In an effort to become more accessible to its customers, Oman Air has launched its Facebook page in Arabic, French, Italian and German. With its diversified set of destinations, including Europe, Oman Air now flies to over 41 different destinations and has been steadily increasing its operations, especially in Europe. It currently flies to London, Milan, Paris, Frankfurt and Munich and is soon to launch Zurich in December.

“Our presence in social media is very important to us,” says Mr. Philippe Georgiou, Chief Officer Corporate Affairs,  Oman Air. “It is a platform for customers and well-wishers who can use it to talk to us directly, give us their feedback and engage with us in ways that are comfortable for them. For us, it is an opportunity to share a whole range of our activities, not just in terms of our flights, destinations and offers, but also in terms of our other activities, such as our promotions and sponsorships. These include strategic alliances with successful sport teams on the field of sailing and motor racing, our various participations in events. Additionally, we want to share our pride at winning international accolades and awards.

“We launched our official facebook page over two years ago and it has been steadily growing ever since. With the launch of facebook in four new languages (Arabic, French, German and Italian), we are now expanding our wings to reach out to our customers in the language of their choice,” adds Mr. Mohammed Al Shikely, General Manager Marketing, Oman Air.  “We will also be doing an online contest in November, and we welcome our customers around the globe to log in to our facebook pages and win exciting prizes, which can be won by fans of all language pages including English, as we value their loyalty towards us. We encourage you to join in to enjoy many online benefits and enhanced customer service with Oman Air in the future”

Oman Air has recently been in the news for winning 21 international awards that it has received over the past two years. From being voted the Best Business Class Seat and earning the Best Middle East Staff Service Excellence award by Skytrax, to the best airline flying out of France and the best luxury airline in the Middle East, Oman Air is on a sustained journey to improve all aspects of its operations and continues to exceed its customers’ expectations.

Web page developed by in-house team supports university’s promise of ‘global knowledge with local vision’

September 18, 2011

ALHOSN University, a leading Abu Dhabi-based university dedicated to high-quality value-based education, has launched a new Facebook page to capitalize on the reach and advanced  features of the world’s most popular social networking site.

Developed by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004, Facebook is the most visited website on the internet. It has evolved into a central communication tool where people upload content and have access to up-to-date information for business, networking, leisure and socialization. Facebook is believed to be patronized by more than 16 million internet users in the Middle East.

The ALHOSN Facebook page will feature photos, videos and status updates on the university’s latest activities and news. It has been designed to appeal to a broad audience that includes ALHOSN community members, parents, partners, and friends.  

“Although Facebook is commonly regarded as a socialization tool for individuals, it is also carving a niche as a soundboard for various types of organizations. In the Middle East, Facebook has become a venue for youths to hone their technology skills, reach out to friends throughout the region and air their concerns and sentiments. Our new Facebook page supports all these while advancing our goal of inculcating in our students a sense of global knowledge with local vision. We invite everyone to explore its content and learn more about the ALHOSN brand of education and youth development,” said Prof. Abdul Rahim Sabouni, Vice Chancellor and CEO, ALHOSN University.

The ALHOSN University Facebook page was developed by an in-house team led by Mr. Mohamed Farouk, the university’s Deputy IT Director. The project is ALHOSN’s latest initiative to raise its IT-related capabilities. Last year, the university launched an updated version of its web portal to deliver more functionality and services to students, parents, and teachers

Oprah Winfrey

Talk show queen Oprah Winfrey will be doing her first-ever live chat with social media website Facebook on Thursday .

Facebook users can tune into the hour-long live video chat on the site and can leave questions for Winfrey on the page wall created for the event.

The 57 year-old Winfrey has embraced social media. She has almost 6.3 million fans on Facebook and more than 7.2 million followers on Twitter.

Winfrey hosted the final season of The Oprah Winfrey Show in May. She continues to host a prime-time show on the Oprah Winfrey Network television channel, which launched at the beginning of this year.

