Mall. This event was unorganized by the Online Collaborative in partnership with Empire Cinemas, Roadster diner, Cinemacity and Fiesta Group... P42 PARTNERS:

Interview with Ghada Khoury and Samar Layoun. P27

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EDITORIAL

CLOUD #6 November 2013

The Education Revolution

By Mohammad Hijazi, Editor in Chief @mhijazi

Publisher: Cornerstone Public Relations SAL show off.

Why am I being so offensive, you ask?

Because for five years, I have used these technologies at AUB, and I can tell you this: they have not enhanced the learning process for me at all. They are only used to share slides with the students, something a simple Dropboxlike application can do. Another reason is that I have witnessed first-hand how beneficial the use of social media can be to education.

Most teachers in Lebanon still have a traditional approach to education, a 1.0 approach as I like to call it. They only care about using technology to push material to their students rather than stimulate and encourage them to learn.

Schools are eager to promote 20-yearold technologies such as Blackboard and Moodle (which are basically sites that host the lectures and are traditionally structured to minimize interaction). Some brag that they have implemented these programs in their schools and universities as if it was the most advanced technology and will bring great benefit to their students.

They probably don't know that some universities have stopped distributing emails to their students anymore, but instead they are giving them tablets and e-readers.

Not only that, many professors that taught me criticize and oppose the use of social media in education, partly because they have probably never used it before, and partly because social media channels are free. They still have the old-fashioned mentality that free software cannot substitute for overly-priced barely-customizable software that their institutions buy to

I have graduated from the American University of Beirut with a BBA in Marketing (among other things).

But I don't attribute the knowledge that I have acquired to AUB at all, because let's face it, even at the best institutions, the Lebanese teaching system and curriculum is extremely lacking. I attribute my education to my enthusiasm and willingness to learn that was fulfilled by Wikipedia, Facebook and Twitter [and Google of course]. They were the main source of information and education for me.

After five years at AUB, I probably don't remember any of the material I studied in boring traditional courses.

I don't remember anything about Cell Respiration or Bioinformatics (Biology being my first major); I don't remember anything from Business Law either.

Yet I was fortunate to take took courses with Mrs. Leila Khauli Hanna. At first, I did not know what I have signed up for. I thought it would be just another marketing course. But these courses were structured in a way to stimulate the students' minds and encourage them to look for the information themselves and learn what they wanted to learn. Unlike other oldfashioned professors (I don't want to call them closed-minded) who kick students out of class if you even had your cell phone on the table, Mrs. Hanna made it mandatory for students to use their smart-phones and laptops in class to enhance the learning process. If that is not enough, the whole course communication relies on Twitter, a free and readily-available tool for all students. The participation

grade of the course was based on the online interaction of students. This enabled the shy students to participate much more, and allowed the course material to be crowd-sourced, not only by the students, but by everyone who accessed the course hashtags on Twitter (#mktg225 and #mktg250D at the time).

But why have I learned so much from these two courses (Marketing Communications & Digital Social Media Management), even though the learning objectives are as interesting as most the other courses? First, it is because of the open-mindedness of the instructor that allowed the learning process to be smooth and free of the traditional stiffness of education. Second, the ease of the use and implementation of social media in the classroom allowed all the students to discuss course material freely. Third, the course was always upto-date with the most relevant topics in the marketing industry because the instructor was willing to research new material for every session (unlike regular instructors who use the same material decade after decade). Forth, the enthusiasm that students get from finding what they want to learn will cause them to actually learn the material and not memorize and regurgitate them on exams. Fifth, the course has become a part of my life and not an annoying 9:00 AM class that I sleep through. (Believe it or not, I was excited to wake up early for the class).

And finally, because it was fun! Why teachers have to make education so boring and treat schools as prisons is beyond me.

I think what Mrs. Hanna has introduced to education is far more valuable than any education management system that anyone have created. Granted, she did not create any software or invent the light-bulb, but she did revolutionize the education system.

Yes, it is an Education Revolution and I believe every single teacher and school should consider implementing a similar learning system.

10,000 Are interested in Lebanon’s

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NEWS

CLOUD #6 November 2013

Facebook's Autoplay Video Ads

Sony Xperia Z1: Big, Powerful and Waterproof

Facebook began testing autoplay videos on mobile News Feeds to a small group of random users. Originally, the move was reportedly planned for April, but Facebook has pushed back the date to the fall or later. The latest report says that the release will be in October. The company is trying to persuade advertisers to create original content for the News Feed rather than simply re-running their TV ads.

The Xperia Z1 is nearly identical to the Xperia Z. The front camera position is right instead of left and with aluminum frame being the biggest differentiators.

The phone is elegant and big. The Z1's 5-inch screen is nearly identical in size to Galaxy S4's screen.

The Z1 is 2.2GHz quad-core Qualcomm processor, coupled with Adreno 330 graphics and 2GB of RAM making the device faster than most high-end smartphones.

One of the features that makes the Z1 better than its competition is water resistance, which has even been slightly upgraded (to IP55/IP58) from the Xperia Z, and the device can now be submerged into 5 feet of water.

Twitter's Exclusive Feature for Verified Users Verified users can now view their mentions in three separate categories: all, filtered, and verified. The idea is to help those users identify the conversations that may be most important to them.

Sony Xperia Z2 Release Date April 2014?

Shortly after launching the Sony Xperia Z1, the newest rumors about its upgrade, Xperia Z2, speculate that the device will be released in April 2014.

It is said to have a standard smartphone sized display screen of 5.2 inches (compared to the 5-inch screen of the Xperia Z1) and have the newest display features including 1080X1920 full HD resolutions. It will also have more storage space and extra RAM than the Xperia Z1. It will come with will come with a 3GB of RAM- the Z1 currently has 3GB. The Z2's pixel density will also be an improvement. Rumors say it will have 505 ppi, which is higher than the 441 ppi the Xperia Z1 has.

BlackBerry Z30 specs he BlackBerry Z30 has an impressive specification, and it’s up there with the leading Android handsets. Powered by dual core Snapdragon S4 Plus, and 2GB of RAM, along with 16 GB of flash memory and MicroSD card storage, there nothing in the hardware specs that would force you reject the handset.

The screen, a capacitive five inch AMOLED display, is bright and responsive although it’s not helped by the slightly dated look of the iconography and the system fonts used by the new version of the operating system, BB 10.2.

HTC One Made of Real Gold Costs $4,400 HTC UK has launched an HTC One made of real gold. The Gold HTC One comes as a very limited edition with only five to be produced and with a price of $4,400 As for its specifications, they are the same as the regular HTC One, but its casing on the front and back are plated with 18ct gold. The device is crafted in partnership with Goldgenie founder, Laban Roomes.

Facebook Simplifies Ad Buying Facebook revealed a major renovation of both its basic ad-buying platform, Ads Manager, and its more sophisticated offering, Power Editor, both of which now show a more streamlined interface.

Previously, ad buyers were asked to choose from a range of ad options and then select their campaign objectives and optimization methods.

Now, advertisers are first asked to identify their objectives. Then, Facebook guides advertisers to the most appropriate ad, whether it’s in the News Feed, or alongside it. In addition, users can also now upload multiple images for a single campaign, allowing five different ads to run at once.

Microsoft Recycling Inactive Outlook, Hotmail Email Accounts Microsoft has started recycling inactive outlook and hotmail accounts, where the account is automatically queued for deletion. Then, after a total of 360 days, the email account name is made available again.

The services agreement informs users that they must periodically log in to their Outlook, Hotmail or Windows Live ID accounts to keep them active.

Instagram to Start with Ads in the Next Couple of Months Instagram announced that it will start rolling out ads in the next couple months. Instagram framed the move as part of an effort to turn itself into a "sustainable business."

Facebook, which owns Instagram, had previously talked about the idea of introducing ads on the social network and an Instagram executive revealed last month that ads would come within the next year.

LG Announces Flexible Displays Coming Next Year LG has begun manufacturing curved smartphone displays set to hit shelves by next year.

LG will be one of the first to market with a smartphone sporting a flexible, indestructible 6-inch OLED display. Manufactured using plastic substrates instead of glass, LG’s flexible displays are going to be thinner and lighter than existing displays, while hopefully still maintaining current quality standards.

Mozilla Prepares to Launch Firefox OS Devices Mozilla has announced it will soon start launching Firefox OS-based devices in new markets around the world. Mozilla launched the first Firefox OS smartphones, the ZTE Open and Alcatel One Touch Fire — in July 2013. These devices are available in Spain, Colombia, Venezuela, and Poland.

Mozilla did not give a definitive list of the new markets where the Firefox OS phones will launch, but it mentioned Greece, Hungary, Serbia, Montenegro, and Brazil and three other Latin America markets.

The new Firefox OS phones will have the latest version of the operating system (1.1), which brings performance improvements and features such as MMS support. Existing Firefox OS phones will get the upgrade to the new version soon.

Samsung’s Galaxy Round with 5.7-Inch Curved Display Samsung has announced its first smartphone with a curved display, called the Galaxy Round.

The device has a slightly rounded 5.7-inch, 1080p Super AMOLED screen in a 7.9mm-thick case, with the weight being 154 grams.

Samsung says that the curved design of the phone offers a very comfortable grip and some unique features. One of these is the Roll Effect, which lets users check info such as data, time, missed calls and battery status when the home screen is off. Another is the Gravity Effect, which creates a visual interaction with the screen when the device is tilted.

Apple is the Most Valuable Brand in the World According to brand management firm Interbrand, Apple is number one in the most valuable brands in the world. To conduct its study, Interbrand measured the amount of money companies took in, how important their brand was in turning those profits, and how each brand stacked up against its competitors.

Rdio Launches Free Music Streaming for iOS and Android Rdio first launched You FM, a personalized radio station based on a person’s music preferences, in August. Originally a feature for premium users, Rdio made the customized stations free for those using its iOS and Android apps.

Upon launching your You FM Station, Rdio plays you some songs it thinks you might enjoy. Stations can be customized to play familiar tracks when you want to listen to old favorites, or be more adventurous when you’re looking to try something new. You can also listen to You FM stations based on friends and their tastes.

Acer Launches Thinner, Lighter, and More Powerful Chromebook Acer has announced the launch of C720 Chromebook, a new 11.6-inch ultraportable based on Intel's new Haswell chip.

The specs include a 1.4GHz Intel Celeron processor, an 11.6-inch, 1366x768 pixel display, 4GB of low-power RAM, a 16GB SSD and 8.5 hours of battery life.

Acer’s new case is 30 % slimmer than the previous Chromebook, measuring only 0.75 inches thick, with the weight being 2.76 pounds.

Google Map’s Multiple Routes on One page

Instagram Adds Sound and Data Usage Controls to iOS and Android Apps

Google Maps' newest version now has the ability to display multiple routes on one page. When users search for directions, they can continue to add destinations to the maps without losing their original route. Currently, it is only available in English to users across the U.S.

Instagram added a new update recently, that includes sound and data usage controls for videos on both versions of the app, and the Android version now has a photo straightening feature. Both versions of the app are currently available for download in the Google Play store and the App Store.

BLOGS NEWSFEED

By Joelle Hajji

CLOUD #6 November 2013

@joellehajji

The 4 Characters You Will Meet On A Flight To Beirut Epic Fail: Lebanese Ministry Of Tourism Arabic Translation http://blogbaladi.com/epic-fail-ministry-of-tourismarabic-translation/

Deghre Messenger http://blogbaladi.com/deghri-messengers-in-action/ An interesting new service which BlogBaladi and Gino’s Blog highlighted in one of their blog posts is the Deghre Messengers which is a fast, clean and Eco-friendly delivery service for a greener Beirut. It is all based on bicycle delivery, and for now, it covers Beirut and greater Beirut areas.this service is environment friendly and affordable at the same time.

English version: “Landscapes that change with the seasons, but are always bathed in the warm sun. The daylight rising over Lebanon brings endless opportunities of fun, beach, nature and outdoor activities. You’ll never know what to choose. Whatever it will be, an unforgettable time awaits you under the shiny Lebanese sun.”

http://ivysays.com/2013/09/17/the-4-characters-youwill-meet-on-a-flight-to-beirut/ 1. The Trouble Maker with the belly in a tracksuit 2. The Flight Attendant en route to an 80’s Glamor Shoot 3. The Lebanese expat 4. The Negligent mother You should really read this blog post by Ivy Says. People who travel more often will know that this is so true, and my favorite is the Lebanese attendant who is actually obliged to wear this suit and the red or Fuchsia lipstick.

Gino’s Blog Epic Fails www.ginosblog.com/category/fails This is not something new, since we are surrounded by funny and epic fail things, but we never get bored from them and here's one of Gino’s epic fails posted on his blog “Gino’s Blog".

Lei Fi A7la Min Lebnen? http://blogbaladi.com/lei-fi-a7la-min-lebnen/ This is hot news every year: when rain starts pouring at the beginning of the season, roads are flooded with water, and traffic is crazy. That is what Najib from BlogBaladi talked about in one of his posts.

Pizza Cups: A Review http://www.nogarlicnoonions.com/pizza-cups-bakedwith-care-and-dedication/ If you haven’t heard about Pizza Cups, I think you should go to “No Garlic No Onion” blog and check the review about the pizzas.

Pizza cups have a large variety of 12 salty pizzas and 3 sweet ones.

Orders should be made at least 48 hours in advance.

Check this interesting review and the mouth-watering shots of the pizza cups.

Deterioration of Internet Freedom in the World; Lebanon is Partially Free http://stateofmind13.com/2013/10/06/internetfreedom-keeps-deteriorating-lebanon-is-partially-free/

166 Awesome Photos of Lebanon This Summer by Gino Raidy

DRIVERS: A thing of yesterday

http://ginosblog.com/2013/10/07/166-awesomephotos-of-lebanon-this-summer/

A really interesting article by The Tech-Ticker about the future of driving with the launching of robots locomotives designed by Rio Tinto Group.

They also talk about Ford’s Self-Parking system and Mercedes’s driver-less cars.

Here is one photo, but you should check the whole set on Gino’s Blog, because there are a lot of nice photos of beautiful Lebanon.

http://tech-ticker.com/drivers-a-thing-of-yesterday/

A Separate State of Mind blog shows a recent study about the deterioration of internet freedom in the world, some of which are: • Blocking and filtering: governments blocking what they find undesirable.

• Cyberattacks against regime critics.

• New laws regarding online speech.

This is also happening in Lebanon, with some bloggers getting arrested for writing freely about politicians and some social media users were arrested for badmouthing the president.

It is a really interesting article that summarizes the reality of internet freedom in the world.

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COVER FEATURE

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CLOUD #6 November 2013

MOOCs: Free Quality Online Education for Everyone

By Lynn Bizri

@lnlne

A MOOC or ‘massive open online course’ is a course that is offered for free and can be taken by anyone from anywhere online. They are usually run two or three times each year and led by topnotch professors. The courses cover a variety of different subjects offered by prestigious universities such as Stanford, UC Berkeley, MIT, Duke, Harvard, UCLA, Yale, Carnegie Mellon, and many more. The courses are self-directed, meaning that the user has to follow the traditional course materials such as videos and readings, complete the assessments and problem sets on his/her own. The courses even provide interactive user forums where anyone can get help from a large community that includes fellow students, professors and teaching assistants.

Enrolling in one of the online courses is done through specific MOOC platforms such as Udacity, edX, Coursera and Futurelearn, among others. Coursera is the most popular MOOC platform today, with more than 3 million students taking classes offered by 62 universities from various countries. What makes Coursera unique is the wide range of subjects that are offered, which include courses in Arts, Economics, Business, Life Sciences, Law, Computer Science, Biology and more. Each course has a fixed schedule ranging from an average of 4 to 15 weeks, however many of the courses are given several times a year, so one can always take a course he/she might have missed when it re-opens. All of the courses, regardless of the university that created them, follow a common structure which consists of weekly video lectures, content quizzes and assignments in addition to a midterm and final exam, although this can vary slightly from course to course. Most of the courses also offer a free certificate upon completion.

To know more about the usability of MOOCs, I interviewed a fellow tweep, Nicolas El Hayek (@nicocohayek), about his experience using Coursera.

Which course(s) did you take? Were they related to your major or simply interests?

I took several courses: Gamification, Networked Life, and Social Network Analysis. The first course tackled a concept that is rising to prominence in mobile apps such as Foursquare; learning it was essential since I am building a mobile app that might need such behavioral motivators. The other two courses were centered on the science behind social networks and how they scale and interact with individuals.

Which was your favorite and why?

My favorite was Networked Life. It provided a scientific approach to social networks we use every day and provided insights on ‘going viral’ and how it really happens.

What did you like about the course?

The course presented online was very similar to the one the university taught to its students. Hence, the experience was as close to the real deal, providing indepth information, exercises, quizzes, and discussion forums to further explore the topic.

What did you find challenging?

Keeping track of several courses and deadlines was a big hassle. I missed many deadlines because I was occupied with other obligations, and I paid for that by grade penalties, missed peer reviews, and ultimately cost me a course’s certificate Did you participate in the online interactive forums?

I checked them often to discuss certain lessons or to post related questions. With around 80,000 people signing up, you’re bound to find the answers you’re looking for.

Did you complete the course and receive a certificate?

This was actually the hardest part. It’s easy (and free) to sign up to the courses, but to get a certificate; you have to complete nearly all the quizzes and homework before deadlines. I managed to earn a certificate for Networked Life, but fell short on the other ones because I missed the project deadlines.

