Coca-Cola's virtual city attracts millions of Internet visitors

It's also the trendiest address to own a home, hangout with friends, meet and chat with new people, watch sports, learn, and play games and much more.

The site has received over 2.6 million hits and over 750,000 visitors over the past four months and 22,948 users have registered as members of 3eesh.com. (For "3" think Arabic - "Aeesh" as in Aeeysha.)

There are over three million current Internet users in the Arab world, a figure that is expected to quadruple over the next 12 months. The population of 3eesh.com is expected to reach 30 - 40,000 in the next six months, with projections showing that the population is expected to reach 100,000 by the year-end, with no limits to the number of teens who can eventually reside there.

www.3eesh.com is populated by teenagers across the Middle East. Young Arabs, within the confines of the city, can experience the freedom of virtual life without limitation. The city allows users to be their own boss and live their own lives in a fun, innovative and hugely creative way.

The brainchild of Coca-Cola Middle East, the site is designed as a community-based portal but is in fact run, driven and evolved by Arab teenagers. While ultimately the residents of the city will have total empowerment in developing its future, Coca-Cola Middle East maintains overall control. Coca-Cola Middle East employs a team, which monitors the site 24 hours a day to ensure that moral and culture values are never compromised.

Dana Mubaidin, Public Affairs Manager for Coca-Cola Gulf says: "This vast city took only six months to build from concept to on-line launch and is one of the biggest projects ever undertaken by a Middle East based Internet designer. What's more the site is under constant development and improvement.

"The site is completely interactive which means the more people use the city, the more it continues to grow. On-line voting offers users the chance to suggest additional facilities eg a football stadium to watch World Cup matches or a corniche to hangout with friends.

On registering with the site, users can choose their own identity. This is how users and others on-line users will see you. Characters can be seen on the screen, walking down the street and might even randomly pop-up on other people's screens. Users can choose their own name, look and even the clothes they wear.

Users can select from a number of homes in different districts within the city depending on lifestyle and needs. For example, teenagers can chose an apartment in downtown 3eesh.com surrounded by nightclubs and restaurants. Alternatively, they can choose a luxury villa in a quiet suburban area or opt to live (updated) Bedouin style in the desert. It is also possible to decorate and furnish the homes to the users' tastes and add features such as a jukebox to download music, a stereo to access on-line radio stations, a TV to watch movies, a mobile phone for 3eesh.com SMS service or for adding a link to a favorite location.

While many of the facilities in 3eesh.com will be chosen by the inhabitants, the city already has a library, music café and a sports centre. The library includes links to subjects of interest to find help with homework, the Music Café contains links to a range of sites catering for a variety of music tastes and the sports café provides health tips as well as a round-up of results of the latest sports events.

Ms. Mubaidin continues:"3eesh.com brings a new dimension to Internet sites and is a truly remarkable experience. Its creative design makes it a world that teenagers will want to inhabit, with its vibrant colours, superb animation and overall visual experience. The fact that every aspect of 3eesh.com is personalised from the very start means it is far removed from anything known or seen before. 3eesh.com is the ultimate classless society, with all inhabitants having freedom of choice, design and equal voting rights on what happens in the city and the downloads they have access to. Just what teenagers have always wanted!"