Q8Ba7th Official Blog

Careerjet.ae is the UAE version of the worldwide job search engine Careerjet.com. In their words “Careerjet is an employment search engine for the United Arab Emirates. It allows you to search a growing selection of jobs listed on company sites as well as jobsites in one go saving you the trouble of having to go to each site individually.”. So if this is a UAE Job Search why am I listing it here?

It’s because they also include jobs from around the middle-east, and a section for Kuwait job listing as well. Their search service is pretty fast you don’t want to stop. And they seem to be an ad powered site, so your individual use of the service is FREE.

Since they fetch the job listing automatically from companies and job listing sites, there is a chance of error ofcourse. I have seen some job listings in Kuwait section that do not belong to Kuwait. But still, the percentage is not that high and you can use it to seek your job easily. Site owners told me also they are bringing a Kuwaiti dedicated domain as well, after which things should be better for Kuwait job search, since it’s more focused.

Popularity: 29% [?]

So much information you need to look for out there, and a single window is just not enough. You frequently have to open more and more tabs to do more and more searches. And sometimes, when searching for local piece of information about Kuwait, you end up with an overwhelming amount of results from all over the planet that makes it difficult to reach the information you need, which is only inside Kuwait. This is why Q8Ba7th was made. Q8Ba7th is a Kuwait focused search engine powered by Google, that intends to make your Kuwait searches easier, giving you more relevant and focused results. This is opposed to searching the whole web when your search is aimed at only few hundreds or thousands of sites. But people often ask, why wouldn’t I Google the information I need directly? Google is more global and I can definitely find what I need there. The site I’m looking for may not be listed at Q8Ba7th.

This was one thing we thought of when we implemented the new interface. Another thing we aimed for was ease and quick of search. Ability to reach various amount of information, without needing for the browser to refresh. Something that will make the search experience smooth rather than discontinuous.

We’re happy to be releasing the new AJAX advanced search mash-up interface, that would give you literally 7 search results in one page:

If you click the link, or take a look at the image above, you would see two tabbed columns there:

Left Column: Kuwait Results – Q8Ba7th. That includes

• Kuwait: Search Kuwait sites
• Phones: Search Contact pages and phone directory pages of Kuwait sites. This is useful when you are looking for specific phone number, say EUREKA.

Right Column: Global Results. These are Google results that covers:

• Web: Normal Google web search. So now you can search what you want on Q8Ba7th, and see if Google Web results have anything useful as well.
• News: Google News Search. See what are the latest news on the topic you are searching for, like elections for example.
• Blog: Google Blog Search. Includes Blogspot alongside other professional blogs
• Image: Image search results for your query. Sometimes an image is worth a thousand words they say.

So that’s six resultsets. Where is the seventh? It’s the video bar below, giving you YouTube videos related to your search query. That’s gotta be worth more than a thousand words I say!

If you prefer the old classic mode, you can find a link at the top right to switch back to Classic mode. Also, below each resultset, you can click the More Results link to browse more results in Classic mode.

Popularity: 20% [?]

Name: Ketaaby.com

Type: Shopping – Books

Description: Kuwait online shopping bookstore that offers wide range of Arabic focused books with an English books section as well. The site is divided into one level of categories, e.g. computers, law, literature, English, but there are no subcategories. Home delivery is made within 48 hours of order placement, and it would seem that payment is in cash on delivery, which I personally like.

Pros:

FREE Delivery: I think the site needs an FAQ section as I was not able to find direct answer, but upon trying to checkout with 6 KD book, it showed the delivery charge as zero KD, which is good.

Regional: This is both good and bad, but looking at it from the bright side, the store is good for Arabic readers who prefer to read Arabic books only. It has a collection of English books, but their top seller majority is in Arabic.

Design: The look and feel of the site is appealing I find it and easy to load, focused and not cluttered with ads or anything else.

Unique: We really lack good large bookstores in Kuwait, and we lack online bookstores even more. The other online bookstore I know is Q8Books, which I discussed before. So I wish to see growth for them. Problem is, I don’t think Kuwaities in general are passionate enough about books to make strong market for them.