Would you take another course? Why or why not?

I check Coursera every now and then for interesting courses, but my real life obligations restrict me from

taking more than 2 courses at the same time. It’s a great way to make use of your time learning something new, and the achievement in the end is a motivator to finish it. You have to put aside around 10 hours per week to finish your online duties, but hey, we spend even more time on Facebook, so it’s a matter of creating a new habit and wanting to be more productive in your free time.

Can you think of any improvements to the platform (Coursera)?

Taking the courses to a mobile version will make the learning experience easier to access on the ride home or without access to a laptop. After all, the world is going mobile, and this might be the next step towards really adopting online learning on a greater scale.

COVER FEATURE

CLOUD #6 November 2013

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COVER FEATURE something accessible to everyone, free, and easy to use. All of my students were subscribed to Facebook and it was a great opportunity to reach them where they spend most of their time online.

Students normally find excuses not to visit the online platforms offered by the university. The excuses are endless: connection problems (the most used excuse), the platform was down (which was true in some cases), we did not have internet at home, we could not open it on our mobiles, among others. A Facebook group actually offered a solution to all these excuses as all of them had Facebook applications on their mobiles, and it was easy to check everywhere at any time.

Currently, I use Dropbox to share the files, and the Facebook group is an interaction space.

Do you think social media will play a greater role in education in the future?

Social Media Comes to the Classroom Interview with Maria Frangieh

DBA in Knowledge Management and Web 2.0 tools

By Paul Gadallah @paulinbeirut Maria Frangieh wears many hats, she’s a blogger, journalist, and educator. Teaching at the university level for 6 years now, she’s used social media platforms to connect with her students and enhance the college classroom experience. In this interview, Maria talks about what inspired her to bring Social Media into the college classroom and why it’s a great educational tool.

What inspired you to use social media platforms in the classroom?

I have been using social media platforms in class for 6 years now. The first tool I used was a group on Facebook. I was teaching in a university that did not provide an online platform to share course material and documents with the students. I had to look for

Social Media tools are mostly free and easy to access on mobile phones. These are the most important reasons why social media has a more important role in education. In the specific case of Lebanon, where the internet connection is not stable and is slow, these tools create new platforms to reach the students and offer the information online for minimal costs. It is also important to note, that the Lebanese culture in education is somehow old fashioned or does not want to let go of old teaching habits. Social media tools are considered as a means of wasting the time of students; in many classes (not mine) cell phones are prohibited. You would be surprised, the dean can actually make some ghost visits to classes to make sure students are not using their cellphones! I actually encourage my students to use these tools, tweet in class, or share their experience online.

Many universities around the world have adopted new learning platforms, using Web 2.0 tools (such as social networks, blogs, wikis, mobile applications, virtual libraries, among others) to enhance their programs and reach a larger number of students. Sadly in Lebanon, our adoption rate of new technologies is very slow compared to other more developed countries. This is because we don’t have appropriate infrastructure and policies. Additionally, our regulations are not helpful and we don’t have the necessary funds to purchase these new technologies. We are certainly heading to

CLOUD #6 November 2013

a new learning environment where social media will play a greater role in education, but we are moving very slowly.

How has social media enhanced your teaching experience?

Social Media tools are very helpful, not only in class but in HR and Marketing as well. These are tools that allow knowledge sharing between communities, stronger ties and a better experience. I am currently teaching a Social Media and Ecommerce course at Haigazian University. My students need to tweet in class, write a blog each week, share some of their experience on Facebook, among other tasks. All of this is graded; a large percentage of their grade is based on this online participation. Their midterms and finals include questions related to social media platforms.

In other universities, I encourage my students to use these tools, but their interactions are not graded.

This enhances the feel of having a community in class, creates a closer relationship with the students, encourages them to like the course better, and pushes them to share their knowledge with their friends (not only classmates). This increase the overall average of the class in comparison to other classes teaching the same course but not using social media tools (based on my observations during the past 6 years).

In the case where universities do not offer a shared platform where students can download course materials, social media tools such as Facebook groups, Dropbox, Google Docs, are of great help.

Presentations are now more fun and creative with Prezi (students enjoy doing their presentations).

Would you recommend that more educational institutions use social media in the classroom?

I personally am a social media lover, and I encourage other teachers to adopt it in their classes or for universities to adopt them in their education programs. However, there are some things to review before: the internet connection and access at the university level and the teacher’s willingness to dedicate some of their personal time to engage with their students online outside university hours, not to mention if the teacher actually likes to be present online to begin with, since some teachers don’t have an online presence.

COVER FEATURE From a Hashtag to a Course

Interview with Leila Khauli Hanna, a pioneer in social media adoption in the Lebanese classroom

By Mohammad Hijazi, Editor in Chief

@mhijazi

Not at all, my convener and dean encouraged me and my colleague Dr. Nelson King when we first introduced the idea of a course on Social Media in Business and saw the potential. Eventually we moved from a course hashtag #mktg225, which was originally part of the marketing communications course, to a full-fledged course on Social Media in Digital Business: #mktg227. We were among the first to offer such a course in the region. I have over 2100 followers and counting. My followers include students, exstudents and other stakeholders such as ad agencies and companies that comment and follow the course closely.

They are hiring my students immediately and we are showcasing the students work in mentoringsm.org to brand the students’ work online. At the beginning the students resisted having twitter accounts; they did not know what it was all about, but now they come to the course with their own accounts.

In Lebanon, all the fields are behind in social media, not just education, due to the lack of know-how, the weak infrastructure and the high cost of Internet in Lebanon.

What are the best social media tools for teachers?

Mrs. Hanna has taught courses at the Undergraduate and Graduate level in the fields of Marketing and Economics in the US, Lebanon, and France. She has introduced and coordinated several highly specialized and cutting edge courses at the school and was nominated three times for the teaching excellence award at AUB. Her research interest lies in the Creative Industry of Lebanon and the Digital Transformation of businesses in the region.

Ms. Hanna was the first to introduce full-fledged social media integration into her courses in Lebanon. Her students use these tools to communicate with her and each other, to stay up-to-date on topics related to the course work and discuss the class online. You can follow her marketing communications course and social media course on Twitter on #mktg225 and #mentoringSM respectively.

How do you integrate social media in your courses and how effective is it?

I found that integrating social media into my courses is a very effective communication tool especially that it is very accessible. In my opinion, it is way better to embrace technology and make use of it rather than fight it especially since millennials spend hours online and check their smartphones several times per hour, even when they are accomplishing other tasks. Using Analytics from social media platforms allows me to track what the students are reading, when is the best time to post an article for them to read, etc.. More importantly, students read more and perform better on assignments and exams.

They are definitely more engaged in the course.

Why did you feel the need for social media when there are other online platforms such as Moodle to interact with the students?

I use both. Moodle is an excellent closed forum that I use as the formal platform to archive, store, grade, give exams and evaluate. The social media platforms are a good place to communicate efficiently and to curate articles for students to read in real time. So Moodle is the storing location in a way, while the social media platforms are the “live” communication tools.

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Did you face any difficulty convincing students or administration of your teaching method?

Do you think the education field is behind in social media integration in Lebanon and across the globe?

Leila Khauli Hanna is a full time Instructor of Marketing Management at AUB’s Sulaiman S. Olayan School of Business since the year 2000. She holds a Masters of Business Administration with a specialization in Marketing and Econometrics from Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio.

CLOUD #6

All platforms can be used for a specific objective. Having a presence online as an educator requires a strategy too.

Each platform has its own content and specific objectives.

I particularly like Learnist: it is a platform designed specifically for educators. You can check the course’s Learnist here: http://learni.st/users/36506.

How do you maintain a professional presence with your students when, in social media, professional and personal lines are blurred?

I am only present online as an educator. I limit my personal presence to Facebook only since I had it before I started using the platforms for teaching. I am very careful in sticking to my objectives; I am online to engage my students and enhance the learning process. I never follow my current students or befriend them online. I respect their privacy and only follow them once they graduate and they contact me.

How do you keep up with the constant change in social media?

I am passionate and interested in reading and finding out all about it. This learning experience combines my two passions communication and teaching...

What are the pros and cons for integrating social media tools into the class room?

Using social media tools in education is very timeconsuming and requires constant monitoring. Teachers need to make the commitment and stick to it for optimal results. But it is worth it; you remain relevant to the students and it is a continuous learning experience for all of us.

Do you think this method would also work for school students?

Of course it would. However, the educator/teacher should have a clear strategy of how it will be used and to set guidelines. I am very careful and strict about how the students use the course hashtags and what they post.

For example, they cannot bash anyone or criticize (for the sake of criticism) any of the brands that we are discussing or covering in the course or any brand for that matter.

What advice would you give to teachers who want to take this step but are afraid to do so?

My advice would be not to be afraid but to have the passion and the commitment.

Pros and Cons of Online Education My Experience with Distance Learning

By Joelle Hajji

@joellehajji

As an online learner, I had the best times when I was studying online for my Bachelor’s degree; I got the best degree and a high quality education that can help me a lot in my future.

Online learning is very flexible and convenient since you can complete assignments anywhere where there is computer access. It saves you the trouble to plan around school if you want to go on vacation or travel. The courses are well laid out and the instructors are supportive and responsible in returning emails. Online courses provide the perfect learning opportunity for anyone with a need for distance learning. I used to love the discussion boards in my online classes. Sharing your knowledge and past experiences with other students was easier to do online than in a traditional classroom Even though it is very flexible, this can also be of negative to someone. First, you leave all your work till the last minute, since you are not attending classes and professors are not with you to remind you of your assignments. Another negative aspect is when you do not understand anything while doing an assignment or reading the lesson and you want an answer directly, you can’t do that. You have to email your teacher and wait for the reply then continue with what you were doing and this can take some time. Online classes have the disadvantage of face to face interactions with professors and actually have a communication delay (going back and forth through email).

Nevertheless, online learning allowed me to receive a high quality education and get a degree from the State University of New York. I believe anyone can succeed in online classes as long as they stay organized and self-motivated.

Thus, I recommend online classes to any individual who can study independently and does not need to interact face to face.

The key to online courses, I believe, is to plan your time wisely, study a bit each day and try not to get behind.

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COVER FEATURE Boost Your Classroom Experience With Powerful Social Media Tools Maria Frangieh, DBA in Knowledge Management and Web 2.0 tools @mariafrangieh The relationship between teachers and students in a classroom has varied between formal, sometimes scary, admiration, friendly, and respectful to name a few. In most of the cases, rigid barriers exist between the students and the teacher limiting the relationship to classroom interactions only. In the social media era, these barriers are softening, especially in the case where teachers are using social media tools in their classrooms. Many studies proved that an increase in the level of communication in general and specifically online, between the students from one side and the students and the teacher from another has a positive impact on the students and teachers performance throughout the academic year.

After hours engagements help increase the sense of belonging to a classroom.

Being a teacher myself for 8 years now, I have used various social media tools in all of my classes, and I can confirm the positive impact these tools had on my relationship with my students, on the dedication of the students, mine as well, and their performance during the academic year. Here are some of the most useful tools that can boost your classroom’s engagement and overall experience.

First Things First! It is very critical to set some rules before the adoption of any social media tool in class.

Communication between students can get out of hand and out of context if left unattended. Setting some rules before beginning any activity online, will guarantee a smooth experience. RESPECT is the most

Social Media and E-Learning in Lebanon

By Maurice Rustom, Secretary, AUB's Online Collaborative @MauriceRustom

Social Media has been witnessing a huge expansion lately in the Arab world on many different scales. But as we realize in Lebanon, it has not yet shown any sign of progress in the educational field, more precisely, in public or private schools. Students still use books and pens to take notes in class or to do exams, and they still submit their homework by hand. In addition to that, using about 7 to 9 books makes students carry a huge weight on their backs on a daily basis, which causes a lot of back pains and some severe scoliosis

important rule! All “bad words” and subjects out of context will be immediately deleted. You would be surprised of the level of commitment of the students.

After all, their comments are public; they will take credit for all their contributions, whether negative or positive.

•FACEBOOK GROUPS: A free and very effective tool nowadays, especially in the Lebanese country where 99% of the students are already registered on Facebook. Facebook groups allow sharing files, adding photos, videos, ask questions, statuses, among others.

These groups are very efficient when the campus does not offer an online course management platform for students, such as Blackboard and Moodle.

•TWITTER: Another effective tool to communicate briefly and interact with brands or influencers online.

Create a hashtag for your class and ask your students to share their thoughts, interact, and mention brands or influencers. When the engagement picks up, the experience will bring a lot of fun into the classroom.

•BLOGS: Blogs are a great tool that allows students to express themselves freely. My favorite is Wordpress, however, it is not a purely educational tool. Edublogs (wordpress based platform) is the best by far. It is like a quickly set website for a class, between students and teachers, parents as well (in case of schools).

Campuses can also have their own network. Edublog offers free blogs and paid registrations when more features are needed. Edublogs make it even more interesting when running their yearly Edublog awards.

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•WIKISPACES CLASSROOM: A social writing platform used mostly for education. Students can share their texts, images, publish their projects and even discuss them online.

•PREZI: The tool for fun presentations. It is a cloudbased presentation software. Students dig it because it sets their creativity beast free and makes presentations more fun and professional with the minimum design skills.

•DROPBOX: An online file-sharing website accessible on browsers, on mobiles, tablets and desktops. Easy to use and extremely simple allowing a large number of users for free, it is a desktop file except that it is hosted online. Make sure to set the synchronizing to Wifi only to avoid losing your mobile MB. •GOOGLE DRIVE: Google’s new home for Google Docs, an online platform for shared files. Has more features that Dropbox such as crowd-sourced documents but is a little more complicated for the students sometimes.

Whatsapp Groups: A perfect tool to reach the students immediately. A very bad choice when the group is very active, all the time. This can be an emergency ultimatum, as it is very time consuming. In all other cases, AVOID this tool whatsoever!

•OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLS for classroom are Edu 2.0, SymbalooEDU, Collaborize Classroom, Edmodo among others. These tools are more sophisticated and are comparable to online classroom management platforms not to mention that they are not all available for free.

•YOUTUBE (and teachertube and schooltube): The ultimate video platform, free and easy to use. It is the perfect tool for quick tutorials and moving part of the classroom discussions online.

The adoption of social media tools in the classroom varies depending on the objectives of the teacher and the services each tool offers. What is most important is to choose the right tool for each class.

cases. Not to mention the cost of the manufacturing of all these books and the harm done to nature while doing this. Anyway, I’m not going to enumerate all the pros and cons of using books in schools, but I will focus on the advantages of adapting eBooks and integrating Social Media in education.

desktop. Also it’ll motivate them to work harder now that the process is easier and more efficient. One thing is that “my dog ate my homework” wont be a valid excuse anymore for not submitting any work…

Well I’m sure that they’ll come up with something new as the creative smart students they are!

The eBook market is encountering a rapid expansion throughout the whole world. Nowadays, millions of books are available online and for very small prices compared to those of the hard copies available in libraries. So by integrating eBooks, schools will not only relief the students from carrying books around, but it will also relief the parents from the enormous book bills paid every year. In that way, educational institutions can provide their students with tablets at a reasonable price, and will get good offers considering the electronic books put in use. This will make it easier to integrate Social Media into education, helping break the ice between the teachers and the students, and reaching new grounds in the scholastic experience.

Considering a teacher’s point of view, correcting and collecting homework will become a piece of cake. And there will be no worries about losing any paper, or letting a plagiarized work go unnoticed. In addition, it’ll let instructors apply new optimized learning methods and enhance the course material. Also the communication between students and teachers will be achieved in an easier way, by creating Google+ study groups, or private Facebook groups for each course, adding to that some PowerPoint lectures on SlideShare or even online video lectures via YouTube.

This way, the work will be more organized and saved in a safe place.

Social Media has been considered so far, especially by the majority of the Lebanese society, another source of entertainment that helps you share your personal opinion, jokes, pictures and so on… But it isn’t really considered as a reliable source of information and knowledge, or as a professional platform where you can expand your business and help it ameliorate.

This can hopefully be fixed if we introduce this new useful kind of Social Media to the region by teaching students from an early age how to navigate and communicate online, till a point where it becomes a natural habit. They’ll tend to distinguish between useful trusted informative news feeds and random rumors, enhancing their ability to grasp the authentic and necessary information in a quicker way. In addition to the fact that they no longer will have to carry paper works and write pages and pages by hand, they’ll just have to submit their work online or save it on their

All in all, the whole reform of the educational system in Lebanon is not on the table these days, well in fact I don’t know if there’s a “table” to begin with with this entire ongoing regional crisis. This project would require a good amount of money from the Ministry of Education to optimize classrooms and provide tablets, which is quite unlikely in the near future. As for the private schools and educational institutions, this reform could be initiated right away, but there’s another problem: this process needs teachers who are well acquainted with social media and the internet, which is not likely the case in most of the schools.

Some computer and communication courses would come in handy here, and I’m sure that once the teachers get familiar with it, they would want to apply it to their work because of its huge advantages and easiness. Well, I’m really optimistic about this, but in the end everything starts with a bit of hope.