-upload your fun photos and get  a chance to win Transcend Digital Photo Frame to showcase your fond memories-

Transcend Summer Fun(July15-August15,2011)

New Delhi: 21 July 2011- In order to make this summer, cooler, exciting and fun filled, Transcend invites all its Indian Fans to join the Transcend “Summer Fun” Campaign on facebook and win attractive gifts. Valid till 15th August 2011, this campaign will offer Transcend face book fans to join in large numbers and post their captured memorable moments to win fabulous Transcend Gifts. What’s more! The Indian fans of Transcend will have a wonderful opportunity to take away marvelous Transcend 8 inch PF830 Digital Photo Frame by just joining the Transcend fan club at: http://facebook.com/TranscendIN.

Participating in the “Summer Fun” campaign is quite simple. One just needs to
join the Transcend fan club at: http://facebook.com/TranscendIN,then visit the “Summer Fun!” event page (http://on.fb.me/iXIjiB) ,Click “Like” to post campaign news on your wall and then submit your name and email address to be eligible for Transcend  freebies. One can also invite friends and post at least 10 “Like” screenshots on Transcend’s wall to win a Transcend 4GB MP870 MP4 Player.

The names of the lucky winners, selected at random by Transcend will be announced on 22nd August 2011 on Transcend India Face book. The winner has to furnish relevant information within 10 days to claim their prizes.

Facebook could fade away after ten years, just like MySpace and Geocities, says Mo Elzubeir

Mo Elzubeir_Mediastow

Dubai, UAE, 6th July, 2011: Mediastow, the leading media intelligence company in the Middle East, anticipates that leading social media website Facebook will lose its popularity in 10 to 15 years.

Mo Elzubeir, Founder & Managing Director of Mediastow, says: “When it comes to the Internet, everything is cyclical. The fate of MySpace demonstrates how a strong player can quickly fade into oblivion. Looking further back, Geocities represents another similar example.”

GeoCities was originally founded in late 1994 as Beverly Hills Internet (BHI). In its original form, site users selected a “city” in which to place their web pages. The “cities” were named after real cities or regions according to their content.

Ten years after Yahoo bought GeoCities, the company announced that it would shut down the United States GeoCities service on October 26, 2009, and GeoCities websites actually became unavailable from next day. There were at least 38 million user-built pages on GeoCities before it was shut down.

Elzubeir added: “Currently, there is already a debate on whether Facebook is bleeding users from its launch countries in North America. While it is possible to blame seasonality or even saturation, I believe there are other more important factors at play here.”

According to Inside Facebook’s data service, Facebook lost 6 million users in USA. last month, dropping from 155.2 million to 149.4 million. That is the first time U.S. numbers dropped in more than a year. It also lost 1.52 million users in Canada, dropping to 16.6 million — an 8% drop — and 100,000 each in the U.K., Norway and Russia.

Total Facebook users were still up 1.7% thanks to growth in countries where the service got popular later, like Mexico and Brazil. But huge drops in the countries where Facebook first became popular can’t be good news. It suggests that there is a saturation point where people begin to burn out on the service, according to the same source.

Facebook will continue to “grow” overall in numbers, because of “new countries”. In other words, its growth is powered by the periphery of the market, while its core market is weakening.

Elzubeir added: “Newer entrants, such as Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram amongst others are offering better subsets of what Facebook offers and doing a better job at it. As a result, I think we will continue to see more people moving away from Facebook.”

Elzubeir pointed out that privacy concerns and content ownership are other issues facing Facebook.

He added: “Privacy concerns will continue to be an issue, but I think Facebook is failing to learn from the mistakes of Geocities/Yahoo. Owning all your users’ content is eventually going to backfire.”
 
Elzubeir concludes that Facebook will stop being relevant in 10-15 year time at the latest.

graham cluley, senior technology consultant, sophos

Dubai, UAE, June 9, 2011: IT security firm Sophos is encouraging Facebook users to review their privacy settings, after reports that the site has enabled facial recognition for photo tags for many users.

Facebook revealed last year it was introducing facial recognition technology to encourage users to tag each other in photographs, but the functionality was initially only available in North America and was disabled elsewhere.

In the last few days, Facebook users around the world have reported that the option has been enabled without any notice by the website.

To the annoyance of many Facebook users, the site provides no way for users to pre-approve photos they are tagged in.  Instead users must untag themselves manually after they have been tagged.

