To the idiot behind that: you are playing with fire here,  yes we have a dysfunctional government, no you are not funny, yes they can sue your ass for what you are doing. Quit while you can for your own sake. If you want funny check out Hummus Nation, that’s funny!

http://twitter.com/LebaneseGov

I logged in to Facebook yesterday and signed out, saw something “funny” for a second there, the page was different.

What they did is a good (maybe?) tactic to retain users more, create stickiness and at the same time offer a better UX for the addicts to take it everywhere with them…”Leaving? Try Facebook on Your Mobile”

- Mobile usage is growing at a crazy rate, people are using more and more “social on the go”, they want to keep up/stay ahead of the game.

- They have a good UX team.

- Call to action isn’t just meant to be as a “first” action, you are leaving facebook…here take it with you…

- Seeing something as “mundane” as it may look to some makes me smile. With the latest re-design of their pages – which in my opinion is way better except for accessing the apps, have to go back to the homepage to access them, the rest is just too sweet – and smart little things just like the signed out page, I have to admit that they are doing a great job.

This, however, won’t change my opinion about Facebook.

Digital Planner plans and executes media buys for our clients focusing on emerging media. In this position he /she will be the internal and external lead of those services to clients working with the various account groups and creative services as needed.

Responsibilities:

* Work with our account staff to evaluate client media and advertising needs.
* Assist in the development of proposals and agency reviews by creating plans, points of view, written summaries, and client presentations.
* Analyze market research and study demographic data of a wide range of media vehicles to determine the most effective approach to reach target audience.
* Represent client and agency to the media community in a consistently respectful and professional manner.
* Communicate with media representat ives on behalf of our clients to negotiate the best placement, highest value-add, and optimal use of budgeted funds.
* Prepare media plan options, analyses, and recommendations based on strategic direction provided.
* Implement plan and maintain budget control throughout entire process.
* Insure all signed client authorizations and paperwork is in place for implementation.
* Issue insertion orders and purchase orders as necessary.
* Maintain tracking system and resolve billing discrepancies.
* Be highly organized and effectively manage all the details associated with media campaigns.
* Work with software programs.
* Complete required paperwork including daily timesheets for all hours / all days worked weekly activity reports, and monthly expense reports.

Requirements:

* Minimum three years of agency or client experience in media planning and implementation with a focus on emerging media.
* Highly organized and proven history of effectively managing detailed, complex media campaigns.
* Should be detail-oriented, interested in trends and affinities, comfortable with numbers, fluent in targeting and reach strategy and has passion relevant to an aspect of the media he works with.
* Must possess the communication skills to present a compelling case for his strategy and plan to both the agency Account team and, of course, the client.

If you ask me, it’s a big step not seeing the fail whale today, and still everyone can update their status…still….FIX IT PLEASE or release a post explaining what’s going on.

So don’t worry folks, everyone is still active on twitter, it’s not showing on the timeline.

as for you dear twitter, it would be nice of you to tell us what’s happening and how long will it take to restore it back. Customer service anyone?

Update 1: Apparently it’s hitting few accounts, others are just functional, @juhde’s timeline is functioning normally apparently

Update 2: It is not the first time that this happens, found an old post on the blog dating from 8th of October 2009…pffff twitter is getting on my nerves lately. can’t live with it, can’t live without it.

Update 3: Over six hours and not one clarification from the folks at twitter to what’s happening. Folks, if you run a business, any kind of business and people are complaining or inquiring about something, make sure that you notify that you are at least aware of the problem and working on it. That’s primordial for ANY business.

Update 4: This is straight from twitter’s status : “Some users are experiencing no new updates to their timeline. We are aware of the issue and investigating.” finally some response!

Update 5: “We have pinpointed and resolved the issue.” Welcome back folks!

Anyways, I ran a few tests on several search engines, Araby, Ayna, Bing, Google, Yahoo/Maktoob. I came to a small conclusion;

Araby: it should be an all exclusive entertainment search engine if it wants to survive. Other than that it has no chance. A full on search engine was not made for Araby. And it’s time to start using a proper engine with a proper algorithm. Enlarge your video/image/audio index or Google will swallow the rest of what’s left of it. Some usability issues.

Ayna: it should be a an all exclusive local search engine if it wants to survive.Other than that it has no chance. A full on search engine was not made for it. And it needs to start using a proper engine with a proper algorithm. Better maps are needed ASAP or else Google will swallow the rest of what’s left of it. Major usability issues.

Bing: retire please (or start building proper options for the search engine, results wise it is O K)

Google: Usability, results, options, diversity, overall, still the king with no real threat at all (yet?). Downside, they have to plug the map/local search, saw a few shy attempts, they have to unleash all the data they are getting for FREE from US the USERS!

Yahoo/Maktoob: Considering it’s relatively new in the Arabic market, it is O K, results are O K, but lacks basic functionality just like Bing. Shape up fast or die. (Even though it’s the default search engine on Maktoob, it won’t help much, we saw the same failed attempt by Araby…)

Now the comparison chart, it’s not that extensive, but it gives you a pretty good idea of the major differences between the search engines. All answers marked NO didn’t work at the time of the writing of this post (Feb 8th, 2010) if it is working please take a screen-shot and get in contact so I can update.