COVER FEATURE Blog of the Month: Miss Farah

By Paul Gadalla

CLOUD #6 November 2013

Professionals in Lebanon Need to Learn Social Media before Executing

@paulinbeirut

Overview of Marketing 227: Digital Social Media Management Course at AUB

By Dalia Ramadan, PR Manager, AUB's Online Collaborative @dalia813

Most children tend to think that their teachers are drab adults out to make their lives miserable while they count the days until summer comes.

Yet Farah Ghazale’s blog, Miss Farah, drastically changes that image. Both a schoolteacher and blogger, her popular blog brought social media into the classroom, and the classroom into social media. Using her blog to show the newest teaching techniques, parents and educators alike are given a peak into Farah’s activities in the classroom as well as all the new information she finds for educators.

You’re one of the few educators in Lebanon to be on social media, what made you jump on the blogging bandwagon?

After several years of teaching, I felt that I had so many ideas to share with teachers, parents, and students. Since blogging is now popular I thought of creating my own blog. I called it Miss Farah. It was a risk for me to take because you don’t see a lot of teachers blogging, so I wanted to be one of the first ones in the Arab region.

When I started blogging, I wanted to write about my daily life as a teacher to show readers what I experienced daily. I also wanted to show the world that teaching is not a routine; it is actually fun. So I started blogging after I already had 3 years of teaching experience.

Do you think other educators should blog?

I definitely think other teachers should blog.

People nowadays are so involved in technology and spend most of their time browsing on the internet. Blogging helps working mothers or fathers to check on their children’s daily activities in the classroom and communicate with the teacher. Parental involvement is very important. Teachers from all over the world can also benefit from one another where they can share new methods and ideas in teaching.

How do you think social media can contribute to education in the classroom?

I’m going to talk about my case. Note that I am primary teacher and my students are only 6 and 7 years old. Social media in my classroom was a big success. My students love my blog because they look forward to seeing their activities there and to show their parents what they have been up to, especially when I choose the healthiest lunchbox of the week and then they go home and look forward to seeing their lunchbox online. They get so excited about it. I also started a new online educational website for students only called Brainy where students can play educational games on it like practice spelling, math, science etc... I created this extra

website for the students only. I felt that my blog and the educational website made a difference in my student’s lives because they feel that I am doing something special for them. So that’s how social media was used in my classroom.

How would students’ parents react to your blog? Any negative feedback?

My goal in blogging was to find a way to makes things easier for the parents and get them more involved. Many parents love the fact that I have a website and they look forward to reading new posts that I write. Most of them email me and ask for advice especially working mothers who cannot be available during school hours. My students’ parents appreciate the fact that I show a lot of care and that I am so passionate about teaching.

Will the blog continue since you now moved to a new country?

2013 was my last year in my teaching career because I feel that I have achieved my goal and made a difference in so many of my students’ lives. It is time for me to choose a new path.

However, my blog will definitely continue. I have worked on it for so many years and it will not go to waste. It will be used as a reference for other teachers and a nice memory for my former students whom I miss so much.

Nothing says “social media and education” better than a very class dedicated to digital marketing. Digital Social Media Management, better known as MKTG 227, is a marketing and information systems concentration course taught by Mrs. Leila Khauli Hanna at the Olayan School of Business in the American University of Beirut. The MKTG 227 course emphasizes the importance and relevance of using social media strategically in a business context by mastering aspects such as content creation and analytics.

In just the past few years, social media technologies have not only been transforming societies, but businesses as well: changes have been made in the way a firm functions and interacts. For this reason, offering a course like MKTG 227 in a university is essential for the business students of today.

Education on social media in the business world is needed to effectively adapt a firm’s strategies to the new collaborative nature of the customer-company relationship made possible by social media. Companies with experts in social media gain the opportunity to create fans, become customer centric, and generate new revenue streams, just to name a few advantages.

In Lebanon especially, businesses are racing to embrace online presence, yet not many seem to yield much from it.

The problem is that social media is approached in the same way as a New Year’s resolution; the idea is nice but there is no commitment or organization. Such businesses benefit from students (like myself) taking MKTG 227 to help them actually manage social media under an action plan that would generate the greatest return on investment.

As a student currently enrolled in MKTG 227, I can confidently attest that the course’s strengths stem from its execution: students don’t just learn, but apply and interact in real time.

Communication occurs via twitter, where students – current and old – share and discuss points about social media in digital businesses under the hashtag #mentoringsm.

Learning objectives are explored and answered on Learnist – a Pinterest for education – where students can contribute articles, infographics, and other forms of information to specific ‘boards,’ such as ‘Facebook Analytical Tools’ or ‘Social Media Crisis Cases.’ Finally, different online analytical tools are measured on Lebanese celebrities and businesses, allowing students to analyze the influence and effectiveness of social media use in real-life contexts.

For me, one of the most important aspects I am taking away from this course is building my own online presence. Mrs. Khauli creates assessments and projects on the basis of providing students with the chance to promote themselves by displaying what we’ve learned and how we’ve applied it. MKTG 227 encourages and inspires me to establish my personal social media strategy. I’ve learned to think differently and communicate creatively. In the new era of social media, the best opportunity a class can give you is the opportunity to brand yourself.

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COVER FEATURE

Fifth Arab Social Media Report

Transforming Education in the Arab World: Breaking Barriers in the Age of Social Learning

By Nadim Frenn, Member at Large, AUB's Online Collaborative

@NadimFrenn

For the fifth edition of the Arab Social Media Report titled “Transforming Education in the Arab World: Breaking Barriers in the Age of Social Learning”, the Dubai School of Government conducted a regional survey with around 4000 participants.

Fadi Salem, co-author of the report, said: “Education is one domain where social media has become widely institutionalized with a critical mass of Arab users.”

Indeed, more than half of teachers surveyed said they use social media as a teaching resource, most of them using Facebook or Google+ groups in which students could participate in discussions, share additional information about a class topic or ask questions.

Other social networks such as Twitter, Youtube and LinkedIn are used in classrooms for educational reasons.

A part of the survey reveals the number of Facebook users in the Arab world has tripled in the past two years, from 16 million to 45 million. Students and youth (between the ages of 15 and 29) make up about 70 per cent of users in the region. Arabic language continues to be the fastest growing language on different social media platforms globally.

The results clearly show a high level of agreement among respondents on the advantages of social media for education in several areas: positively impacting student performance and teacher quality, promoting knowledge and skill sharing; enhancing students’ competencies, providing access to information and remote learning possibilities, creating better educational opportunities for students with special needs, collectively engaging students, parents and teachers, and reducing the time and cost of educational processes.

The survey shows as well that social media is perceived to be useful for educational issues resulting from special needs. A majority of responders find that the social networking technologies help integrate students with disabilities and allow them to be more expressive and interactive.

And because of the situation in the Arab world, a large percentage of people who have witnessed conflict in the past two years in the Arab region – and consequently have had their schooling or their children’s schooling interrupted – believed that online resources would be helpful in catching up on lost material and classes. They also viewed social media as a potential enabler for class-like interaction, collaboration and information flows between students and educators.

However, this highly positive perception was tempered with a counter perception towards potential negative uses of social media in educational environments. Half of the teachers, parents and students surveyed agree that using social media in the classroom creates distractions for student, preventing them to focus on the class material. But also, the use of social media between pupils will increase opportunities for students to engage in inappropriate activities such as online bullying, harassment, etc.

CLOUD #6 November 2013

COVER FEATURE

AUB’s Online Collaborative Teaches Social Media and Technology to Senior Citizens

By Nour Rifai, Vice President, AUB 's Online Collaborative @nourrifai Do your parents ever ask you how to use Facebook or even how to create a Facebook account? Were you ever asked by an older relative what’s the use of Twitter? Does your grandma think that the computer is evil and that nothing beats reading a good old book? And do you ever wish those older people knew more about technology so that they’d understand that this is how today’s world functions?

Because if you do, you should advise them to register next semester to one of the courses that AUB’s Online Collaborative has been offering in partnership with the University for Seniors at the American University of Beirut for three years now.

The Online Collaborative found the secret recipe to teach senior citizens how to use technology; they understood that it was time for the younger generations to help the older ones and teach them about these new phenomena. The courses are thus given by volunteers; students who have decided to contribute to making the Lebanese society better.

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teaches the class with Luluwa Kallash, said this is the first time he’s seen seniors this excited to learn about new media.

The course material also covers blogging and how to upload photos and check privacy settings. Four out of the six sessions in the class are hands-on training; the remaining two are question-and-answer sessions.”

The University for Seniors is a new life-long learning initiative at AUB, the first of its kind in Lebanon and the Middle East. It gives older adults (who are 50 and above) the opportunity to share their wisdom and passion, to learn things they have always wanted to learn in a friendly academic environment and to interact socially with other seniors, and AUB faculty and students.

Today’s seniors want to remain intellectually challenged and socially engaged, actively contributing to their community. Our seniors are accomplished, energetic, sociable, and generous. They have valuable life and professional experiences to share.

During the last 5 semesters, several courses related to technology were and still are given. This semester, the Online Collaborative is giving two courses. The first one is called “Social Media for Beginners” and it is basically for people who want to learn about social media and social networking sites. The material of this course emphasizes the proper usage of social media and a discussion on the importance and drawbacks of such tools on society. It covers a basic introduction of how society is utilizing social media and using Facebook and Twitter. The second course that is given this semester is “iPad for Beginners”. In previous terms, “Basic Computer Literacy” was taught by volunteers from AUB’s Online Collaborative, as well as “Social Media Troubleshooting” and “Technology in Health and Medicine”.

The seniors who are taking these courses are admitting that they are truly benefiting and most of them end up taking more than one course. This story is a great example on how a small group of people with a specific target can ameliorate the situation of its society without any governmental interference or even money.

For this genuine initiative, the Online Collaborative got a feature on Mashable last year: Beirut Social Media Class a Hot Spot for Senior Citizens. “Former club president Mohammed Hijazi, who currently co-

If you would like to know more information about the University for Seniors, check out this website:

http://www.aub.edu.lb/rep/cec/uni_seniors.

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App Review: Lumosity

By Lynn Bizri

@lnlne

The Lumosity app from Lumos Labs started as a web-based braintraining program, and was the number 1 Apple App Store education app in nearly 40 countries, receiving more than 25,000 five-star reviews.

The app, which aims to improve the brain’s potential through ‘scientific brain workouts’, walks users through a series of questions to determine the kinds of mental improvements (goals) they are hoping to achieve. The options include: lose fewer objects, remember peoples’ names, learn new subjects quickly, avoid distractions, and several others. These goals determine which kinds and how many games can be played per day. However, once set, they cannot be changed.

The games are all beautifully designed; however, some are more mentally stimulating than others. One that I found most stimulating was the Memory Matrix game that requires the player to remember which tiles appear in the matrix and then repeat the pattern from memory. The number of tiles increase and remembering their placement gets harder as you progress through the game. Another game I found stimulating was the Chalkboard Challenge, in which you have to rely on mental math to quickly solve two equations and choose whether the answer of one equation is equal to that of the other.

The app allows users to set reminders, so you can be prompted to play the games on the days of your choice. Unless you have a subscription, you are limited to 3 recommended games (out of five total), which are meant to train one of five core cognitive functions: working memory, flexibility/agility, attention span, problem-solving, and processing speed. With a paid subscription of $14.95/month, however, you can increase the number of games to five per day, increase the range of games and even access charts that track your progress.

Pros: • Diverse games that target mental health and wellness • Short, engaging play sessions Cons: • You can’t change goals after the initial setup • Does not sync well with Web account

CLOUD #6 November 2013

ON THE CLOUD

CLOUD #6 November 2013

we have the most interactive and loyal readership in lebanon

@ragmaglebanon

ragmagmagazine

ragmag

RAGMAG It’s Your Magazine! www.ragmag.co

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CLOUD #6 November 2013

Tweep Gets Shot in Hamra after Political Celebration

Bayan Bibi: After getting hit by a stray bullet and punctured lung, I am starting a social media campaign to promote positivity.

Editor’s note: Bayan Bibi is showing the world that she is still very strong despite all

that she has gone through. She engraved the bullet that shot her and punctured her lungs just a few weeks ago while walking in Hamra and wears it proudly around her neck: A true act of courage and bravery. Instead of blaming her shooter or his political party, she is urging everyone to be positive and not hate. She has planned out a social media campaign and a web-series to spread her message. Here is her story as told by her!

31/9/2013 Lebanon – Beirut

While people were celebrating some political thing, a stray bullet raced through my back while I was walking with a friend in Hamra Street. It shot through my lung and it jammed itself between my 3rd and 4th ribs.

I was rushed to the emergency room at AUBMC. There, they discovered the damage that was done and diagnosed me. They were forced to pierce my lung and introduce a drainage tube to remove the water and blood which was filling it. I was in a critical state.

While I was in the emergency room, I wrote this on Facebook: The media began to talk about it from televisions to radio stations. However, when I saw how some began to use this incident to blame others or to begin spreading negative energy and hate, I quickly decided to write the below message on Facebook.

People began to ask inquire about the situation; friends, family, and a lot of other people who I don’t know personally. Some messages touched me like: Reem Khouri – Aramex (Jordan)

The media started to understand. I stayed in the hospital initially for four days, and then I went home to rest and heal enough to be able to undergo surgery for ten days.

During that time people and media kept on talking about what happened, positively.

After that, I entered the hospital again for a surgery to remove the bullet. It was really tough, but because great people were around me I felt less pain. I really felt blessed by all these amazing people around me. I have learned a lot from what happened and I decided to show what I learned to the world.

Amer Tabsh – Future TV

My plan is to create an online series that will be spreading positive energy and explaining how positive energy affects our lives. In every episode, will invite a different influential person like: Mr. Fadi Ghandour (CEO, Founder of Aramex). He could discuss his success stories, how he affects others in his community and how the positive energy he spreads affects him and all people around him.

The guests will be from different fields; we will be choosing the most inspiring people. They will give useful tips on how we can make our lives more positive, how we can be different yet living together, how to see the good in others, and how to treat others, tolerance, etc..

Following each show, we will have a two to three minutes cartoon animation of a character called “Bayan” which will be inspired by every subject. The show will be available with English and French subtitles.

Lilian Nemri – Actress

First I thought of creating this program and choosing a TV channel to pitch it to them, but then I thought that I don’t want it to be for a certain group and not the other. Thus, I decided to create it and broadcast it on YouTube. This way it will not be biased to any party or group and it will be more accessible and shareable by everyone.

“Bayan” will be acting as an ambassador (guardian angel) for NGOs. Whenever any NGO needs support, the character will make a product or a campaign to help them out.

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CLOUD #6 November 2013

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full attention to them, and not my own accounts.

I barely ever blog anymore because I have so much content to create on so many different channels. But I think it’s cool that whatever I write is seen by at least half a million people, even if I’m not personally getting the credit for it. I still feel pretty accomplished.

What was the most memorable social media crisis you had? How did you deal with it?

5 Minutes with the Community Manager

Liking and Re-tweeting Doesn’t Cut It! You Should be a Smart Ass!

By Darine Sabbagh

@sdarine

Community Managers are the super heroes in the shade who shadow brand pages and twitter accounts, embodying those brands and speaking to us with their voices. They are the ones who create amazing content that makes us like and share and ultimately welcome the brand to our daily offline lives. If you have been curious to know who those superheroes are, you are in luck!

Every month we will be interviewing a Community Manager, to not only showcase their talents and wits, but also let you know the real people behind the brands.

Nadine Abou Elias is under the spotlight this month.

She is probably the most interesting social media consultant to meet because she has many other jobs.

For instance, she writes for “really huge news business magazines” under a pen name and works with the coolest companies such as gaming companies and startups around the world. As most digital marketers, she started off in a completely different field. Pre-med in Boston University, switched to Sociology at AUB and ended up double majoring in Sociology and Business.

Sit back and enjoy her quirky and daring responses.

How did working in social media affect your personal social media presence?

Actually, I had to tone it down A LOT. Because I work for so many people and companies, I have to give

At E3, someone leaked a game trailer before the PS4 announcement. I had to go through thousands of twitter accounts trying to find the guy that posted it. Either I worked really fast, or just got really lucky – but I managed to physically hunt the guy down and make him remove the trailer before it went viral.

Share one tip you would give to other brands on social media.

Don’t be ON social media for the sake of being on there. That’s like talking just to hear your own voice when you speak. Either do it right, or don’t do it at all – because doing it right is easy as pie!

What is your favorite social media network at the moment and why?

Imgur. People there are so intelligent and witty, and just plain hilarious. The ‘hipsters’ just get lost in the crowd and the really awesome people get to stand out. I get a lot of feedback from random things I post on there. A lot of it has made it to the front page, so it gives me an idea if a campaign is going to be successful or not. Plus, the cat gifs make me lol so hard.

What do you think makes a community manager successful?

When they’re witty. Silly smiley faces and just “liking” or re-tweeting doesn’t cut it. I’ve been quite a wiseass on social media with my clients’ accounts, and I encourage people I consult to do the same.

For a music related start-up I work with, someone once tweeted “If x finds this tweet, I will buy a 5 year subscription. But they won’t, because they suck.” Well, we found it, and we tweeted back: “We’ll let you off with a one year subscription. MasterCard or Visa?”

Content creation is probably the hardest thing in social media, how do you approach this?

Plan ahead. Seriously, content calendars are the best.

If you know where your business is headed, then you should know at least a month in advance what it is you want to post or write about.

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Come on... No one has writers block for a month!

If you could work with any brand in Lebanon what would it be?