“Many people feel distinctly uncomfortable about a site like Facebook learning what they look like, and using that information without their permission,” said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos. “Most Facebook users still don’t know how to set their privacy options safely, finding the whole system confusing.  It’s even harder though to keep control when Facebook changes the settings without your knowledge. Facebook users should have to ‘opt-in’ to the facial recognition feature, rather than the onus being on them to ‘opt-out’.”

Facebook users can control the new feature by disabling “Suggest photos of me to friends” in their privacy settings.  More details of how to do this, along with images and advice on how to configure Facebook privacy settings can be found on the Sophos Naked Security site here:
http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/06/07/facebook-privacy-settings-facial

Graham Cluley is available for comment at +44 (0)1235 544114 or +44 (0)7990 552181

Follow Graham Cluley on Twitter: http://twitter.com/gcluley

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant, Sophos.
http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com
Twitter: @gcluley

You can become legendary by just uploading your video

SALZBURG, AT – (April 1st, 2011) – PUMA the sportlifestyle brand will back the best local talent with the launch of National Team Application on Facebook. All you have to do is get your self on video, showing off your famous move in either ping pong, darts, bowling, foosball or at pool. Upload the video on to www.facebook.com/puma and get everyone you know to vote for you. The finalists with the most votes will then be selected by PUMA’s jury.

The local National Team jurors include Annah Jacob, Dubai One TV presenter; Mike Daniel, DJ; Brent Black, Virgin Radio DJ; Kris Fade, Virgin Radio DJ; and Abdelhamid Oraibi, Marketing Manager of PUMA Middle East.  Judging the after-hours athleticism of the UAE players, the jury will scour uploaded videos for the most impressive tricks, pop-shots and scores - and pick the winning after-hours athletes as part of the National Team.
 
In October, sportlifestyle brand PUMA® launched PUMA Social to salute the after hours games we play off field when the sun goes down as sometimes victory doesn’t always come in the form of winning an on-field goal or a walk-off home run its a phone number after a long night out in town. PUMA will continue to pay homage to the After Hours Athlete – those who enjoy the smell of victory and the agony of defeat, all with a drink in hand, wearing their favourite pair of PUMA Clydes.

The National Team will then go on to win exciting PUMA merchandise and some extra spending money for their cabs and shawarmas and not to forget all the fame and the glory!

So what are you waiting for? Do you think that you are top shooter in foosball? A master at darts? A ping-pong sensation? Or a bowling wizard?  Prove it and show us your skills.

Dazzle the jury with your late-night gaming by uploading your best moves to the PUMA Social online application www.puma.com/social/get-social or on Facebook www.facebook.com/puma where you can go head-to-head with competing after-hours athletes for your name in neon-lights. The competition is open until the 1st of July when the PUMA Social National Team Jury will judge your after–hours skills and pick the winners.

Has competition ever felt this good?

Become a fan of the application on PUMA www.facebook.com/puma and if you’re already a fan click on the PUMA Social tab.

Security firm publishes open letter to social networking giant

Dubai, United Arab Emirates, April 19, 2011: Sophos’s Naked Security site has written an open letter to Facebook, calling upon the social networking giant to address three security issues.  Sophos urges Facebook to create a safer environment for its 500+ million users and show its commitment to improve privacy and safety on the internet.

In the open letter, Sophos proposes the following three-point security plan and asks Facebook to commit publically to a timetable for its implementation:

SOPHOS NAKED SECURITY’S THREE-POINT PLAN FOR FACEBOOK

1) PRIVACY BY DEFAULT
No more sharing of information without your express agreement (OPT-IN). Whenever Facebook adds a new feature to share additional information about you, Facebook should not assume that you want this feature turned on.

2) VETTED APP DEVELOPERS
Only vetted and approved third-party developers should be allowed to publish apps on the Facebook platform. With over one million app developers already registered on the Facebook platform, it is hardly surprising that Facebook’s service is riddled with rogue applications and viral scams.

3) HTTPS FOR EVERYTHING
In a welcome first step, Facebook recently introduced an HTTPS option, but left it turned off by default. Worse, Facebook only commits to provide a secure connection “whenever possible”. Facebook should enforce a secure connection all the time, by default. Without this protection, users are at risk of losing personal information to hackers.

