Vimto & Ramadan

Eid Mubarak. Vimto is not just for Ramadan, y'know - you can drink it all year long, if you want. But in reality, Vimto has established itself as a preferred drink of choice to break fast during the holy month. For a UK company, getting such a high percentage of export sales from the Middle East is impressive stuff:



..shipments to the Middle East increased ahead of the start of the Ramadan festival on August 11. The level of export sales will be lower in the second half because of the extra shipments coming in the first half. About 16.5pc of Nichols' revenue came from outside the UK last year. The Middle East is by far the biggest export market, but it is also sold in Africa and Europe. The drink comes in more conservative packaging in the Middle East, where it is distributed by a family business. It is sold in a slightly stronger version of the concentrate, used as a squash, sold in the UK.

But it is not surprising given its marketing campaigns over the years. Culturally on the mark, Vimto continues to grow. In fact, despite its UK roots, Vimto has been in the Middle East close to a 100 years with distributors and producers - and because the packaging is in Arabic, who'd know otherwise.

Here's one of the adverts that demonstrates why it is so popular. They've really captured the Ramadan feeling.



And as we end the holy month, it doesn't mean you have to stop your Vimto feel good factor.

Vimto enjoys boost from Ramadan

Stuff Middle Easterners like

You may have already seen the Gizmodo post, entitled Stuff white people like. It's a quasi study on stereotypes from the outside in

What makes a culture unique? How are whites, blacks, Asians, whoever different from everybody else? What tastes, interests, and concepts define an ethnicity? Is there any way to make fun of other races in public and get away with it?

How did they do this? - They went to the online dating agency OKcupid and scooped out what they said based on their stated race. Of course, this is probably people of Middle Eastern Descent living in the US, but it's interesting all the same.

What white people like:



There are a whole heap more, but here's What Middle Easteners Like:




What does this say? I'm not sure, but it looks like a whole heap of cultures have been lumped into one - and most of them are studying. I don't think it's aim is to be derogatory - it's just a play on stereotypes and data. Indian like cricket and are software engineers. (Really?) Black people like soul food and playing basketball. Latinos like merenegue and Asians are simple.

Worth a read if you have 60 seconds.

The Real 'Stuff White People Like’

Asuaq - the craigslist of the middle east?

Great interview about tech startups in the Middle East. nb - MENA is the fastest growing internet market.



Raising USD350k on a valuation of $1m with traffic of UV 300k. Sounds like a boom bust scenario. Would love to be proved wrong.

Dubai's Internet Censorship

It's all a little weird. If you don't like it or don't get it, then ban it. Monsieur McNabb posts an articulate post about censorship and specifically the blocking of Google Voice. In summing up, he says:

For what it's worth, as far as I can see, the move is unlikely to affect Gmail or any other part of Google's services unless Google starts to integrate the voice platform with other Google properties - which is something you could actually see makes a great deal of sense in the long run. Don't forget, bits of Google (Orkut) have long been blocked here without losing the rest (see also Yahoo!'s Flickr). So it's not time to hit the panic button quite yet... Meanwhile, I have to say I think the TRA is looking increasingly Canute-like...

ie - it's all a little annoying. Indeed it is. Yesterday PC Pro talked through the frustrations and the journalist talked through how the authorities helped him get around the regulations:

She calmly recommended that I install Hotspot Shield, a free piece of software that ensures your computer flashes a US IP address to any website that comes asking. Unfortunately, Dubai was wise to this particular scam and had blocked the website so I couldn’t download it, along with all other websites offering a similar service. Undeterred, she pointed me towards The Pirate Bay, which somehow remains open for business. I mean how, just how? The UAE has blocked Flickr because there are bottoms on it, and just occasionally, the suggestion of other dangly bits. The Pirate Bay – which offers a range of bottoms to suit every need, including midget and donkey bottoms for anybody having a really slow afternoon – remains blissfully undisturbed.
It boggles the mind. If you’re going to throw up a firecurtain at least do it properly. It’s been a long time since I tried to look at, erm … Flickr in China, but I like to believe that the second you try somebody abseils through your window, kicks you in the unmentionables and shoots out your screen. That’s what censorship should be. That’s censorship we can all get behind. Dubai’s efforts just seem clumsy, like I’m being blindfolded with an eye patch made of cling film. The very fact that my ISP was telling me how to circumnavigate Dubai’s ridiculously inept restrictions was one thing, the fact that my local friends thought this advice odd only because Hotspot Shield is rubbish, was quite another. They swiftly offered a list of their favourite alternatives, at which point I discovered that when you live behind a wall, everybody has their own favourite shovel.

An amusing little story, but the fact of the matter is this - if you block and ban, there are ways around such regulations. As with parenting, when you tell a child not to do something, that's all they want to do.

The TRA should ban NOT using google voice. This would send up usage at etisalat and du, for sure.

Dubai’s dubious internet “censorship”
Fake Plastic Souks: UAE Blocks Google Voice