Hahaha, I’m such a sarcastic lady that I don’t think any local brand would allow me to do their community management for too long. I’m actually trying to get big companies to focus their social media markets on Lebanon. I think they’re missing out on how many people they can reach if they give Lebanon (among other countries in the MENA) individual attention.

Can you name 3 AHA moments you have had lately in relation to community management?

My biggest “Eureka” moment is when I figured out that it’s more than okay to be a wise-ass. It’s actually an extremely good thing.

The second is when I realized how easy it is to manipulate Facebook ads to acquire users for any business (not just Likes for pages).

The third is when I discovered how easy it is to make something go viral through back-linking and other tricks like that.

The way people use social media is always changing what are the latest trends that you have spotted?

Intelligent people don’t actually interact with brands on Facebook unless the brand itself is intelligent, because they know how Edgerank works. Facebook is also changing Edgerank gradually to assure that brands have to spend certain sums of money to keep their engagement up. I honestly could not care less, because I see Facebook as a billboard and tell my clients to do the same and focus on other means of communication. But Lebanese business owners seem to think that Facebook is the almighty lord of social media, which is kind of just silly in my opinion.

What is your most memorable interaction with another brand?

I was at the Hyatt in California, and tweeted how great the service was, but I was disappointed that there was no grilled cheese sandwiches on their menu. I didn›t even tweet THEM. I just tweeted as a joke to my followers.

Twenty minutes later, room service brings up a grilled cheese sandwich and a spa certificate with a note that says “We got you covered. Keep being awesome ;)”. I swear I thought it was so cool of them, I squealed. nieces over how to change Facebook passwords.

My mom’s Eid evening with her granddaughter must be interrupted with the obligatory Farmville harvest break and some other game where she only gets 10 moves day. In the meantime she tells my sister to shoot a video of Clara (my daughter) to Whatsapp to my brother. My husband spends one hour ‘fixing Skype” on my mom’s phone and tablet and making sure her friends “receive all her Whatsapp messages”. I hide and pretend I am not into technology.

#SMLaughs: Eid 2.0

By Darine Sabbagh

@sdarine

The digital has seeped well into all elements of our life. This month for #SMLAUGHS I will tell you about my Eid 2.0, let me know on twitter if my family has completely lost it, or is this is the new normal.

My Eid 2.0 begins with a mini photo-shoot as 4 phone cameras went click click click at us. Who do those cameras belong to? My mom, dad, sister and husband.

When asked why can’t they just take photos with one camera in my household, my dad replied that no one

shares their images, they just hog them to themselves.

The Eid feast also starts with a screech. I am no longer the only weirdo Instagramming meals, my cousins and aunts are actually the one to yell STOP at my dad before distributing the food to dishes. We can only start our meal after a quick photo-share. At least 40% of our conversations were about who posted what on Facebook.

We visit the in-laws. A photo taken in Beirut and sent to my mother in-law gets Whatsapped to her all the way to Australia and uploaded as her profile picture within seconds. What follows is a 30 minute Skype call with the whole family. My father in law tells me all about Candy Crush Saga. My Husband spends two hours consulting

Next day we go to lunch with the family to an internet free zone, Wadi Jhannam, before getting seated in the restaurant the 20 people group breaks up to mini-photo shooting, mass-selfie creating groups. And thirty minutes after we cross back to wifi availability I find myself tagged in over 40 photos, twenty of which are of my 7 year old niece who just decided to tag everyone who was there in each of her photos to get more likes. These likes and comment notifications are still biting me in the a$$.

Does that remind you of Eid with your family?

ON THE CLOUD

What Lebanese Brands Need to Know About Social Media

By Mohammad Hijazi, Editor in Chief

@mhijazi

The Lebanese are perhaps the best people when it comes to adopting a new technology or trend. This has been evident lately in the use of social media in business. Although this move is considered to be late in comparison to the West, Lebanon and Jordan are the pioneers of this social revolution in the Middle East, especially in business.

However, whenever the Lebanese get their hands on a new toy, they become very “creative” and try to abuse that tool until it cannot breathe anymore.

I’m just going to speak about a few misconceptions and tips about social media and how it applies to the Lebanese businesses.

SOCIAL MEDIA IS NOT A FAD

A lot of Lebanese brands think that social media is a fad, that it is a one-time thing that they have to implement and it will eventually go away. They think it is a one-time campaign; they will pay a couple of hundred or thousand dollars and that’s it. Well, let me tell you this: Social media is not going away anytime soon. So you guys better integrate its costs to your long term budget (and yes, I said costs, because unlike what you believe, it is not free – I will be discussing that in the next part). Social media is not social networking.

Facebook and Twitter might be the “big thing” right now, but they might fade out soon to new tools. Social media is the future of communications and business because it’s fast, direct, accessible, cheap and popular.

SOCIAL MEDIA IS NOT FREE

I have been approached by several Lebanese companies to work as their social media manager, and most of them think that social media is free, it does not incur any costs, and therefore they don’t have to pay me a decent wage, because social media is play, something that I can do out of bed or in the shower.

What they don’t know is that there are a lot of costs associated with social media, especially that, unlike what they believe, their marketing departments are not qualified to do social media because they still have the traditional way of thinking about marketing: the “shine and polish our brand name and ignore complaints” approach, but we’re coming to that later.

So what costs are associated with social media, you ask? Well, aside from the obvious hardware and internet costs, social media needs a lot of preparation and strategic consultation. Before deciding to go online, companies need to do a brand audit and perfect their existing brand because if there is something wrong with it, there is no point of going

online and getting bashed or whipped by the online community’s negative reviews. So fixing the brand is a must before deciding to go online.

Another cost is training, and yes I said training. You cannot just give candy to a 12 year-old to post your mission statement on twitter. Employees should be trained to professionally use social media and represent the brand professionally online. Shall I remind you of Gilbert Gottfried (ironic name) who got fired from his insurance company after tweeting insensitive remarks about the recent natural disasters in Japan?

Other costs includes creating content (such as videos, blogs, articles, etc..), integrating the online tools with the traditional marketing, distributing content, relationship management, measuring value and monitoring the brand online. So as you see, social media involves a lot of work and costs and should be integrated as a big part of the marketing budget.

“IF WE JUST DELETE ALL NEGATIVE COMMENTS NO ONE WILL SEE THEM”

“No seriously, I don’t think anyone would notice if we deleted those negative comments,” is a typical phrase that you hear from brand-polishing traditional marketers. Without resorting to extreme examples such as the infamous Benihana Kuwait case, I would just like to make it clear to the brands that the whole purpose of them being online is to see what people actually think about their brand and work on improving it. Deleting negative comments will not make your brand more popular, it will just piss off the complaining people and believe me, they will resort to worse measures if you keep annoying them.

My dear friend Darine Sabbagh always says: “If you screw up online, you should embrace it. Chances are by fixing a mistake correctly, your campaign might be more successful than if you had no mistakes at all.” Responding to complaints and promising better service will get the people to come back to your store again.

FACEBOOK LIKES WILL NOT INCREASE SALES

Yes, you heard me right. Social media is not here for you to make more quick cash, so if you are trying to do so, you’re doing it wrong. Having a million likes on your Facebook will not increase your sales if you do not know how to utilize them wisely. Social media is not a popularity contest. I’ve seen many companies run Facebook ads for thousands of dollars (while being ripped off by ad-buying agencies) and think that the amount of likes on their page is a measure of success. If you are not active and engaging on your page, you are not building brand equity. Brand equity and exposure are what you gain mostly from social media, and not direct increase in sales.

CLOUD #6 November 2013

PUBLICIZE SEEKING QUALITY NOT QUANTITY

“If we build it, they will come.” If you actually think that, then you might as well open your business in an igloo in the South Pole. Having a Twitter account or Facebook page is not enough. You have to get people to visit those pages. Though many companies are resorting to Facebook ads or spamming people’s inboxes, these methods are not effective because most of the likes or follows resulting from such desperate tools are either careless about the brand, useless, or irrelevant to your business. Therefore, they won’t be engaging or communicating with you or your brand and you will not be gaining anything. The best idea is to integrate your social media with your shop, store, restaurant, brand or service. You need to induce your costumers and potential customers to follow you on social media inside your store; that way you will guarantee repeated visits as well as word of mouth (buzz marketing). If you have 100,000 fans on your Facebook page but most of them do not visit your store or buy your products, then what is the point of having them?

PERSONIFY YOUR BRAND

If you think that you’ve got it covered by tweeting your mission statement and posting your discount rates on your Facebook page, then you really need to rethink social media. One of the reasons that you are online is to personify your brand and gain customer loyalty and preference. Creating useless contests on Facebook and getting people to spam their friends to like your page to win something doesn’t mean you’re actually gaining customers. Firstly, many of the people unlike the page after the competition is over and secondly, this makes your brand cheap and impersonal.

Personifying your brand means giving your brand a voice, supporting social causes online (online CSR), having an electronic heart by making your customers feel loved, and so on. Yes it will take time but it will be worth it. Don’t you wish your customers are so obsessed with your products they would sell a kidney to buy it?

In conclusion, taking on social media as part of your business in Lebanon is a huge step that requires a lot of preparation and training. Do not take it lightly. For starters, you should consider two new positions in your marketing department: “Social Media Manager” and “Online Content Manager.” You also need to choose them wisely and pay them well because firstly, they are representing your brand online and you don’t want to screw that up, and secondly, the Lebanese online community is brutal and they can destroy you.

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ON THE CLOUD

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Knowledge Sharing Through Web 2.0 Tools: All You Need To Know (Part 3)

By Maria Frangieh, DBA in Knowledge Management and Web 2.0 in HR @mariafrangieh This article is the third of a series of three articles introducing the concept of knowledge sharing through Web 2.0 tools in organizations. The first article overviewed and defined key terms. The second article discussed the relationship between the Human Resources department and Web 2.0 technologies, in addition to listing and describing the different Web 2.0 technologies. As for the last article the barriers to knowledge sharing through Web 2.0, the solutions and best practices will be elaborated.

BARRIERS TO KNOWLEDGE SHARING IN ORGANIZATIONS Benefits. Generally, stakeholders are not serious

about knowledge sharing unless they see benefits.

Organizations should explain clearly to all stakeholders how sharing information will benefit the organization and the employees on a personal level.

Silos. Organizations structure lead to the formation of silos. The different divisions in the organizations have their own business objectives which entrap them in silos.

Problem Solving. In organizations new knowledge is created through problem solving in general. The invisible link that exists between problem solving and new knowledge has an adverse link on information sharing.

Not-Invented-Here (NIH) Syndrome. This syndrome is more visible in international organizations. A majority of the projects of these organizations are not invested in-house; they are adopted from the parent organization, especially in the case of multinationals, making the knowledge sharing process very difficult.

A Voluntary Act. Knowledge sharing is voluntary, and since employees are preoccupied by their own tasks and routine activities, knowledge sharing becomes of secondary importance.

Privacy. Organizations always express their fears

CLOUD #6 November 2013

of sharing information between employees. In this highly competitive world, privacy is crucial, however with appropriate privacy and security measures knowledge can be shared without any fear.

Loss of Time. Generally the main concern of HR departments when it comes to using Web 2.0 tools at work is time management and more generally how employees will be engaged with other tasks than their routine activities, which is considered a loss of working time and inefficiency at work. The majority of companies use a radical solution, banning online Web 2.0 tools that are external to the company; employees have no access to the internet anymore, or limited access to some websites. Organizations have realized that social media is here to stay and that banning the access to such websites is not an appropriate solution since their employees have access to these banned websites through their mobiles that are accessible during working hours.

GET OVER IT…

Barriers do exist in each organization. But there are always different ways to get over them.

Effective knowledge sharing. Organizations should encourage effective knowledge sharing practices.

When organizations include knowledge sharing in their strategic objectives, knowledge will represent an essential interest to the organization; therefore knowledge will be more visible and easily accessible to employees in order to comply with the strategic objectives.

Reuse existing knowledge. Stakeholders in the knowledge management process in the organizations should be encouraged in order to reuse existing knowledge. Such practices allow employees to be more efficient and productive. In this case, the middle management plays a crucial role.

Organizational structure. Organizations could benchmark organizational best practices to develop a structure that encourages knowledge sharing.

Collective problem solving. Collective problem solving requires communication between the employees and information sharing. When organizational management uses collective problem solving a stronger link is built between knowledge sharing and problem solving, which will also lead to

additional social interactions between the employees.

Employee motivation. Motivated employees share information in an easy way. When the management recompenses the employees for sharing knowledge, employees will be encouraged to share knowledge.

Social interaction. Employees tend to share more knowledge when they socialize. Encouraging employees to take lunch breaks in groups, small gatherings outside the workplace, teambuilding activities; all improve social interaction between employees.

Trust your employees. After all you selected them!

Employees need to feel that they can manage their own time when at work, they need to feel in control of their own routine activities. When employees know they will be assessed for their performance, being able to access social media during work hours will not jeopardize their routine activities, on the contrary it might be an incentive for them to develop new habits and perform their tasks faster.

BEST PRACTICES

Alcatel-Lucent began using social media in their organization in 2008. The organization had already blogs, wikis, forums and SharePoint internally, but wanted to develop its social networking environment.

They introduced Ask@Ben, a system that allowed the employees to interact with the CEO. This microblogging experience made employees more familiar with new Web 2.0 tools to communicate and collaborate with each other from one side and with the management from another side. Further tools were introduced afterwards such as an internal Youtube and a social business platform Engage (Jive).

A support system was also created to facilitate and support the process. The process’ outcomes were the following: over 60,000 workers now have a profile and 25% of them are regularly active, 6% of users are contributors. These percentages are substantially high in businesses. The different tools are used for research and development, project-based groups, cross-organization special internet groups.

We are now witnessing a new era in the business world where online technologies are gaining importance in the workflow. Web 2.0 technologies allow a more efficient knowledge sharing process throughout the organization and make the outputs more visible.

Five Posts on Social Media that will get you 100+ Likes

By Lynn Bizri

1

@lnlne

Skin- Baring Photos

Whether half-naked, bikini-clad or flexing six-pack abs, like it or not, it’s a fact: more skin = more likes. We humans are simply visual beings. Do not despair, however, there are many ways to a get 100 likes, and not all of them involve shedding a piece of clothing.

2

Cute Animals

If you run through your feed on any social media platform, you can bet that it won’t be long before you hit a photo, status, tweet, or video that contains a cute animal in some way. Whether it’s the hilarious lolcat memes or our beloved Boo, you’re pretty much heartless if you’re not tempted to hit that ‘Like’ button.

3

Food

You are all familiar with the mouth-watering (and sometimes not so mouth-watering) photos of food that have saturated social media and earned the hashtag #foodporn. While we all enjoy liking, sharing, and talking about food, make sure your food is postworthy. If we can’t tell what you ate, we don’t want to see it.

4

Milestones

5

Food for Thought

Got married, engaged, had a baby, celebrated a birthday or an anniversary? Now it’s time to share it with the online world, and make sure everyone sees and likes your photos, videos, and statuses that are flooding the news feed. Don’t forget to add the life event to your timeline!

All it takes is posting something that 100+ of your friends can relate to and voila, you have 100+ likes.

The more original and to the point the content is, the better; personal opinions/views on current happenings, news and events are always refreshing to read. Do not, under any circumstances, however, post cliché quotes, NO ONE likes those.

ON THE CLOUD Social Media Detox

By Paul Gadallah

@paulinbeirut

To delete your online presence or not? That is the question. With Facebook alone having over a billion users, social media has become a staple of our lives.

People now have a huge online footprint, often having profiles on popular social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Tumblr, Pinterest, Path, GetGlue, Instagram and the list is slowly becoming endless.

And if you have a business you will definitely need to be on at least one social media platform to get your name out there or consider yourself doomed. Literally almost every action we take, from eating out, to going to a mall, switching jobs, to watching a TV show is now documented online for the public to see. It seems we are now at the mercy of social media and let’s face it, even when out with friends you can’t but help check

your smart phone at least once to see if you got a notification.

With social media becoming a huge part of everything we do, it was only natural that there would be a backlash. It was only just last month that popular Hamra pub and resto, Bedivere became famous for giving people a discount if they all put down their phones. Other restaurants have followed suit, pushing people to actually socialize in real life and not just on the Internet.

Increasingly there are people removing themselves from the social media world for a number of reasons, from fears of privacy to wanting deeper connections in real life. A former tweep who wished to remain anonymous deleted her Twitter as she put it “I felt like, a false sense of friendship and like my life was partly fake because people aren't really honest online.

They say whatever is popular. Even with Facebook, I'm better without it. Last week we were out. I forced everyone to put their phones in my purse and it was great. We had more fun than we had had for a long time”.

Fellow contributor Lynn Bizri had her share of social media detox as well. Here’s what she had to say in her own words: My social media detox began the day I realized the Internet had taken over my life. I knew something was wrong when I couldn’t spend a day without checking Facebook and Twitter several times an hour, and when the first thing I did in the morning right after opening my eyes was reach over to my phone and check all

An Apple a Day Brings Burberry’s CEO its Way

By Sarah Sabbagh

@sxs05

In the latest breaking news from the tech meets fashion world, it has been confirmed that Burberry’s CEO, Angela Ahrendts, is moving to Apple to head its online and offline retail operations. While this move might be interesting it comes to no surprise that Apple is hiring people from the fashion industry. As the “who makes the coolest gadget” wars between major players like Apple and Samsung continues, fighting to maintain status as the most fashionable phone has drawn in the unavoidable collaboration between the geeks and the chics.

