As7ab.maktoob.com clinches top awards at the Pan Arab Web Awards 2008

The Pan Arab Awards are held annually in a bid to recognize creative web and business developers in the Pan Arab region. The Awards aim to promote the spirit of innovation and intellectual and production opportunities among entrepreneurs in the IT industry.

As7ab.maktoob.com, launched in July 2007, is the first fully-functional Arabic-language social networking website in the world. The service currently reaches a monthly audience of over 1.5 Million visitors from around the region and receives over 40 million page views, making it the largest Arabic social network on the Internet. Over 230,000 members have registered with As7ab to create their own profile pages, join groups, and find new friends.

"We are honoured to receive two of the most prestigious awards in the ICT industry, within the first nine months of our operations," said Samih Toukan, Maktoob Group CEO.

"Social networking is one of the biggest developments that has emerged in the web 2.0 era. A phenomenon that facilitates the building of better ties between communities, it has gained unprecedented popularity across the world. As7ab seeks to provide a fun-and-feature-filled platform that caters to the likings and tastes of Arabic speaking web users everywhere," Toukan added.

Membership to As7ab is free to all. Members can build profiles, post their pictures and videos, make friends, create blogs and share private and public images. Privacy settings can be altered according to user preferences. The website also allows users to create groups based on topics and areas of interest. Group members can add photographs and video clips and take part in discussions via forums. As7ab Maktoob will soon be launching a gift section which will allow members to send each other gifts and upgrade their membership status to become "premium members" with more privileges. All these transactions including payments can be done via mobile.

The website also features a specialized section titled 'Stars Segment' that allows users to upload video and audio clips that showcase their particular talents. The clips with the most votes from As7ab users will be featured on Maktoob TV, Maktoob's new satellite TV channel.

The Pan Arab Web Awards promote the spirit of innovation and creativity, raise the standards of web design and websites, advocate growth and development of local talent and encourage intellectual property awareness.

The competition evaluates websites all over the Arab world and honors individuals or teams that have designed and developed the best among them. Organizations and individual designers from all Arab Countries are eligible to participate in the Awards.