mediaME spoke to George Akra, co- founder of Toot Corp., a company that has several online properties including ikbis.com, a regional video sharing site. George discusses the growth of online video in the region, the effects of the current political climate on video content, and the future of online video advertising in the Middle East and more.   

Q. Tell us about the growth of video viewership in the Middle East in the past few years.

Husni Al Khuffash is the UAE Country Business Development Manager for Google Inc., who's main task is to communicate Google's mission and vision to regional markets and to emphasize Google's role in the digital transformation occurring in Arab society.

Husni Al Khuffash started in the ebusiness field in the mid-nineties, before there were even ISPs in the Arab World, working for a Jordan-based Internet services company called Business Optimization Consultant (BOC). He later joined Maktoob.com as Regional Manager, then became Dubai Office General Manager, and was instrumental in building the region’s online advertising market. Now, in his position as Google Business Development Manager, Al Khuffash is responsible for the UAE and neighboring markets.

Kindly tell more about the Google office in Dubai and your role

I cover the UAE for Google, and neighboring markets when required. Our office in Dubai was established to deliver a better user experience to users in the region, to communicate Google's mission and vision wherever we should and to play our role in the digital transformation occurring in Arab society.

Tell us about Google's commitment to the Arab World

Google believes the Middle East has tremendous growth potential in the online world and we are investing heavily in the region. We came to the region because we saw great potential to be able to add value here. We are investing in the region to help users to access information and enable companies to reach their target audience more effectively.

Ultimately we believe that by helping people access information, we give them more freedom more choice and ultimately more power over their lives. So our goal is to continuously work on improving and developing more products in the local languages of the markets we serve. We have already made some great headways in Arabic with the launch of products like iGoogle, Docs and Blogger and Adsense just to name a few but there is tremendous room for growth and we are excited by this challenge.

We are looking to hire Arabic engineers wherever they are to be able to better understand the needs of Arab users. We also support the region through our initiatives.

Regarding your advertising system, Google AdSense/AdWords, how has your presence provided support to users?

We believe that search advertising is great for both advertisers and users because it provides targeted, relevant information at the exact moment people are searching. Since we arrived in MENA a year and half ago we have been working to improve the search experience in Arabic while building our relations locally and educating businesses about the possibilities of search advertising.

As you can imagine, online advertising as a percentage of total advertising varies quite significantly across markets in MENA. However, generally speaking, online advertising in MENA is still in its early days and we believe that it has very strong growth potential.  Our aim is to continue to work with our partners and with local businesses to help unleash this potential and to encourage the growth and further development of online advertising.  As such, we will continue to provide our advertisers with great tools to run and track their online advertising, while helping our users find the information they are looking for.
 
Going back to Google's initiatives, tell us about the latest
Our most recent initiative is part of our philosophy to create something different and of value. For example, we have appointed Google Ambassadors in Universities, who help us connect to local students and communities, enabling us to better understand user needs and expectations. In Jordan, We are already the global sponsors for the online biz competition with Queen Rania center for entrepreneurship and other activities like the Google Ambassador. The Google Campus Ambassador Program is an opportunity for students to be a liaison between Google and their university. Ambassadors plan and host a few events during the school year, introduce students to new Google products and features, and act as a campus contacts for Google teams.

What’s your view regarding the competition from regional Internet portals

Search is one of the most competitive industries around.  Users are only ever one click away from an alternative search engine.  Competition is great for users as it stimulates innovation and gives them choice.  And competition, rather than regulation, is the best way to protect users' interests.

Any closing words?

We are tremendously excited to be in MENA now and focusing on the community here. We believe there is tremendous growth potential in the region both in terms of creating more content online where our focus at Google is to provide access to information and give people in this region the tools to tell their stories as well as serving as an economic engine of growth where the businesses in the region can serve ads that are highly relevant and targeted thus enabling companies to grow, succeed and create jobs.