This latest hire has been dubbed Apple’s CEO Tim Cook’s best decision yet as Ahrendts success at making Burberry’s revenues triple over the course of her 7-year reign is solid proof of her abilities. Ahrendts took over Burberry at a time when the luxury brand was facing its largest image crisis and successfully transformed the then failing luxury house into the UK’s largest luxury export according to the BBC.

Ahrendts will also be bringing along her social media and tech talent; the former CEO can be credited to the Spring/Summer 2013 teaser video that featured Romeo Beckham for Burberry that went viral. Clearly she is a woman that is not afraid of technology and according to Forbes.com “under her watch, Burberry’s stores have made huge strides in customer experience, with intelligent use of data.” In a statement following the announcement, Cook said: "She shares our values and our focus on innovation, and she places the same strong emphasis as we do on the customer experience."

Ahrendts won’t be the first from the fashion industry to join Apple. Paul Deneve, former Chief Executive Officer of Yves Saint Laurent was hired just three months ago for some “special projects”. In any case having Ahrendts on board seems to be a very smart move on Apple’s part to keep its brand and products on the forefront of innovation, design, unique customer service and experience.

CLOUD #6 November 2013

my notifications. My mom was calling me an addict and my phone just simply never left my hand. That’s when I decided I direly needed a break from social media. After informing my friends and followers of my decision, I deactivated my Facebook account, logged out of Twitter, removed all my social media apps from my phone and gave myself thirty days to go completely offline. Although I only lasted ten, I did learn a lot from the experience. The detox helped me see how precious my time was, how much of it I was wasting and how much more productive I can be. It also enriched my time spent with family and friends who no longer had to compete with the device in my hands. Surprisingly, I also noticed that I felt less anxious than usual, probably because of the absence of those notification alerts that would constantly send me scurrying to check my phone or computer. I can’t say that I was fully cured of my addiction, however my time spent on social media platforms did decrease and I do my best to prioritize face-to-face interaction. Who knows though, it may just be time for another detox.

Yet, even with all the negatives there are still positives.

As my friend put it “I just couldn’t stay off Facebook.

I kept realizing how many people I would lose touch with.” And I for one concur. As I live between New York and Lebanon, Facebook has helped me keep in contact with many friends while Twitter has helped make new ones. In the end, it is about moderation: Social media should help you connect with people but it should not replace your social life.

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ON THE CLOUD Piotr Yordanov: Start-ups in Lebanon Lack Maturity and the Online Community is Full of Hate

Inspirational People from the Lebanese Online Community

by Mohammad Hijazi, Editor in Chief

@mhijazi

CLOUD #6 November 2013

At this point, my previous failures taught me how to release websites, design them, define, find and build products, handle customer support, and sell products.

I was confident that I can invest my own money to solo-found and bootstrap Beepl.

How does it feel to have a failed start-up and what have you learned from the experience?

As I said, I have failed 4 times so far. It doesn’t matter how many times I failed. In the valley, the question asked is always “What next?”

Our Draper U daily oath says: “I will fail and fail again until I succeed”.

And in the words of Churchill, “Success is moving from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm”.

I don’t have business success yet, but I have enough business failure to turn my next startup into a success. And this was only possible because of my previous failures.

Fail fast, fail cheap. And for those of you out there who see failure as being “3ayb”… no comment.

What is Draper University and why did you want to go there?

In an attempt to promote inspiring stories about people from the Lebanese Online Community, we, at Cloud961, have decided to dedicate a monthly column to interview an inspiring figure that has left a mark in the Lebanese online sphere. For your suggestions for this column, feel free to email me on mhijazi@cloud961.com.

Piotr Yordanov is a Lebanese (with Russian origins) software engineer who graduated from the American University of Beirut. He is an entrepreneur who writes code, does web design and creates musical art. Piotr co-founded Baytbaytak, the first MENA map-based real-estate website and is currently founding Beepl, a tool to bookmark people and organize them across social networks. Piotr is now participating in the Draper University fall session in California after he crowd-funded his tuition money in order to attend it.

Tell us about the experience you have in entrepreneurship and why you got interested in this field.

It all started after my internship at CMU in the summer of 2011. I realized that I wanted a greater cause to fight for than having a boring day job.

I tried to have my final year project to be a startup; it failed. I tried to create a gamification app with a friend, but it failed too. I joined Anghami upon graduation in 2012, and left 2 month later. In September of that year, I co-founded Baytaytak but then left in April at which point I joined a San Francisco based startup and moved there but had to leave for the core was not what I’m best at.

DU was created by Tim Draper, an insanely influential and successful venture capitalist in the Valley whose family has been into Venture Capitalist for the past 3 generations.

I applied because I wanted to expand my entrepreneurial skills, expand my network and increase the chances of success of BeeplApp, my new startup.

What is the #IWanaBeAHero campaign and did it meet its objectives?

I invested 4,000$ from my personal savings to run Beepl. But then, I realized that I needed 8,000$ to fund my tuition and trip to SF for DU. It was twice the original budget and I couldn’t afford it.

So I started this crowd-funding campaign to raise the money. The campaign ends On Sunday 27 October, as of this writing I raised 7,200$ and still have 4 days to go.

Why didn't you use Zoomaal (a Lebanese start-up) as a crowd-funding platform but used Indiegogo instead? Do you think that Lebanese start-ups are still lacking international standards?

Even though the campaign runs for 45 days, I only had 20 days before going to DU meaning that I could only run the campaign for 20 days. Going for a fixed campaign was risky. I had to do flexible and only Indiegogo provides it. Also, Indiegogo gave me more exposure by allowing my campaign to be in partnership with Draper University.

That being said, it would have made sense to use Zoomaal to support me since I’m an Arab entrepreneur.

What are international standards anyway? Is it Silicon Valley? Boston? NYC? Berlin? Singapour or Tel Aviv?

A start-up is 3 things: entrepreneurs, investors and the market. I think all three lack some maturity in Lebanon.

Crowd-funding as a concept has gotten a lot of criticism, especially when it is being used for

personal reasons like raising tuition money. How is it different from begging people for money?

You beg and get money for free.

You crowd-fund and get money in exchange of services you provide. I will be doing workshops, mentorship, and provide my consultancy skills etc… It’s not free money, its money in exchange of a service. Still some money comes as donation from people who want to support me to get this dream come true.

Your campaign has started off with a bang; you've reached half your goal within two days of the campaign. Why do you think it slowed off after that?

Because the high cost perks got bought on those 2 days, which is “hire my skills”. Afterwards, it was about small 10-100 $ contributions. I then had to use PR and direct sales to get the rest, basically reaching out to people outside my network.

What was the reaction of the Lebanese Online Community like for your campaign?

Hate and lack of support from many people, in particular people I worked with previously in the startup scene.

Those, who have seen and done it before, supported me, for they knew how much hate you get because the Lebanese don’t like seeing other Lebanese succeed.

What are the three most important things that you have learned at Draper University so far?

Humility, perseverance and urgent optimism.

What do you think is the hardest challenge in the entrepreneurship field in Lebanon and how can we, as a society, overcome it?

The hardest challenge is our mentality. People tend to be afraid (from bombs), selfish (how many people open source or give help/art/music for FREE?) and lack education.

Change is hard. I’m afraid I don’t know how we can overcome as a society, but I know that my job is to be the best at what I do and set a positive example for others to emulate.

What are your plans after you come back from Draper University?

I have to first fulfill the perks I offered during the campaign. The rest really depends on how good will the outcome of DU be. My goal is to pitch Beepl to Tim at the end of the program, raise money and push it to the next level: Grow the customer base and build a team to scale the process.

ON THE CLOUD

CLOUD #6 November 2013

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Social Media Changing Lives

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NGO of the Month: ACSAUVEL

Interview with Media Manager Grace Obeid

By Lynn Bizri

@lnlne

What is ACSAUVEL?

ACSAUVEL stands for the civil association for the safety of children in Lebanon, and was founded in 1979 with the aim of helping children who were the victims of war.

In 1982, it was the first center to offer specialized reeducation to special needs children from the Metn region.

Beginning in a flat in the basement of a building, the headquarters of ACSAUVEL is now a two-story building located in Tamiche, Metn and houses the administration, rehabilitation units and workshops.

ACSAUVEL is made up of two units, the Acsauvel Center for Rehabilitation and Social Insertion that welcomes 25 children from ages 4 to 18, in which individualized work is performed with each child focusing on intellectual and psychomotor development, psychological fulfillment and social integration. The second unit is the workshop and formation unit that welcomes 45 adults, men and women to engage in different workshops such as sewing embroidery, basketry and mosaics making.

What kinds of activities and events does ACSAUVEL organize?

ACSAUVEL has ongoing activities for the children and adults that revolve around sports, music and theatre in addition to annual events. At Christmas, a theatrical performance is set up by the teaching staff and performed by the students. A Christmas exhibition also occurs, where items created in the workshops are sold such as basketry, embroidery, pottery, mosaics and baked goods. In March, a professional theatrical performance takes place at the Congress Theater in Dbayeh, led by the director Rabih Freyha with the participation of the professional actor George Khabbaz. Lastly, in June, all the pupils participate in a sports day event in collaboration and sponsored by Alfa.

CLOUD #6 November 2013

What is the aim of the ACSAUVEL Facebook page?

What are the kinds of updates posted on the page?

ACSAUVEL’s Facebook page has existed for a while, but has only become recent as of lately. Before I started managing the page, it only had 41 likes and around 10 photos. Moreover, most of the likes were by friends of the organization or parents of the children. Today the page has 872 likes, and is updated weekly, with its primary focus being to gain exposure for ACSAUVEL and inform people of their events and activities. Posts are usually photos of events and activities that have happened lately and of the products made at ACSAUVEL. The page is also used to share interviews done with TV stations, which helped bring a lot of exposure to ACSAUVEL. Throughout the year, attendees of events were given cards that announced the new Facebook page, allowing them to comment online about their experience and view the photos of the events.

To try and keep the page active, I regularly post photos of our events and activities, and I also use the ‘boost posts’ feature on Facebook pages to promote our major events and statuses. I believe that social media plays a part in us reaching a wider audience and exposing the NGO to others.

What are the upcoming plans and events for ACSAUVEL?

A: The next major event that is happening is the Christmas Exhibition, which is taking place on 6, 7 and 8 of December.

The Christmas Exhibition is our main source of income, and ACSAUVEL’s most successful event of the year. Promotion of the event usually happens as early as November, and I believe this year, our Facebook page will play an even larger role in attracting more attendees. We also have plans to launch a radio and television advertisement and will soon be releasing a special magazine that celebrates ACSAUVEL’s 35 years as an NGO. You can reach ACSAUVEL on their Facebook page: Facebook.com/Acsauvel or on their website www. acsauvel.com.

Social Media and Charity Awareness: The Box Appeal

By Leen Tabbara | Treasurer, AUB's Online Collaborative @leentabbara With the academic year starting, parents worry about their kids’ tuition fees and all the supplies they need throughout the year. With Teach a Child, an NGO that aims to help families provide facilities to ensure their kids enjoy a fruitful year, Radisson Blu Martinez Beirut Hotel lunched its charity campaign; The Box Appeal. This campaign will help children with their stationery for the year. The movement started in September and ended in the end of October so that boxes will be delivered in early November.

How will this work? First, donors collect a box from Radisson Blu Martinez Beirut Hotel. On the box they will find a shopping list which includes a pencil box, pens, coloring pencils, an eraser, a sharpener, a ruler, copybooks, a geometry kit and so on to provide everything a child could need throughout the academic year. The donor buys the required items and puts them in the box and returns it to the hotel.

Then, the hotel delivers the boxes to the NGO which in its turn distributes them to as many kids as possible in Lebanon.

This activation was launched on Social Media via Radisson Blu’s different channels to encourage users to donate to underprivileged students across Lebanon.

Social Media Changing Lives Crowd-funding Now on Nawaya.org

By Cloud961 Staff

@cloud961mag

Yes, it has finally happened! You can now donate directly to a youth of your choice on Nawaya’s exciting new online platform. Simply log onto www.nawaya.org, select the youth you’d like to support, click on “Sponsor Me” and donate as much as you’d like to help them pursue their passions!

Watch the meter increase and get closer to the youth’s fundraising goal, which will cover the costs of their yearly class fees and transportation expenses.

Help Nadine cover the costs of her tuition at a local fashion design school; support Reine as she seeks funding to cover her transportation costs to her ballet class; and help Ahmed cover his transportation costs to get him to his basketball classes each week.

The Nawaya Network, founded by Zeina Saab, seeks to redirect financial, educational, and material resources from the local and international community to disadvantaged youth throughout Lebanon and the Arab world to further develop their passions and talents. All of this is done via their interactive web platform. Through several programs such as Youth Mentorship Program, Mentor and Youth Workshops, Internships and Job Placements and Community Service Programs, The Nawaya Network hopes to create an interconnected global community committed to developing the hidden potential of disadvantaged youth around the world.

For more information, check out Nawaya.org.

Lebanon’s Reforestation Initiative Goes Online

By Paul Gadalla

@paulinbeirut

Tangible environmental projects are hard to come by in Lebanon with green spaces giving way to new real estate projects everyday. Thankfully tech is coming in to play a helping hand. On a sunny Thursday at Coworking 961’s popular courtyard, The Lebanese Reforestation Initiative (LRI) launched its new interactive web platform to promote environmental awareness in Lebanon.

The LRI began in 2010 with the aim of increasing Lebanon’s forested areas from %13 to %20 by the year 2020. With cooperation from the US Forest Service, the Lebanese government, and USAID, LRI was launched. Working with different municipalities across Lebanon, the LRI has set out to protect and expand Lebanon’s forests. Part of the initiative is the launching of their new interactive web based platform. The platform’s aim is to give people a chance to interact with the environment online and highlight the major environmental problems plaguing Lebanon’s forests.

After having an all organic breakfast by new catering startup, Kitchen Confidential, guests were seated in the courtyard to be given a brief overview of LRI from its Project Managers and what the website entails. Guests were then given laptops as the website went live. LRI members came around to show guests how to use the new website. Focus was placed upon the interactive maps that show where forests are located in Lebanon, different plant and soil species, and which areas are most prone to forest fires. The website is extremely easy to use and broken into several categories related to the reforestation project . After desserts from Kitchen Confidential and free USB’s given to attendees, I can only hope LRI are successful with their project as they were with their launching.

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BUSINESS

Interview: AddBloom

By Sarhad Sarhadian, Vice President, HU Online Collaborative @sarhadsarhadian

Ghada Khoury, Senior Communications Manager: "Always Stay Connected!"

Tell us more about yourself.

I graduated in 2002 from NDU with a degree in business administration and a marketing emphasis. I have experience of almost 10 years in the communications field. I have got an extensive background in NGOs and architecture firm communications and currently I am working in social media.

Do you have your own strategy dealing with the accounts, or you always follow what customers demand?

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Samar Layoun, Co-founder and Business Developer "Time and Dedication become Effortless" Tell us more about yourself?

I am an AUB graduate and have worked as market viability consultant handling several projects. Because of my background, I couldn’t miss the opportunity of digital marketing and the need to present best social media practices to the market, thus I moved to AddBloom

Tell us more about AddBloom? When was it founded?

AddBloom is full service creative digital agency that works from setting strategies, to e-reputation, online monitoring, online activations, media planning, and day-to-day community management. Founded in 2011, AddBloom is not about one person, It’s a collective spirit that makes the company: our internal culture reflects on the quality of the service to the client.

I saw you were working on a platform called SocialBloom. What is it and what’s the concept behind it?

We set communications strategy ahead of time for every client, depending on their needs; this includes the tone, frequency of posting, the channels suitable for the business etc…

SocialBloom is a social media management and monitoring system. It consolidates multiple platforms under one interface. Most importantly, it allows you to monitor brand’s reputation and external networks and gives you the luxury of monitoring your competitors to assess the online sentiment and the online voice.

How do you deal with bashing interactive responses?

In the world of digital marketing, how difficult is it to reach the B2B market in Lebanon?

We set suitable response posts ahead of time, in case of any complaints or accusations, there will be always a set strategy related to responses and reputation.

How do you handle stress and pressure dealing with the online world?

It a very tough job to handle the responsibility of all the accounts. Where we are representing a certain company, we consider ourselves as employees in the company sitting in different offices. For example, there are many times where we have to be on time by respecting deadlines which creates some stress between us.

In your opinion what’s the best social media platform for online interaction?

Well it depends on the message. If it is for news, or launching an event, Twitter is considered the best platform. If brands want to interact using pictures, Instagram and Facebook are the considered the best. For businesses Facebook is the best platform that creates engagement.

Tell us some of the brands you work with.

We have a diverse portfolio of clients; we service top brand from automotive to banking to retail. Some of our clients are Maybelline New York Levant, KidzMondo, TSC, L'Atilier Blanc, Chateau Ksara, Atamian & TimeZone, Big Star Jeans, Bassoul Heneine (including BMW, Renault and MIN), Libanlait – Candia.

Do you often receive any criticism? How do you deal with it?

Usually we don’t get any criticism. This is because we manage client expectations and we always mention the nature of our relationship when first we meet the clients.

In your opinion what is the most engaging local brand online?

