Dubai: Global online social portal Netlog is expanding its presence into the United Arab Emirates to better support its Emirati members, Gulf News has learnt.
By summer's end, Belgium-based Netlog will open a new team office in Dubai after in-house research confirmed high Emirati online interest since the all-Arabic social site was launched in late 2008.
Amir-Esmail Bozorgzadeh, special projects manager at Netlog's parent company Massive Media, said survey findings showed that "78 per cent of the nearly 700,000 UAE members on Netlog are Emiratis."
On a wider regional scale, the numbers also showed that "75 per cent of the nine million Mena members [excluding the UAE] are nationals."
The strong regional membership numbers reflect Netlog's popularity worldwide in which 83 million members have created their own online mother-tongue communities in 34 languages to stay in touch, play games and share pictures and commentary.
"When it launched here in the region, people were thirsty," Bozorgzadeh told Gulf News. "Since we launched, we have made sure that we have demonstrated respect for the culture."
Respect is encouraged through the use of live moderator teams which ensure community standards are upheld.
In its third year of operation in the Middle East, Bozorgzadeh said Netlog attributes much of its runaway success in such a short time due to the fact that it was reportedly the first available social site in Arabic only.
Once Emiratis discovered the site, word of mouth and daily sharing of new connections snowballed to the point where Netlog's Arabic community turned into a must-have social networking destination, he said.
Organic movement
"After two months, we had more than two million members. There's never been any money spent on marketing, it's all organic. It was the first social site in Arabic and it became an organic movement," Bozorgzadeh said.
Netlog is not competing with Facebook and its 750 million subscribers, rather as an independent Arabic offshoot of the global Netlog social portal, it is working to develop stronger ties within the Arab communities.
There are similarities to Facebook such as Netlog's answer to Farmville, the casual game Happy Harvest which account holders can bolster thanks to Netlog credits.
With high Emirati membership on Netlog, he said that it will be interesting to "engage with the local population" to collect new data on trends, consumerism and social issues.
