Business | Telecoms

Channel Sponsor

Weyak brings web portal to mobiles

Mobile phone subscribers now have another reason to be glued to their handsets with the launch of etisalat's Weyak service.

  • By Ivan Gale, Staff Reporter
  • Published: 00:00 September 12, 2006
  • Gulf News

Dubai: Mobile phone subscribers now have another reason to be glued to their handsets with the launch of etisalat's Weyak service.

The latest offering is a portal for mobile phones giving users access to community sites, music and other entertainment.

While over 100,000 users participated in free registration for Weyak during the World Cup, yesterday marked the official launch of the mobile portal.

The launch signals etisalat's commitment to retain customers with high-bandwidth, data-rich content, as advances in handset technology continue their rapid pace.

"We are entering the world of online media because that is where our customers want us to be," Khalifa Al Forah, acting chief marketing officer of etisalat, said at a press conference.

etisalat has narrowed in on community-based content such as blogs that have proven successful in attracting and retaining customers.

Ahmad Nassef, vice-president of Maktoob, which owns a family of Arabic websites, gave an example at the conference: one blog that wrote about the Danish cartoon controversy received 7,000 comments from readers.

Weyak offers free e-mail for etisalat customers and entertainment such as news, Islamic content, shared photo albums, and content for download such as games, music and movie trailers.

Both Bollywood and Filipino content will be available on the service to cater to the UAE's diverse population.

etisalat is partnering with HP to create a 3G video portal on Weyak, while Agence France-Presse has been tapped to stream news feeds and European sports leagues to provide sports broadcasts.

  • Rate this article
  • Average reader rating (0 votes) 0 Stars
Tools

Emailing an article to friend is a simple way to share a news item. Your friend will receive an email with your name and email address as well any personal message you choose to send.

The information you provide on this page will not be used to send unsolicited emails.

This service is not intended to encourage spam, and action may be taken against individuals who maliciously enter personal details of another individual.

Share this article

Related Articles

  1. etisalat and du to sign operations deal soon

    etisalat and du to sign operations deal soon

    etisalat and du to sign deal on mutual operations soon

More from Telecoms

  1. 4G could arrive in Gulf next year

  2. du netting 80 per cent of new subscribers

  3. Orascom Telecom 'owes $596.6m to Algeria'

  4. Dhabi Group, Essar in Africa deal

All articles in Telecoms

More from Business

Gulf News
Popular in Business
Airlines in the region
Budget travel

Airlines in the region

Take a pictorial look at some of the budget airlines in GCC

Business Editor's choice