As an agency you have to understand the needs of B2B market. When businesses understand the importance and the opportunities that exist in the inbound marketing, reaching out for B2B becomes more a win-win situation. In general it’s not about how difficult or easy it is, it is about validating the reasons and finding the objectives: why and how to be online.

Where do you see the company after 5 years in this modern evolving social media era?

I see AddBloom as a boutique agency in the quality of the services and providing details. I also see AddBloom as an innovator on the development scene of social media. Currently we are working on a project that will see the light in early 2014, where the audience is global.

How are you working to be more known in the market?

We are not working on it. Our main focus is our clients being current and potential.

At this point we are not spending any energy on anything else. Actions speak louder than words.

What is your hiring strategy?

We are super selective about who joins our team, it’s about competence and credentials, but most importantly who you are as a person, and whether you fit or not in our corporate image within. I have to mention that we had 0 turnover rate within 2 years.

Tell me about a project or accomplishment that you consider to be the most significant in your career.

Establishing the success of AddBloom: AddBloom itself is the project I am most proud of. Because of this company, I discovered how resilient I can be and how much time and dedication become effortless.

In terms of engagement, I think Maybelline New York Levant is considered the best: people ask for daily advices, tips, and products to purchase. Beyond this, some of the content prepared by our team has been shared in other international Mayballene pages.

What about the team? How is the company structured?

How active are you online? What is your personal favorite social media platform?

What 3 adjectives describe the company best?

Seriously I don’t have a lot of time to spend on social media as a personal use. I mainly use it for work issues. My favorite social media platform is Instagram, since it is basic, neat and simple… and cluttered with hashtags.

Tell us an advice or a tip communications managers should follow in their everyday work?

Always stay connected.

We have a flat organizational chart which comprises of strategists, communications expert, designers, copyrighters and developer. Every single member of the team is expected to have full control of their deliverables. We also accept interns.

Strategic, relaxed and versatile.

Tell us something special about AddBloom.

We have a trampoline and guitars in our office. We also have our secret Friday afternoons and a supercool neighbor. Pets are also allowed in the office.

Recently we moved from Monot to “The Blue House” in Gemeyzeh near The Gathering. The house is more than 100 years old, which makes it a good place to work and play.

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Feeditch Launches V 2.0 with Big Plans to Bridge the Gap Between Foodies and Restaurateurs

by Darine Sabbagh

@sdarine

Lebanese e ntrepreneur A lia El Khatib noticed that she keeps on going to the same places and orders the same dishes playing it safe. Sites like Instagram offered food shots but very rarely advised if the food was good or bad and what to expect from a certain dish. On the other hand, review sites such as Tripadvisor or Foodspotting have a very limited amount of users in our region, so a search for a new great nomnom is mostly inconclusive or drives you to the same old suspects. So she set her eye on building Feeditch, the only dish specific review platform in the region, and one of the few restaurant guide platforms in Arabic providing rich and visual content.

With the release of the new version on iOS which has both Arabic and English interfaces, Alia has big plans for pilot testing the app within Lebanon. By partnering with several of Beirut’s favorite restaurants, she not only aims to build a food porn library based on seduction through the app’s first early adopters, but also wants to fuel a search engine for Beirut’s foodies. On the other hand, restaurant owners would benefit in the long run, not only from the free visibility they get as a reward for deliciousness, but also from special reports and promotions that would be built into the Feeditch business owner’s experience.

Can Feeditch satisfy all your cravings?

A New Private Funding Network is Launching for Lebanese Startups

by Darine Sabbagh

@sdarine

With the crowd-funding fever hitting Lebanon, Feena has decided to take a different direction. Instead of launching a public crowd-funding webplatform first, they are creating their own private network of institutionalized investors. Another thing that makes them different from crowd-funding platforms is their business model: they don’t take direct fees on successful raises. Instead, they will manage certain financial reporting parts of the company for 24 months. This is done to ensure that the investors are informed of what is happening in the startup and to ensure that the entrepreneurs and the investors are always in the loop of all activities.

So let’s put the numbers to the test. In a traditional crowd-funding model, if an entrepreneur raises $100,000. The competition would deduct an average 5% to 7%, giving him back around $95,000 in investment dollars.

So you have investors who would have technically invested $100,000 in cash but effectively only contributed $95,000. On the other hand, Feena’s model gives the entrepreneur gives the full amount of the 100,000 to be incorporated in the company. They then then charge 7% of the raised capital distributed over a monthly retainer fee over 24 months, in return for their professional services. This way, the fees are in a way split between the entrepreneurs and their new investors. Furthermore, as Feena is tied to the company to two years, it is assumed that they would only abet trustworthy startups with high potential to join their network, creating trust.

For more information visit feena.com

Zoomaal’s Latest Crowd-funding Projects

By Paul Gadallah

@paulinbeirut

This month Zoomaal, Lebanon’s first crowd-funding website, has a number of interesting and creative projects from across the Arab World waiting to be crowd-funded.

•MidEast Tunes - Founded in Bahrain in 2010, it is a web and mobile application to discover underground music artists in the MENA. •Project Dalala - Founded in Lebanon, it offers digital services in order to increase socio-economic development awareness.

•Ensa7ooni.com - Founded in Egypt, is a web platform where workers in services who usually do not have websites of their own get rated and connected by customers.

•The Tunisia Times - Founded in Tunisia, it would be Tunisia’s first totally online newspaper.

BUSINESS Sociatag Makes Offline Marketing via Social Networks Possible

By Cloud961 Staff

@cloud961mag

Sociatag offers a new solution for offline marketing via social networks. It allows users to directly connect and share their experiences in exhibitions, workshops and seminars with their friends, using appealing boxes that can be deployed on site. It adds a whole new dimension for the events, shops or restaurants by taking them to the online community. The Sociatag boxes are easy to install and can be fully branded in accordance to the brands’ guidelines.

Boxes can be Facebook Post Likes, Check-ins, Photo-booth or Simple Posts. They can also be linked to Twitter to post a predefined tweet, or Foursquare for checkins as well. LinkedIn boxes also allow users to follow companies, join groups, bookmark job postings or simply share posts with their network. Rating boxes are available as well to get direct feedback from users. The options are endless, and more social networks are currently being added to the Sociatag family. The registration process is simple and takes between 1 and 2 minutes for each user.

In addition to the social aspect, Sociatag offers loyalty programs, treasure hunt and gift voucher promotions for brands, all this using the same boxes that can be configured through the portal. Point collection can be as easy as swiping a simple card or tapping an NFC-enabled phone.

Sociatag have implemented the solution for STC at Gitex in which participants were able to take pictures and like STC page statuses directly using the boxes.

Each day a draw was made for the participants for a chance of winning a valuable

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smartphone as an incentive to visit the booth. Moreover, Sociatag was part of some major tech and entertainment events such as Arabnet Digital Summit, The Social Media Awards,Toyota Sandance Dubai, Forward Recruitment Forum and much more.

What Does Sociatag Bring as an Added Value?

• Makes spaces more fun and engaging.

• Increases social and digital presence of brands.

• Have better insights into businesses consumers’ behavior.

• Works on a new technological, digital concept that will develop businesses’ interactions with the customers using a multi-functional API. • Brings the best digital experiences to customers, stores, brands and event organizers through innovative and real-time digital experience.

• Increases the understanding movements, preferences and interactions gives valuable insight to engage the audience post event and help shape future events.

• Redefines loyalty programs by giving them a new social aspect, in addition to providing features that will attract customers such as reminders, incentives, live tracking and more.

Sociatag is taking part of the Web Summit 2013 in Dublin. The Web Summit is the biggest tech conference in the world, and it has selected the best 500 startups from all over the world to exhibit their startups at the Summit. And the best part is that Sociatag was voted among the best 30 startups in the world!

Find out more about Sociatag by visiting sociatag.com.

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Presella Proves the Success of the Seeqnce Accelerator Program

By Paul Gadallah

@paulinbeirut

Have an event but worried about how many people will show up? Then Presella are your guys. Being born out of the Seeqnce Accelerator Program created

by Lebanon’s first startup accelerator, Seeqnce, Presella is now more than a year old and easily one of Lebanon’s most recognizable startups. Presella is an online ticketing platform where promoters can create and manage events and give kickbacks to early bird buyers. Promoters can also crowdfund their events.

Let’s say you are throwing an event and need at least 100 people, you can easily put the event up through Presella and once a 100 tickets are sold (often at a discounted rate) the event is on. Major events such as Creamfields and Decks on the Beach have turned to Presella for their ticketing services. This month we got the chance to interview Walid Singer, the CEO of Presella, to get to know this rising startup.

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What inspired the startup?

The team got together during Seeqnce’s accelerator program, and our passion for technology, entrepreneurship and the fact we wanted to make a change was the main reason Presella was born, but the idea it self came from the frustration of promoters and artists, we knew this frustration was there because I have been doing events in Beirut for the past 10 years, and our old partner has been a bassist in a local band... And it was hard pulling out an event and making sure enough people will attend. We sought to create a start-up that would help eliminate that risk early on.

What kind of problems have you encountered as being a startup in Lebanon?

Beirut was a great start for us, its our home town, and we had enough experience here to properly align our self with great partners and create a huge impact in the short time we’v been online, the toughest part in Lebanon will always be, the investment stages each start-up will have to go through and the bumps it will face on that road, but we learned to adapt, bootstrap

and aim for higher at every turn, and since then we have sold over 300,000$ worth of tickets and have taken the Beirut market by storm.

What did you learn from the Seeqnce Accelerator Program?

Seeqnce was a great period of time where we got to learn the value of a team and the essentials of the lean start-up approach and its application.

What would you change about SAP?

Nothing really, we met great life friends there.

What does the future hold for Presella?

Presella is now taking its platform to the next level with its upcoming release of V3 - A new interface with over 10 new features and 2 mobile apps. We will also be entering 2 new regional markets with big partnerships, expecting to sell over 1 million dollars worth of tickets by the beginning of next year.

MONEY Bet of the Year: Twitter IPO

By Raghid Naimi

@raghid91

Editor's note: This article was originally written on October 20th, 2013.

I can be envied for being a financier with an enthusiasm for Social Media. Someone in my shoes not only gets to follow the online trends, but gets overwhelmed trying to understand the health of these service companies, their monetizing opportunities and growth potential compared to others in the market. Not to mention, how we can make money out of that!

We are even luckier now, since these two worlds are converging more and more, no longer restricting the financial information to the companies and their private investors. The companies’ information is becoming publicly shared with their public offerings on the stock market; which brings us to the recent hype of the Twitter Initial Public Offering (IPO).

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value below the $9.7 billion?

First, we need to admit that the market (the aggregate of investors) is the most irrational being one can come across, even more irrational than marketers, and it’s completely unpredictable. However, we will assume, for the sake of getting an approximate estimation, that the market is rational and will look for a solid base for investing in a company. So we need to see if the company has any potential for increasing its profits with time.

From what seems in the financial statements, Twitter’s net losses had been increasing. Its 2012 year end net losses added up to $79 million, while its 2013 six months ending June 30 net losses alone, added up to $69 million. Worrisome? Not really. Because a portion of the expenses that resulted in these losses were non-cash compensations to employees and Research & Development investments that are not usually expensed in valuation (Research & Development is capitalized). This being cleared up, we end up with

medium. Thankfully, he didn’t walk the talk, because any attempt towards something like that would have killed Twitter’s purpose of existence and pushed users away.

Speaking of users, everyone keeps insisting on the importance of the number of users and tweets in the valuation of social media companies, Twitter even mentioned them in the prospectus (well, who wouldn’t brag about 200 Million+ Monthly Active Users and 500 Million+ tweets per day). It’s important to note that even though the platform’s life relies solely on the number of hits it gets, the number of users is worthless to the valuation. Just like a company that has tons of coffee beans in inventory but isn’t selling them has no value until it knows how to make coffee out of these beans and sell them.

Twitter had tweeted on September 12, 2013 that it filed to the SEC for an IPO. Since then, the speculations had risen about Twitter’s valuations and potential, or whether it could burst just like Facebook’s IPO bubble. At one point, Twitter’s valuation speculations shot up to $25 Billion.

The social media companies’ ability to monetize the numbers of users they have is based on their ability to offer a good service for other companies to advertise with them. At the time of the Facebook IPO, the bust had happened because “Facebook [had] not yet been able to find an ad model to generate revenues commensurate with its valuation,” said Saikat Chaudhuri, a management professor at Wharton University. Facebook was publicly issued in a time where users were shifting to mobile and the company admitted that mobile did “not [at the time] directly generate any meaningful revenue” for it.

However, the social networking company announced an estimation of its own value beginning of October at $9.7 Billion, a number that will be merely a benchmark for what the investors will be pricing during the roadshow between October 25 and November 14 (the roadshow is a series of presentations offering Twitter stocks to investors who bid on them), after which, if all goes as planned, Twitter would start trading using the symbol TWTR on November 15 on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

On the other hand, Twitter got its facts straight and is quite aware of the mobile age its living in; the social media platform is insisting on the fact that two thirds of its revenue are generated from its mobile ads.

Furthermore, the latest acquisition it made (MoPub) is going to take it far ahead of its competition. Twitter’s Kevin Weil had noted after announcing the acquisition: “The two major trends in the ad world right now are the rapid consumer shift toward mobile usage, and the industry shift to programmatic buying.”

This was a major win for NYSE whose management said it was “grateful for Twitter’s confidence in [their] platform and looked forward to partnering with the company.”

This is a big deal since Twitter was considered “the highest-profile IPO of 2013” by MarketWatch’s Nigam Arora. The NYSE bourse had also won LinkedIn Corp, among other highprofile consumer-tech companies.

The loser was NASDAQ OMX Group who is supposedly the technology basket exchange for investors. In fact, Facebook Inc’s 2012 offering took place on NASDAQ.

Is it a good step?

Many investors are turned on by Social Media IPOs these days.

But many others have become discouraged after the Facebook IPO burst that took a year for the company to recover from. But Facebook cannot be a reference, because even though it is the closest comparable to Twitter, it still has a completely different business model. In addition, its sister company Linkedin, almost doubled in price at IPO. Despite the previous, we are forced to use Facebook as a comparable, due to the limits of the market which gives it proximity. But how would the market react to Twitter’s IPO? Would they insist on their $20 billion valuation and inflate the company stock price to reach that market value? Or would they evade this stock dropping the company’s

positive adjusted earnings and increasing profitability projections for the micro-blogging company.

Furthermore, Twitter had been investing like crazy in acquisitions. The San Francisco based company has acquired 28 companies during its lifetime from all business branches relating to its activities: SEO, analytics, databases, development, sharing, security and most importantly advertising.

In fact, out of the 28 additions, Twitter had performed 8 acquisitions in 2013 alone, among which the two latest ones were the advertising companies Trendrr and MoPub just in the couple of weeks prior to the filing announcement; MoPub will be discussed later in the article.

This means that the tactical moves done by the company are happening quickly but are making sense for a sustainable strategy; something you wouldn’t have expected from a bunch of guys who had not been serious about where to take Twitter in the past years. In fact, in 2008, when Twitter’s sources of revenue were put in doubt, the startup’s board member Todd Chaffee proposed that the company could benefit from e-commerce, noting that users can be incited to buy items directly from Twitter since they would be exposed to product recommendations and promotions through its

Antonio Garcia, a former Facebook product manager, creator and builder of Facebook Exchange (FBX: Facebook’s real-time bidding ad exchange) who also regrets blowing off Twitter in order to work at Facebook explains all about MoPub’s importance to Twitter.

He says “The MoPub acquisition allows Twitter to fundamentally change how mobile ads are purchased and places them at the forefront of how mobile, Web, and social ads interact. This makes Twitter the most interesting company in advertising right now.”

So what’s in it for advertisers?

Garcia further explains that the data collected from Twitter of your follows, tweets/retweets, web visits will be better managed than the way Facebook is handling this data. Twitter being one of the minority (Google, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook) able to gather all the data you go through on all your devices, will process it in a data-safe way on its back-end. Doing that, Twitter would reach the “unattainable Holy Grail of marketers: a permanent, stable, and immutable key that identifies everybody online, on every device, all the time.”

On the other hand, Twitter is focused on creating existence outside of its platform which allows it to become a “staple” brand. In addition of it benefiting from all data partners and more than 750,000 developers who created more than 1 million registered twitter applications so far, Twitter had brought to the team in August Jennifer Prince, former head of Google’s media and entertainment ad sales, to expand its movie and TV partnerships. Prince said: “All entertainment brands are working with Twitter,

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but they’re just scratching the surface.”

Marketers should be happy with all the work that Twitter is trying to do to offer them the best service. Facebook had not understood what game it was in, it offered ads randomly and lost major advertisers like General Motors who decided to pull $10 million in advertising from the site just before the company’s IPO. GM considered the ads to be ineffective and claimed that Facebook users are less receptive to ads as compared to more business-focused sites like LinkedIn. But Facebook has been trying to pick up last years and it was able to perform.

CLOUD #6 November 2013 restrictions.

Even though Twitter has a lot of cash on its balance sheet it seems like it still needs money for the major investments it is doing; it’s raising $1 billion in this equity offering.

To sum up, let’s go back to Twitter’s value proposition to advertisers which it explained in the prospectus: • Unique Ad Formats Native to the User Experience.

• Earned Media and Viral Global Reach.

• Advertising in the Moment.

