Dubai hosts Twestival

Based around the social media service Twitter, which was until relatively recently blocked to UAE Internet users, the event brings the UAE into a global community using one of the fastest growing new innovations in today's new media. Dubai Twestival is sponsored and supported by Meridien Mina Seyahi and Virgin Megastore Middle East.

Twitter is the online service that allows people to share short messages of under 140 characters. Usage of Twitter grew 752% last year from a total of 500,000 unique visitors at the start of 2008 to 4.43 million unique visitors worldwide in December. The UAE's Twitter community numbers just over 500 at present, but is extremely fast growing.

"We hope that February's Twestival networking event will both help raise awareness for Twitter in the UAE and for charity: water, the charity supported by this global event," said PK Gulati, one of the co-organisers of the Dubai Twestival. "The event has been entirely put together using Twitter, which goes to show how powerful 140 character messages can be."

The Twestival is organized 100% by volunteers in cities around the world and 100% of the money raised by these events will go directly to support the charity: water, which is a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations. Twestival events are also being organized around the Middle East, with events taking place in Amman, Jordan; Beirut, Lebanon; Doha, Qatar; and Jeddah in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Most of the events were organized in just a few weeks, via Twitter. The London-based Twestival organizers reached out to Twitter users in the UAE to organize the event. Most arrangements for the event have been made over Twitter. Even Dubai Twestival sponsors Meridien Mina Seyahi (@minaseyahi on Twitter) and Virgin Megastore Middle East (@VirginMegaME) were approached for their support via Twitter.

Access to Twitter was blocked in the UAE until August 2008 and so the UAE's Twitter community is younger than most others around the world, but uptake is growing by more than 20% per month - a faster adoption rate than mobile networks. Although Twitter was intended as a purely social application (the idea being to answer the question 'What are you doing?' in 140 characters), it is finding an increasingly strong place in company communications, acting as a marketing platform and a customer service tool.

"Many of the world's leading corporate have found that using Twitter allows them to interact with their customers in a more effective and timely manner. And news flows through Twitter at incredible rapidity - case studies such as the Mumbai bombing and the Israeli incursion into Gaza have shown information moving faster across Twitter than any other platform," Mr. Gulati said.

Water, the Twestival's global charity cause, helps provide safe, clean drinking water to communities that really need it. Today, one in six people on planet earth, more than 1.1 billion people, don't have access to safe, clean drinking water. Unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation cause 80% of all sickness and disease, and kill more people every year than all forms of violence, including war. Donations to charity: Water are being accepted online via the charity's website.