The search term means “The Elements of Social Architecture” I wanted to try something “different” they all got the good results except Ayna, the first two results were totally irrelevant.

. Araby Ayna Bing Google Yahoo/Maktoob . Search Term: عناصر المعمارية الاجتماعية 3,239 Results 138 Results 4,050 Results 223,000 Results 26,700 Results . Results (1st) A List Apart النسخة العربية : عناصر المعمارية الاجتماعية عمارة – ويكيبيديا، الموسوعة الحرة A List Apart النسخة العربية : عناصر المعمارية الاجتماعية A List Apart النسخة العربية : عناصر المعمارية الاجتماعية A List Apart النسخة العربية : عناصر المعمارية الاجتماعية . Speed in seconds N/A 0.9154 N/A 0.9 0.26 . Cached No No Yes Yes No . Boolean searching Yes No Yes Yes Yes . Related Search Yes No No Yes No . Different Views No No No Yes (Related searches Wonder wheel Timeline) No . Search in results No No No Yes No . Limit by date No (advanced is down) Yes (limited though) No Yes (extensive) Yes (limited though) . Collections to search Web Audio Dictionary Songs Islam Forums Celebrities Web Images Video News Dictionary Blog Local Religion Web Web Images Videos News Blogs Updates Books Forums Social Web . Translate pages/sites No No No Yes No . Search in Results No No No Yes No . Advanced Results Sorting/Clustering No No No Yes No

Anyways I decided to go “smart” a bit and search for:

• “Weather Cairo/ احوال الطقس في القاهرة”. All engines failed (note that in English it works perfectly on Google and Bing)
• “Cafe in Dubai/مقهى في دبي “. All engines failed (again in English it shows Google maps with Local Business Results, I was expecting Ayna to show some results since they have maps in Arabic and boast about it)

The only “unusable” features that Araby and Ayna have is the Arabic keyboard (note the “unusable”) Google added transliteration service in their lab but it’s not as good as Yamli’s (it ROCKS!) and not available on the search engine directly…yet.

Anyways here are few screen-shots

So, you are waiting your turn at ABC, and the guy passes by with a radio antenna and nods with his head that your car is clear and you can go and park.

Your car is clear of any explosive material. Well it turns out that you can have a bloody nuke in the car and they wouldn’t even know.

Start sharing the link folks, a whole report on BBC News Night  about it. It was a whole scam (it’s nothing but a RFID tag). We need to pressure ABC and every mall to get a working device. We live in unstable Beirut with terrorists threatening our security every single minute of the day (If you don’t believe so, you need to slap yourself really hard and wake up and get out of the bubble you live in).

The whole article and video on CrunchGear

Stay safe folks.

sweet little gimmick,

check the result after about an hour of work. (I inverted the colors, if you want it to be “transparent” and include an actual capture of your desktop, just put both in a psd, the path should be on top and set it to multiply and voila!)

Click for a larger image.

Get it here:  Mac |  PC

A video started playing when I clicked on Demo and right under it it says that I should fill some information to start the demo, so far so good till I noticed that the mobile field is mandatory!

I shrugged and entered a fake number (and fake everything). and voila..

The confirmation email, I waited and waited and waited…I was waiting for an email with a subject/sender RELATED to Powerfulcms.com. But no, instead I got this:

Typical wording of a spam mail, and SEOJoe? Dude! When sending a confirmation email and asking to check the spam, first, use a subject RELATED to your product, OR a sender that is related to the product! Not SEOJoe (figuring in the background “art”) or “I need you to click a link”.

Anyways, the email…

1st part:

bounce@infusionmail.com on behalf of SEOJoe… Fail.

2nd part:

Click on the link to verify and get the chance to change the mobile number if an inaccurate one was entered. Doesn’t stop there, they need my mobile to send me an sms to validate my account. WTF? Am I accessing the CIA repository? Just give me the freaking demo!

I took a deep breath and thought what the heck, I am in Lebanon it will cost them way too much to bombard me with phone calls, so what the heck, let me put my number since I can amend the error and enter a valid phone.

Here’s what I got…

not one single link to change my phone number, but another email is on its way. (WTH, GIVE ME THE DEMO ALREADY!)

For the sake of “science” I held my breath and waited for the email…I got the same initial email!! every time I validated my email again (no message that my email was already validated/verified!!!) over and over again.

I got stuck in a loop, validating my email, getting the same email again…

Major fail.

How do people expect to win customers without proper UX, without even testing their own system beats me!

If you wanna get frustrated, get head out to PowerfulCms and enjoy the “trip”

To everyone’s surprise, Alfa announced today that the Blackberry service is (back to) for 40USD with no additional charges (subject to F.U.P. 500MB).

Two theories here:

1. They actually responded to our demands (had endless referrals from webmail clients and a certain domain teehee, no the domain is NOT alfa.com.lb)
2. I heard a few times that MTC Touch will be releasing a new pricing/service for BB, 400MB at the same price instead of the usual 100MB.

Whatever the reason is, it felt good. I do hope that companies start listening to our demands, to offer real services, and just be closer to the consumers, it’s a simple rule, consumer happy=more business, business 101.

For the time being, thank you Alfa Telecom (managed by Orascom).

and for the reference,

the original post