• Pay-for-Performance and Attractive Return on Investment.

• Extension of Offline Advertising Campaigns.

Would that mean that it’s a good investment?

The rationale behind going public usually is either that the current owners want to cash out because they don’t see the possibility of generating abnormal returns for themselves anymore or because they just need to get some more money and they don’t want to add another investor on the table with his additional

Paypal, Where Art Thou?

By Paul Gadallah

@paul

Earlier this year we awoke to the great news that Paypal would finally be coming to Lebanon. Yes, we all rejoiced that finally we would be freed from the shackles of middlemen who charge exorbitant transfer fees in a nation that relies heavily on the transfer of money from abroad. Yet several months later and after a number of Arab countries already using the service, we’ve been wondering what happened to the promise of an easy way to transfer money. So what exactly did happen?

First, what is Paypal? Paypal is an e-commerce service where people can easily transfer money independently. Want to buy something off e-bay or a second hand website? Just buy the item and transfer the money via Paypal. Have a relative abroad that needs money, just Paypal them it. Starting a small business but don’t have a storefront yet, just have people buy online via Paypal.

Why do we need Paypal? In a country where money is constantly being sent around, even internationally,

Do they want to cash out? They definitely do, it’s about time. Twitter has been holding many Venture Capital firms’ money for almost 7 years now; they want a return on their investment already. But that doesn’t have to imply that Twitter is no longer a good investment. Well, it’s definitely better than the Facebook investment at the time of its own IPO. The Twitter valuation is brought down by the effect of the negative profits. But the company is still so young compared to Facebook which had $1billion in profits at the time of IPO. Twitter has a lot of potential as a

Paypal would be revolutionary and cut the costs of middle men (like Western Union) and greedy banks.

After paying an unbelievable $50-60 in Western Union transfer fees, the thought of just paying a 2-3% fee would be great, especially as the economic situation continues to worsen. Startups would get a major boost by being able to sell their products online and pay very little in costs and work with a very safe means of receiving money online.

This year Paypal announced that it would be unrolling its services in the GCC, Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon.

Currently Jordan and the GCC bask in the glory of easy e-commerce while we are still at the mercy of middlemen. So what gives? Just like everything in Lebanon, the devil is in the details. First the reasons why it took so long for Paypal to even consider coming to Lebanon is the size of the market. Let’s face it, Lebanon is not the land of e-commerce and with a shrinking economy, it did not appear as a strong enough market to warrant the service compared to heavyweights like Doha or Dubai, not to mention the poor state of Lebanese internet that shows no signs of improving.

A good amount of you will think there is also

mobile social networking company. The people there know it; they are acting on it, and will definitely reap the benefits in the future.

From a trader’s point of view, IPOs are usually a good play to make some money out of the hype.

But I am not sure if you’d be able to get your hands on some Twitter stocks during the IPO rampage on the first day; at the time of the Facebook IPO many major banks weren’t even able to get hold of some FB stocks on day one. But the biggest mystery is the week that follows the IPO and what fun might happen with the adrenaline fueled trades. From what potential it brings, TWTR price will probably be pushed up in the period following the IPO. In the end, to be objective, I’d have to go back to the Valuation Guru Aswath Damodaran (aswathdamodaran.blogspot. com) who had discussed Twitter in 3 posts on his blog. He valuated the company at $9.97 billion (a value per share of $17.36).

He considered that “Twitter can be a good trade and a bad investment at exactly the same time!”

Damodaran noted: “at a $6 billion market cap ($10/ share), I think it is a very good deal, at $10 billion ($17.5/share), I am indifferent to it, and at $20 billion ($35/share), it is a moon shot.” In other words, if the stock price is below $10 you should definitely buy, if it is more than $35, don’t think about getting near it, and you might as well short sell it. But these are still the words of an academic; the market, with all its irrationalities, can take TWTR in a completely opposite way. All we can do is wait and see!

bureaucracy behind this like everything else in Lebanon. Surprisingly it is the lack of regulation that has scared off greater e-commerce in Lebanon.

With an e-transactions law rotting somewhere in the drawers of parliament, there is very little regulation or government oversight on e-commerce. E-transactions are somewhere in a grey area which does not sound very enticing to a multi-national company that does all its business online. There is very little guarantee that the government can protect such services or give them some sort of framework to work in, not to mention that local e-payment gateways will most likely want to put up a fight against a new service that will prove to be powerful competition.

So is there any hope in sight? Egypt has also not seen the unrolling of Paypal either and many are speculating if Lebanon will get it right after Egypt.

Paypal has yet to comment on giving a specific date of when it will unroll its services here, so like many other major improvements in Lebanon, we will have to sit and wait.

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#Interesting Campaigns

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Bedivere’s Disconnect to Connect event.

So who’s ready to leave his #phone at the door and #socialize offline with Bedivere Eatery & Tavern?

This is a really interesting and cool campaign where people have to leave their phones at the door before entering, and they get a 10% discount on their bill. Moreover, this campaign has gone viral all over the world with extensive media coverage to reach Huffington Post, E! Online, Buzzfeed, Gawker and even The Ellen Show!

UN Women Search Engine Campaign

UN Women, a branch of the UN, has created a strong campaign that incorporates Google’s most popular search terms about women into posters that show how sexist the world is. A very strong message that shook the advertising field!

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Crepaway’s Tickets to Rihanna’s Concert.

The campaign is to promote the new whole burger that Crepaway is serving, where you order the whole good burger, and receive a special code to enter it on their Facebook page and you enter the draw to win a trip to see Rihanna live in Abu dhabi.

Virgin Radio’s tickets to Alicia Keys Concert In order to win tickets to see Alicia Keys featuring Jason Derulo in Dubai, all you have to do is #ilovevirginradiolebanon on any of their platforms or send them a whatsapp with the hashtag, and once virgin radio calls back, you have to answer with “I love virgin radio Lebanon” and enter the draw for a chance to win.

CAMPAIGNS 5

CLOUD #6 November 2013

Miss Diet Pepsi Arabia This competition started in September with 400 applicants and 40 girls were selected to enter the final step, and people have to go to Diet Pepsi Arabia and like the page to vote for their Miss.

The final 5 will be selected according to the votes and one girl will become Miss Diet Pepsi Arabia and win a ticket for two to Paris.

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Roadster’s Missing Date This is not a full-fledged campaign but one that deserves an “awww” moment. Roadster Diner are helping one of their teenage costumer help Karim find the mystery girl he saw at Rd on September 21st.

He wants to invite her for dinner at Rd. Roadster diner is trying to help him find her: “We believe we all owe it to him, for sake of romance!”

NESCAFÉ® Dolce Gusto® Sends Lebanese Tweeps Coffee Machines to Test

By Mohammad Hijazi

@mhijazi

NESCAFÉ recently launched its new product, NESCAFÉ® Dolce Gusto®, into the GCC market and was about to launch it in Lebanon. This is a relatively small coffee machine for the home. For this reason, it selected around 30 tweeps from the Lebanese online community to receive and test the machine and give their feedback about it on various social networks.

Below are the pros and cons of this campaign.

Pros: • Who doesn’t love free stuff? This campaign was received very well by the tweeps it concered and most of them are happily engaging with the campaign, posting photos of the machine and the

coffee regularly on social networks such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

• The packaging was customized to show each person’s Twitter profile and most recent tweets.

• The package did not only include the coffee machine but also 5 boxes of different coffee capsules to last two months.

• Each capsule box had a suggested tweep name on it to make it more engaging. For example: Have an espresso with @FidaChaaban.

• The machine is great: very simple to use and the quality of coffee it superb.

Cons: • The packages were shipped from UAE by DHL. DHL didn’t take notice that each box is intended to a different person so some people received boxes intended for other tweeps and hence the customization was useless.

• The online community management of NESCAFÉ® Dolce Gusto® Middle East did not start with the

campaign. Once the machines were received, the tweeps started tweeting to a ghost account that was not activated until days later. It is still not being managed at full force across all platforms.

• The selection of tweeps seemed a bit random, or following an old list of active tweeps. Some tweeps are not as active anymore while others who were selected do not usually interact with brands or are too cynical and will not tweet positively about the product. Choosing the people who received the product is very important and this was obviously not studied well for the campaign.

• Many tweeps were upset that they were not chosen to participate in this testing phase and tried to ask for machines. They were told that the company was out of testing machines.

• The time between asking for the tweeps addresses and time of delivery was too long; some of the tweeps thought that the community manager who was using her personal account for this campaign is a spammer.

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Beirut Marathon Association “Lebanese Flag Competition” on Facebook

By Cloud961 Staff

@Cloud961mag

Banque du Liban and Beirut Marathon partnered to launch Banque du Liban Beirut Marathon 2013 campaign “Run for Lebanon” on Thursday August 29, 2013. The main theme of this year’s Marathon is very patriotic; the Lebanese Flag.

Accordingly, Beirut Marathon Association has launched an activation campaign on its Facebook page “Lebanese Flag Competition” a month before the date of the Marathon November 10, 2013.

The competition consists of being creative with the Lebanese flag and uploading the photo to the Facebook application on the page of Beirut Marathon Association. Fans can upload their photos until the 10th of November at midnight. Approved photos will enter an automated draw that will take place on the 15th of November.

Winners will enjoy a list of great prizes include 3 Samsung 32” LED screen, 4 Samsung Audio Dock, 5 Samsung S4 Mini mobile phones, 3 Galaxy Win mobile phones, 5 Galaxy S3 Mini mobile phones.

Get Creative with the Lebanese Flag and upload your photos!

The New Renault Clio Design Competition

By Cloud961 Staff

@cloud961mag

Celebrating the Global Launch of the New Renault Clio, Bassoul Heneine and Renault Lebanon are launching a design competition aimed at inspiring and rewarding creativity, dreams, passion and individuality.

The Theme: The New Renault Clio: High on Emotion and Personally Yours The Mechanism: University Students majoring in graphic arts or architecture, designers, Renault Clio fans and the general public are invited to personalize the New Renault Clio on a full customization application, hosted on Renault Lebanon’s Facebook page, developed exclusively for the competition.

The Renault Clio Design Competition allows Fans to participate in 2 different ways:

1. Design students and professionals can download the Renault Clio package and design their Renault Clio on Photoshop, Illustrator or any other photo editing software. They later upload their design on the application.

2. Those who just love to design, can access the application interface, use the custom built design tools and save your Winning Process: All designs are moderated; and when accepted, will be uploaded to the Renault Clio Design Gallery. Participants whose designs appear in the gallery need to invite their friends to vote for them. However, the final grade is calculated based on 50% Jury Votes, and 50% public voting.

The Jury: A prominent jury will appraise the submitted designs. The Jury members are, Ms. Mia Bassoul, Marketing Manager for Dacia and Renault in Lebanon, Mr. Yann Jarsallé, Lead designer extérieur- Renault France, Mr. Patrick Boustany, principal Architect and Co-founder of AB architects, Ms. Nathalie Fallaha,

founder and catalyst behind Vit-e design studio and Alephya, Mr. Cyrille Najjar, founder of White sur White, and Ms. Kareen Andraos, Teacher of Interior Architecture at ALBA. The Prizes: 10 prizes are offered equally divided between university students / design professionals and the general public. Prizes include: Internships, Renault Clio for the weekend, iMac, Vestel android tablets.

The winning design will be printed on an actual Renault Clio and showcased at Bassoul Heneine showrooms and dealerships; and will be featured on all Renault Lebanon’s Social Media channels.

The Dates: The design competition launches on Renault Lebanon’s Facebook Page on Tuesday October 22nd until December 31st, 2013. The winners of the competition will be announced January 15th, 2014. https://www.facebook.com/RenaultLebanon

CAMPAIGNS

CLOUD #6 November 2013

EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION IS A CORNERSTONE TO SUCCESS

OUR SERVICES - Corporate Events - Social Media - Marketing - Media Relations - Digital Solutions - Creative Solutions

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TECHNOLOGY device, searching for the power and volume buttons.

The G2 is all-plastic, but nevertheless, does feel solid and well built. Then again, the 5s is the winner in that particular segment.

Can LG’s G2 Beat the iPhone 5s?

Let us start with form. The iPhone 5, and hence the 5s is the most stylish and elegant smartphone out there.

Aluminum-built, slim, sleek are the keywords to look for. HTC’s One was the only Android smartphone to come close to these standards. Our first days with the G2 did involve a lot of fumbling around the back of the

Tested: EA Sports’ FIFA 14 We went to get the new Pro Evolution Soccer, and we did. But after a few days of playing the game, we were so disappointed with this season’s iteration that we decided to go get the freshly released FIFA 14. Who are we kidding? We were going to get it anyway.

And this time around we weren’t disappointed at all.

This FIFA is a huge leap forward for EA. Why? This year’s release brings on the pitch something called realistic momentum. What does that really mean?

Players now take their time to shift gameplay and direction, speed and sprints have a more “analog” feel, and there is deeper emphasis on anticipation, be it in defense or offense.

What about the displays? The IPhone 5s still relies on the same old Retina display technology. Well truth is, Retina was once a marvel a few years back, but in the wide presence of Full HD smartphones, 1136x640 no longer cuts it. We have to mention, however, that color reproduction and viewing angles are ever so awesome. The LG G2 with its 5.2-inch Full HD (423 ppi) display clearly outruns the 5s here. To note that the G2 color reproduction is a tiny notch warmer than the 5s, but nothing really annoying. G2 all the way in that segment.

Let us dig deeper into the innards of both devices.

The new 64-bit architecture and the 2GB of RAM on board of the iPhone 5s only add to the super fast performance of the iPhone 5 (noting that we didn’t really have the chance to test the 64-bit thing). As for the G2, all benchmarking tests prove that it is the fastest on the market right now. Not a single stutter,

Beware: this new engine will make you feel like the game had become slower and unresponsive at times, reaction times being noticeably reduced. The truth is that this game will require you to react intelligently to what is going on around the pitch. The most noticeable result? Faster pace and sprints are still a valuable tool in attack, but is no longer the best approach to score a goal.

The game is sensibly more fluid and will ask of you more focus and collective gameplay. Keep the ball moving should become your motto. One thing was made a bit easier than all the previous years – and definitely easier than in PES – crossing and volleying are a tiny bit more accessible in FIFA 14.

FIFA 14 won’t satisfy all tastes. Previous FIFA lovers

CLOUD #6 November 2013

not a single glitch. Pure silky performance at its best.

Kudos to both devices here.

Now for a walk on the cameras side. The new truetone flash and the 120fps slo-mo mode are simply awesome. Even with an 8MP sensor, the iPhone 5s camera is still one of the best. The G2 has nothing to worry about in that department, even though its flash and OIS aren’t truly satisfying. We call it a draw.

What about the OS? It was time for Apple to update the aging iOS 6. And it did. iOS 7 is a far more stylish interface. It is also more minimalist and straight-tothe-point. But it still lacks some of the customizability and individuality of Android. We have to say however, that LG’s bloatware is somewhat cumbersome. And above anything else, iOS is still the king of quality apps. And apps quantity too. The iPhone 5s and its iOS 7 get our thumbs up.

Our conclusion? The iPhone and iOS 7 are a big step forward for Apple, but the overall functionality, flexibility and power of the G2 place it on top of the smartphone world.

will most probably adore it. PES aficionados will face some hard time at first getting used to its slower pace, but when their learning curve is done, they should be enjoying it to the max. You’ve guessed it by now: FIFA 14 is more of simulation than anything else.

Graphics are awesome (definitely more accurate than those of PES 2014), goal celebrations are definitely enjoyable, and the whole FIFA ecosystem is a true relief, with the built-in online squad update engine, which not only updates all teams squads and lineups, but also keep the players’ form in sync with their real life current form.

FIFA 14 is the best football game this year. But some will definitely find it infuriating. But they’ll like it. The way they do like Zlatan.

TECHNOLOGY

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Dr. cloud

CLOUD #6 November 2013

Nokia US is winning the internet not only once, but twice!

Here’s an honorary Dr. Cloud Ribbon for the following posts!

Let’s come back to our retarded sexually frustrated society and media. Star Academy Arabia are so proud of the “sex scandal” of one of their contestants – which basically consists of sporting a boner during a dance class – that they are promoting it in at least two videos on their official Youtube channel under the title: Come on LBC, are you really that desperate for virtual viewers?

Not only that, in the other video, they are proud that the other contestants are making fun of the guys hard-on, as if it is the scandal of the century. Lebanese media really needs to grow up.

As you all know (and how could you not know after they spammed us everywhere), Bedivere is a pub went viral all over the world for their 10% discount if customers left their phones before they sat down. If they are promoting this as a challenge and so hard for people to do, I have to say that 10% is not a compelling discount and they could have offered a better deal.

Dear Samsung Lebanon. There were so many things going on at the launch of the Galaxy Note 3 + Gear that you did not really have to get male strippers and pole dancers to the event. I mean, what were you thinking?

Teachers are getting creative in using the internet and using the language of the youth to connect with them. Here are a couple of examples. Not worthy of a ribbon but maybe a Dr. Cloud thumbs up! ;)

So BBM launched for Android and iOS this month and our timelines got filled with people’s pins. But you know what’s worse? People complaining about these pins. For every BBpin on my timeline, there were ten complaints (ironically from people who have downloaded and using BBM). It seems that the Lebanese pride themselves to be the hipsters of the hipsters. But what’s worse is that everyone and their grandmother thought that are being original by posting a photo of a safety pin and asking people to add them.