“Facebook is no stranger to making headlines for all the wrong reasons when it comes to security and privacy. The Sophos three-point plan would turn Facebook into the good guys and also be a real safety step-up for its 500 million users,” said Graham Cluley of Sophos Naked Security. “Facebook is popular and successful and is not going away. So it is essential that Facebook takes proper care of its users by making their security and privacy a top priority.”

“Our question to Facebook is this - why wait until regulators force your hand on privacy? Act now for the greater good of all,” urged Cluley.

Sophos Naked Security experts will be at the Infosec 2011 show at Earls Court, London this week, discussing this three-point plan and the security and privacy issues on Facebook.

Sophos Naked Security full open letter is published at http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/04/18/facebook-open-letter/

Graham Cluley is available for comment at +44 (0)1235 544114 or +44 (0)7990 552181

Jacky’s Electronics, the UAE’s leading multi-brand consumer electronics retailer, and The Green Foundation, a leading organisation specialised in electronics recycling, announced the newest owner of an Apple iPad, courtesy of the recently concluded competition on Facebook dubbed as ‘Go Green and win an iPad’.

Poornika Chauhan and her family became the lucky winner via a raffle draw with all the customers who submitted their photos with a Jacky’s customer service executive while exchanging their mobile phones for a cash voucher. The contest, in connection with Jacky’s Go Green campaign, ‘Eco-Exchange: Recycling that pays’, ran from 20th December 2010 to 19th January 2011.

Dominic Gothard (right), Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Green Foundation, and Jimmy Patel (left), General Manager, Jacky’s Electronics, awarded the Apple iPad to Chauhan and family (centre).

For more updates on the latest gadgets and technologies, please visit Jacky’s Electronics’ fanpage on www.facebook.com/jackysuae/.

Release Date: 4th October 2010 

Wild hunts for the AMD staff are happening across all Jacky’s outlets in the UAE to win the newest personal computer with AMD VISION Technology.

Jacky’s Electronics, the UAE’s leading multi-brand consumer electronics retailer, and AMD Middle East, have launched the latest Facebook competition dubbed as “Every Store Counts” from 3rd to 9th October. Fans must visit any Jacky’s store and look for a staff member wearing an AMD VISION t-shirt and take funky pictures of themselves with the so-called “AMD Visionary” staff.

All Facebook users from the UAE and fans of Jacky’s Electronics can enter the competition. Participants must visit the Jacky’s Electronics Facebook page, and post their entries on the said fan page www.facebook.com/jackysuae/. Fans may post as many entries taken from different outlets. The more photos taken at various outlets mean the more chances of winning. Official contest rules are posted on the fan page’s competition tab.

AMD Middle East will select the most creative photo among the entries to receive a PC with VISION Technology from AMD. The winner will be announced on 10th October in an award ceremony at the Jacky’s Mirdif City Centre outlet.

“Facebook is an effective way to directly communicate with our customers. Through our fan page, we manage to update and inform our loyal customers on the latest products available in the market as well as knowing their feedback on our services,” said Ashish Panjabi, Chief Operating Officer, Jacky’s Electronics.

“Holding competitions on a regular basis allows us to reward our fans with the newest gadgets such as an Apple iPad, Sony Ericsson Xperia and HP Envy Notebook. Together with AMD, we are giving away a computer powered by VISION Technology, a combination of cutting edge processing and video power for a remarkably vivid visual experience,” he added.

VISION Technology from AMD simplifies the PC buying process by embracing the contemporary ways in which consumers use PCs, rather than relying upon often confusing technical specifications. By combining powerful visual processing technologies, VISION Technology from AMD is ready to help consumers use their computers to enjoy high definition video entertainment, edit and share photos and video with friends, or collaborate and communicate online.

Bernard Biolchini, Vice President Sales & General Manager, AMD Middle East, Turkey & Africa said, “We are delighted to partner with Jacky’s for this Facebook competition. We believe that this social media activity will increase the awareness of AMD amongst the internet-savvy. This is only the beginning as customers will see more exciting activities from AMD and Jacky’s in the future”.