Google Buzz... Away For Good

Google has announced today that it's retiring Google Buzz, its long struggling, twitter-like social network. I don't think anyone got the point behind it really, but Google finally saw this project as a failure, now that it's in full support for G+. What really puzzled me though was Google's continuous support for the service even after launching G+, when it integrated Buzz into their new baby project.

Now let's rest that aside for a while, because Buzz was bound to go away someday. I think the real focus point should be on something completely different and that is Google's continuous failure in penetrating certain markets and the rate at which it's shutting down certain projects

I've talked a while backin this blog on Google closing down Aardvark -the Q&A service- and you also might be familiar with the famous Google Wave that wasn't really understood by the users. Today we have Buzz joining the qeue. I'm not sure if this is how Google wants things to be, invest in all projects with a possible potential and later shut down the ones that don't do so well. Maybe that's just how a tech giant should operate, afterall you can't possibly know what the users will like or hate. But then again, I think Google should pay closer attention to the project screening stage and make sure that only those products -that make sense- go through, otherwise it's just time and money going down the drain.

Etisalat Egypt gives free facebook access?!

Not it's pretty much a scam. Etisalat has recently announced it's data packages for Internet access from any mobile phone and they're offering 4 packages, here's a table with all the details for prepaid customers.

Yahoo! Maktoob getting ready for Ramadan!

According to Arab Crunch, Yahoo! Maktoob has officially launched its Ramadan website for this year. Go to Maktoob's Ramadan website and check out some of their cool and handy features that they've created for you. Now, I'm not really going to talk about the features, though they're worth talking about since they include free SMSs, TV guide, games and celebrity news. What I find interesting though is Maktoob itself. Founded in 1998 and growing exponentially in the Arab world, it was later taken over by Yahoo! and it seems to be a successful takeover thus far. To me, Maktoob's unique selling point is -other than its unique services- is its clean interface that Masrawy itself is still unable to replicate. We'll just have to see what Masrawy comes up with in the next few days for Ramadan.

Top 5 reasons why Google+ is a hit in Egypt

Google+ is spreading fast in Egypt, unexpectedly and unlike Buzz (Google's previous attempt at creating a social network). It reminds me of Gmail's days when it was in beta and people were going crazy over invitations. The network's growth is astounding and looks like it could be a serious threat to facebook. Here are the top reasons why I think Google+ is gaining ground