HAHA Lebanon! You’re so funny!

The Lebanese General Security is so delusional that they issued a statement condemning the mistranslation on the articles that say that the Lebanese passport is among the worst in the world. In fact, according to them, it is among the best.

Trying to find a job, but can’t? Why not tell your future employers that by setting your “work” status on Facebook to this:

EVENTS

CLOUD #6 November 2013

ArabNet Developer Tournament 2013/14

By Cloud961 Staff

@Cloud961Mag

After the success of its Developer Tournament last year, ArabNet announced the launch of the second edition of the ArabNet Developer Tournament this month in Beirut and traveling to 7 destinations in MENA. Developers and coders will go head-to-head in a 3-round 7-hour tournament-style competition that will determine the top 4 developers and reward them with a total of $5000 in cash prizes, in each country, as well as flight and accommodation to attend the ArabNet Digital Summit and represent their country in the Championship round.

The tournament this includes a Job Fair for companies that are looking to hire developers as 52% of last year’s participants were unemployed/students/ freelancers and 55% of participants reported being

DGTL#U Beirut returns to encourage local businesses to keep pace with rapidly evolving technologies

By Cloud961 Staff

@Cloud961Mag

Semsom Invites Bloggers and Media to Try Lebanese Cuisine with a Twist

By Cloud961 Staff

@Cloud961Mag

Since Semsom opened 5 years ago, it has been adding an innovative twist to Lebanese cuisine through its passion for the country and by inviting people to share their recipes. Lebanon is a unique mix of traditions, villages, heritage and history. A land of modernity with bubbling cities, positivism, and openness…and Semsom is also a unique mix that brings people together!

In addition to Semsom’s winning menu with traditional dishes the way grandma used to cook them and innovative new dishes created by its chefs and guests, Semsom has been cooking up fresh delights!

Semsom is taking the much-loved concept to a new level of delicious fun. Semsom now has live music and stand-up comedy on some nights and will be broadcasting famous football leagues on other nights.

Special business lunch and corporate formulas are also available.

That’s not all! Semsom has opened its Sodeco branch and launched it with a Tweet-up and Media Dinner on the 10th of October. The newest addition to Semsom’s family boasts a fresh, modern design with ample indoor and outdoor seating.

approached for jobs at the event. It also workshops for developers who get eliminated from the first round or wish not to compete to still benefit from the day and improve their skills.

What Last Year’s Winners Recommend to the Participants?

can. The challenge is great, the experience is even greater, and it will boost your development spirit and the social aspect is also great” @RoyNaufal

George Frewat

Donald Derek Haddad “May the source be with you” @DerekHaddad

“The competition was very challenging. The challenge did not just consist of the idea of using frameworks and APIs we've never used before, but also the fact that we had to complete each round against a tight time frame” @Frewat

Roy Naufal

Jad Joubran

“I tell all developers out there, new or professionals, to definitely take part of this event in any way they

“The tournament is an exceptional experience: challenging, exciting and bringing together talented developers from the region” @JoubranJad

The region’s most enthusiastic entrepreneurs, startups, investors, banking professionals, marketers and bloggers are gathering once again at the 2nd edition of DGTL#U, set to take place on November 7th and 8th, 2013 at the Movenpick Hotel - Beirut.

The event which is organized by one of the region’s leading event management companies, Al-Iktissad Wal-Aamal Group, achieved a remarkable success in its first edition which took place in 2012 with the presence of over 200 participants from 12 countries, including policy-makers and professionals from both public and private institutions.

digital power. The second day will continue under the theme DGTL#Entrepreneur - the upsurge of tech entrepreneurs, where entrepreneurs will be invited to showcase their work to digital industry professionals, venture capital funds and angel investors.

In its 2nd edition, the event will focus on two modules, whereby the first day will kick-off under the theme DGTL#Business - the digitalization of businesses in Lebanon, where marketers, content creators, agencies, brand owners, bankers and designers will meet to be inspired and unleash the

DGTL#U - Beirut features a phenomenal program with high quality local, regional and international speakers.

This year’s panels will cover topics such as ensuring digital presence, impacts of social media on the future of organizations, the effectiveness of visual content, trends and opportunities in consumer payments, financing of SMEs and means for developing resources and techniques. The event will also feature in-depth workshops about brand and blogging strategies.

More information about the event can be found at www.dgtlu.com.

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Geekfest Beirut 6.0 Dinner & Movies – A Mouthful of Fun

By Cloud961 Staff

@Cloud961Mag

Over 400 geeks, tweeps and onliners attended the latest Geekfest Beirut on October 2nd at City Mall. This event was unorganized by the Online Collaborative in partnership with Empire Cinemas, Roadster diner, Cinemacity and Fiesta Group.

Instead of munching pizza to an illegal torrent on their computer screen, the organizers took the geeks out for a socializing treat! Those who were lucky enough to grab the scarce tickets from ihjoz.com enjoyed the munchies and music at Roadster diner’s new terrace. In the meantime, the bravest and the hungriest of them faced a super-sized food challenges while tweeps stuck to a virtual food fight.

As for the staple Geekfest Talks, they covered a wide range of topics. Roadster diner revealed some of their secret figures, while food blogger Anthony Rahayel talked about his quest for the perfect burger accompanied by a tantalizing slideshow of all the burgers he has tried. Liquid nitrogen poured on stage, in a live Molecular Gastronomy show by Federico Rodriguez of the Moleculartists, and Reine Abbas animated her talk about animation elements enlightening mere mortals on how hard it is to craft them!

The most special treat of them all was an exclusive avant-premiere for Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 ten days before its official premiere.

Courtesy of Beirut Nightlife

Courtesy of Beirut Nightlife

Courtesy of Beirut Nightlife

Courtesy of Beirut Nightlife

Courtesy of Beirut Nightlife

Courtesy of Beiruting

Courtesy of Beirut Nightlife

Courtesy of Beirut Nightlife

Courtesy of Beirut Nightlife

Courtesy of Beirut Nightlife

EVENTS Loyal Customers are Always Winners with Couqley Couqley Wraps up “Trip to Paris” Campaign and Announces Winner

By Leen Tabbara , Treasurer, AUB's Online Collaborative @LeenTabbara It is great to see Lebanese businesses following the trends and integrating mass social media networks into their strategies. One of those businesses is the French restaurant Couqley which offers a great variety of food and beverages with a very sophisticated French touch. The restaurant really gave this “French touch” I’m talking about a literal meaning because Couqley decided to give to one of their customers a chance to go to Paris.

Ah, Paris! The city of Love! That is why partnering with Wild Discovery, Couqley wasn’t going to send the customer alone; they got him a ticket for

#G2ishere

LG Tweet-up to Launch G2 Phone

By Paul Gadallah

@paulinbeirut

Held at popular Gemmayze haunt, the Hangout, LG gave select twitterati and bloggers a preview of their new G2 phone. Guests were first served drinks and then a number of starters before the presentation started.

The presentation was short, simple and right to the point. The LG team went through the specs of the phone in an easy and understandable matter.

So what’s great about the new LG G2 phone?

It’s equipped with a range of new features such as a 13-megapixel camera, scratch proof glass, and long lasting battery. The most unique and innovative part of the phone is the rear key. The G2’s rear key allows you to control volume, take self-portraits (we all love selfies), and even sleep or wake up your phone.

After the presentation, a short contest was held

Bloggers Get Together 2.0

By Paul Gadallah

@paulinbeirut

We usually always wonder what our favorite bloggers are like in real life. Well thanks to the people at AltCity and Lebanon Aggregator, we got to meet face to face with Lebanon’s biggest bloggers yet again after the success of last year’s first ever bloggers get together. Bloggers across the blogosphere came under the roof of AltCity’s Mezzanine Café to meet each other, their followers, and discuss the latest issues in the Lebanese blogosphere Lebanon Aggregator is a round up of all Lebanon related blogs. So what big name bloggers were there? Strawberry Blu, Let’s Tlk About Movies, Lebanese Voices, Kell Shi and a number of new bloggers. Bloggers and non-bloggers alike got the chance to finally meet each other face to face, talk and grab a bite to eat. Lebanon Aggregator held a competition by asking three different questions on the event page: Do you think there is a redundancy in content among blogs? Should bloggers unite in certain occasions for certain causes? Should there be a syndicate of bloggers in Lebanon? Bloggers with the best answers were awarded with prizes from Phoenicia, Four Seasons, and Rectangle Jaune.

CLOUD #6 November 2013

two!

How did this go? Customers started reserving online and entered a draw to win the ticket.

They were able to reserve online thanks to ReserveOutBeirut. A final draw gathered all the finalists which were 25 random names selected by the Couqley media team. During the dinner, finalists wrote their names on a paper and added it to a bowl to ensure a fair draw.

Who was the lucky winner? With CEO Ziad Kamel, food blogger Maia Bulbul picked the name of the winner: Vicken Istanboulian. Congratulations! All the rest of the finalists went out happy as well as they got an invitation for two for dinner (lucky them I am hungry right now).

You cannot say that you do not know about the activities of such restaurants activities anymore; they’re all over social media! So make sure you follow them and stay tuned as more prizes and competitions await you!

to see who had paid attention the most during the presentation. Tweeps were asked to answer questions relating to key elements from the presentation by tweeting them. Prize winners include Najib Mitri, the man behind popular blog, Blog Baladi, and Dr. Rita El Khoury (@khouryrt) who received an LG G2 each and our very our own Mohammad Hijazi won an LG Pocket Photo Printer. Guests were also invited to try out the phone for themselves.

The event was exactly how more events should be.

They let the phone specs do the talking, keeping it simplistic. Any good piece of technology doesn’t need a long, drab presentation; it should be able to speak for itself. Yes the free food is always a great perk, but people from the tech and social media community should have a first hand look at an important device, like a smartphone, to give feedback. Although I won’t be abandoning my iPhone anytime soon, I hope more companies take a cue from LG on how to unroll new products to the public.

The event was fun and went smoothly, and I got to meet some of my favorite bloggers. I will say though that last year’s event was a bit more structured with a presentation and different bloggers speaking while this year was simpler and had a smaller crowd. Hopefully version 3.0 will be bigger and better.

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CLOUD #6 November 2013

#Sushilize at MGourmet

By Lynn Bizri

@lnlne

As an active member of the Lebanese Twitter Community, I have organized and been to many Tweetups over the past 4-5 years. While some were failures, many of them were very successful, with more than 50 attendees and very positive feedback. It can confidently be said, however, that MGourmet and Online Collaborative raised the bar with the quality of their Tweetup, which was one of the best, if not the best, many had been to. To begin with, the venue was easy to find, and is extremely original and attractive in terms of both its atmosphere and décor. Pop art inspired prints fill the walls and the entire space is bathed in a pinkish hue. The night began with tasty, fresh fruit cocktails, as more than 60 invited tweeps arrived and began to mingle. Unlike other Tweetups, not all of the faces were familiar, and it was refreshing to be able to meet and socialize with new people.

As for dinner, it started off with mouth-watering Crab and Salmon salads, followed

by MGourmet’s signature sushi pieces, which were delicious and as original as the venue, with the use of uncommon ingredients and flavors. Throughout the night, tweeps were encouraged to snap creative photos of their meals and each other in an attempt to win a Dinner for Two and ‘Sushilize’ which was also the hashtag of the event. No great meal ends without dessert, and MGourmet’s banana-filled, nutella-topped crepe rolls gave the event the sweetest ending, in addition to the Nutella jars we found in our awesome goodie bags.

If there was an award for Tweetup of the Year, MGourmet would win it hands-down; the event was flawless, the food was delicious, and the staff were great hosts, making sure everyone was satisfied and having a great time. #Kudos.

You can find MGourmet on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram under MGourmetBei.

Courtesy of Beiruting

Courtesy of Beiruting

Courtesy of Beiruting

Courtesy of Beiruting

Courtesy of Beiruting

Courtesy of Beiruting

EVENTS Wamda’s second annual Mix N’ Mentor Roadshow debuts in Beirut

By Darine Sabbagh

@sdarine

On October 2nd, Wamda’s second annual Mix N’ Mentor Roadshow debuted in Beirut with a brand new format. The event connected entrepreneurs, mentors and industry experts to share experiences and advice in a casual, high-energy setting. It was a unique opportunity to bounce ideas off of peers and industry leaders who were all gathered under one roof.

The program of the event included: •A Pitching Session •1-on-1 mentorship for growth stage entrepreneurs. Growth stage entrepreneurs who have already proven their business model and moved into the scaling phase may have the chance to participate in this a 1-on-1 session.

•Gamified group mentorship sessions. During group mentorship sessions, each of the 6 entrepreneurs in each session will get exactly 5 minutes to discuss their particular challenge within a specific topic (ie, fundraising, team-building, or customer development). During that time, every attendee may participate but only in addressing the problem of the entrepreneur who has the floor.

•Each roundtable session will spend the last 20 minutes discussing the “most-heated” subtopic or a particular challenge discussed during the session.

•Mini-workshops that cover a range of topics specific to what was requested from attendees.

Aside from the new format several things have changed since the last MNM hit Beirut.

It was obvious from the great turnout that the entrepreneurship community has grown immensely in the past year. Another thing that was a fantastic leap was the maturity of the conversation beyond how to get investors. At this year’s Mix N Mentor entrepreneurs were openly discussing a wide range of startup life challenges including how to find a cofounder, who to partner with, how to hire talent, how to settle disputes and even how to have a personal life. We look forward to next year’s sessions.

CLOUD #6 November 2013

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HOROSCOPES

CLOUD #6 November 2013

ARIES (March 21 – April 19)

LIBRA (September 23- October 22)

You’ve been dreaming about that vacation for a while now, so it’s time to make it happen. Choose your destination and start planning the trip as soon as possible. Apps like Tripomatic will help you by allowing you to enter a destination, the period of your stay and will then plot out all the attractions and things you can do on a map.

Pretty nifty, eh?

Your concentration isn’t the best these days, and you find yourself working on one specific task for a few minutes, and then switching to another. In order to avoid wasting your time and energy, do yourself a favor and get organized! Evernote is just one example of an organizational app that can help you become more productive and keep track of those tasks!

TAURUS (April 20 – May 20) It’s time to take a break from the online world and return to reality for a while. Not only is your addiction putting you at risk of alienating your friends and loved ones, but it may cause you problems at work too. If you can’t control yourself, you can find several add-ons for you Internet browser that will allow you to control the amount of time you spend on social media websites and even temporarily block them.

SCORPIO (October 23- November 21) Your recent Klout score is really something to be proud of, so why are you being so modest about it? Your social media influence has been soaring lately and can only go higher. As for those who recognized you for your influence, make sure to go give them some +Ks in return.

Don’t forget to grab your perks on the way!

SAGITTARIUS (November 22 – December 21) GEMINI (MAY 21 – JUNE 21) It’s going to be a very busy week ahead and you might have some trouble keeping track of all the tasks and events at hand. Now would the perfect time to invest in a handy to-do app (like Any. do), otherwise you may just end up forgetting about that important meeting or worse, the big Tweetup coming up that EVERYONE is going to.

You may be feeling a little overwhelmed lately by your obligations that you’re just about ready to march away in frustration. However, this kind of impulsive behavior isn’t helpful and won’t get you anywhere. If to-do lists are not your kind of thing, try downloading an app like Any.do that will not only help you keep track of your tasks but will also enable you to establish your priorities and maximize your potential.

CAPRICORN (December 22 – January 19) CANCER (JUNE 22 – JULY 22) In situations involving work or money, be diplomatic when asking questions. This is a good time for you to connect with people to move forward in business, but subtly find out relevant information.

LinkedIn is an ideal place to start especially since you should tread lightly when delving in other’s business.

Romance requires some serious effort once in a while, and your romantic life needs quite a bit of work right now. If you’re in a relationship, take a break from the texting and call up your significant other or have a face-to-face discussion instead of using FaceTime. If you’re not in a relationship, take that online flirting offline and make the connection with that person you’ve been talking to a lot lately.

LEO (JULY 23 – AUGUST 22)

AQUARIUS (January 20 – February 18)

Try not to be too controlling today. Let go of some of your responsibilities and give yourself some breathing room. Let someone else from your circle’s Whatsapp group decide where you’re all going for dinner. Let another team member take control of the social media accounts for the day. Let your sibling take charge of teaching Mom how to use Facebook, Pinterest and everything in between. You’ll be surprised at how relieved you’ll feel!

You might have some juicy news to disclose, but watch out where you share it and whom you share it with. Think twice before revealing that personal news on Facebook or Twitter, as you never know who may read it and use it against you. You would be surprised how very little control you have over who sees and uses that information once it is on the Internet.

PISCES (February 19 – March 20) VIRGO (August 23 – September 22) You will meet a new person online and shall find their powerful and magnetic charisma quite captivating. Be careful however that he/she doesn’t distract you from what you need to get done and prioritize your responsibilities ahead of making connections with this person. You may be ready for this new friendship and to share your time and ideas with others, however your priority is to fulfill your goals and commitments.

Usually you’re an extremely tolerant person, but today your highly sensitive – and your temper is short. To keep from blowing your top, avoid all people who get on your nerves. Since your Twitter timeline and Facebook newsfeed are full of them, now would be the ideal time to make use of the ‘mute’ and ‘unfollow’ features.

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BUSINESS

CLOUD #6 November 2013