Egypt Yellow Pages: Year 2009 Wrap-up

December 28, 2009 2 Comments

Another year has come and gone, i’m taking a moment here to look back at what happened in 2009, what people want in Egypt, what they are looking for and interested in.

Saying goodbye to 2009 and welcome to 2010, this is what people are interested in

Top 10 searches in www.yellow.com.eg during 2009

Hotels remain in number 1 like 2008, Restaurants jump from 4th position to second position, Schools comes in the third place while Banks drop 2 places to be in the 4th place.

Cars move out from the top 10 and Pharmacies enter in the 10th position.

Most popular businesses in www.yellow.com.eg during 2009

As for the businesses, HP retains its first place for the second year, DHL and Western Union comes in second and third places. Followed by Telco companies Vodafone and Raya, as for banks CIB jumps this year above HSBC, and finally cafes and fast food restaurants appear for the first time in the top 10 list: Cilantro, KFC followed by Pizza Hut in the 10th place.

Prefered visitor language for www.yellow.com.eg in 2009

One more interesting fact is that Arabic version of www.yellow.com.eg is getting more attention, usage has increased from 40% in 2008 to 45.8% in 2009 almost reaching the English. This is a direct result of enhancing the arabic search logic which now produces better and much more relevant results.

2009 was just a great year for Egypt Yellow Pages. 2010 will hopefully be even better, we will keep doing our best to serve our visitors and enhance their experience.

Merry Xmas and Happy new year to everyone :)

Filed under Analytics & Statistics, Egypt Yellow Pages, eMarketing, Yellow Pages Tagged with , , , ,

4G is finally here, but for laptops not mobiles!

December 17, 2009 Leave a comment

The first 4G network will be launched in Sweden and Norway early 2010. It’s speed is gonna be approaching 100 mbits/sec, the interesting news is that they haven’t invented a handset yet that works on 4G, so users will only be able to access the network using a USB modem and a laptop!

Eventually, they will make a handset but what does this tell us, broadband internet access from a cellular network being available for computers before mobiles? it tells us what it is really gonna be used for, i mean what’s the importance of this high speed on a mobile device? are you going to install torrents or emule on your mobile and start downloading movies? of course not… but imagine what would this speed mean to an internet user from his computer.

In my opinion the main source that is gonna drive revenues for mobile networks is the data service. It’s not the voice or SMS services any more. Today i can talk and send free SMS’s to my 400 colleagues at EYP for free as a part of our enterprise lines. The time is now over for anyone who pays 1000+ LE for their mobile bill, as you can now pay 300 LE and talk almost unlimited (2700 minutes per month).

Welcome to the new era of mobile broadband service!

Filed under Mobile Yellow Pages, New Technologies Tagged with , ,

Enhancing the user experience

December 10, 2009 Leave a comment

For a long long time Yellow Pages has been known as a data provider for contact information. Just providing phone numbers and address for businesses… and a little bit of more informaiton sometimes.

We are trying to change this conception. We are adding more and more features that allow users to complete their transactions from the website… Like booking a hotel or booking an event ticket, a service that we have launched just minutes ago!

Check out the new event booking service from Egypt Yellow Pages

Filed under Egypt Yellow Pages, Yellow Pages Tagged with , ,

Google Real-Time Search: Relevance, Relevance, Relevance

December 8, 2009 Leave a comment

Google announced today the launch of the real-time search feature as an integral part of their search engine. This means that now when you search for Copenhagen climate conference you will know what people are posting about this event on Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook, blogs, microblogs, news, …

This probably explains why Eric Shmidt joined Twitter yesterday. It was actually an unexpected move from Google for me, at least the speed they have completed this. Shmidt said about one month ago that the social media is still a grey area for Google, and that the content on facebook is mostly private content that they can’t use. It seems that a strategic decision has been made after this that they should avail this real-time feature right away for one reason or another.

Moving away from politics :)  back to the real-time feature. It is very cool, the thing that makes it useful it that you are actually seeing very relevant content to what you are looking for… Google are the masters of delivering relevant content. Below is what you get when you search Copenhagen climate conference

Read more about this from Google official blog

Filed under eMarketing, Google, Social Media Tagged with , , ,

Online Media Dominates Traditional Media

December 7, 2009 Leave a comment

Since Q4 2008 it is know that SMB’s use the traditional media and online media equally. Now things has changed. Many SMB’s use electronic media more than the traditional forms.

Very interesting numbers from Kelsey Group

Filed under Advertising, eMarketing Tagged with ,

Bank Masr ATM Virus!!

December 1, 2009 4 Comments

I wanted to withdraw some cash and i was in a real hurry so i used Bank Masr ATM under my home. I entered the card and my pin code and then booooooooooooooom!

The machine started printing without stopping empty papers with a smiley face!!!! a smiley face from the ATM! Can you believe it? could it be a software bug or a Virus software that tests the printer was running in the wrong time??

Bank Masr ATM Receipt

It’s more likely to be a virus, i suggest no one to use bank masr ATMs…

Update:

OMG, this turns out to be something that happened before in Singapore… A global virus

Update:

Sources in Bank Misr bank say that this incident is not a virus, it is a software that tests the printer of the ATM. Probably i was at the wrong place at the wrong time when they were testing the machine printer.

Filed under Weird Stuff Tagged with , , ,

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