Cons:

Price: When I say this here, I am comparing English books at Amazon and local stores to this one. Usually novels are few KDs, could reach 5 KD at times. An example I looked at is “The Zahir”, which costs at Amazon $11, and local stores around 5 KD, while here it’s 8.5 KD. Novels are usually low priced, and light in weight, so shipping from outside the book would cost 3 KD, add another 3 KD for the shipping, you are still saving 2.5 KD. Ofcourse you are also waiting few days more. For some other books, the price may be a good offer though looking at book weight, or for Arabic books as well which you can’t find outside. So for your type of books, you should first take a look at the market and see if the difference is worth the trip to the store next time.

Categories: Having only one level of categories could make it difficult to find the book you are looking for. For example, in computer section I could be looking for software books purely. In English category, novels, history, biography, self-improvement and all other kinds are mixed together. It’s nice in a sense to browse through different collections, but not very helpful when you are looking for something specific. I think a better way would be to have same categories in English & Arabic. Or make it vice versa. When clicking on Computer, give option to include English, Arabic or both. Just a thought.

Search: The search feature did not seem to function as expected to me. I tried several searches for author and title, the results did not seem relevant.

Up to date?: Looking at my taste of books, computers, I did not see them so much updated. Maybe it’s because Arabic computer books are just not so updated, possible. I remember a big physical computer bookstore in Kuwait City that kept begging for customers till it went broke. Problem is, most computer book readers are welling to order from outside, and it’s difficult for local ones to compete with outside stores. I also notice this in Jarir Bookstore. But for Guinness World Records book, I can’t really excuse not having latest one .

Suggestions: I hope the store is doing good, but I’m not sure. I am sure though I do not see enough ads for it. People in Kuwait are ordering good amount of books from outside, are increasingly facing more difficulties with delivery couriers, so if local stores can deliver in 2 days, which is long for local delivery but still good compared to international one, then they would happy to buy the same book if it’s for a good price. Some targeted Google ads, or Facebook ads might be useful. Have it been tried before? I’m not sure I’ve seen it

Popularity: 62% [?]

Name: Kuwait Boat Show International KBSI – 2008

Description: Second international boat show in Kuwait, with tens of specialized companies showing their latest products ranging from yachts, boats, marine engines, tools, equipments, and jet skies.

Location: Fahaheel Waterfront – Al Kout

Dates: 29th April – 3rd May

Time: 4 PM – 10 PM Daily

Ticket Price: 3 KD – I also saw 10 KD sign for VIP. No idea what’s the difference

Exhibitors: Click here.

The Good: For people who like sailing, sea sport, and boats, this is a very good chance to take a broader look at what’s available out there.

The Bad: The fountain area these days is so much condensed with boats you can’t enjoy the view anymore. Also, the place is more crowded, so a set at a cafe won’t guarantee nice and quite time. On a a side note, majority of visitors were foreigns.

Gallery:

Popularity: 28% [?]

P2BK is a new youth initiative to organize annual forum for small and startup businesses. A healthy and definitely needed concept I say for startups and small business who can’t afford to take place in big expos like Info Connect and others. Yesterday, 30th April, 08 was the first annual forum which I could not afford to miss. I have to say however I was expecting much more from it. Keeping in mind this is the first annual forum, one can’t expect things to be perfect. They were also very unfortunate in timing with the Islamic Conference traffic jam and the icy storm that struck in the same day. So anyways, the idea is pretty good in general and I would love to see more of it, and here I thought of sharing what I thought was good, bad, and add some suggestions to it.

Pros:

Concept: Great idea and very much useful for small businesses. The number of participants can only reflect how much people want it.

Pricing: The price was meant to serve the small business owners making it affordable to most if not all.

Awards & Surveys: What’s an expo without feedback really? A $1000 award was promised for best design, which is chosen based on visitor reviews. Ofcourse it’s kinda subject to fraud and biased thought, but the idea is good. Also, a lady came in asking for our opinion in the expo which I dont mind at all. Except that my hand writing is bad, and as you can see from the post, I have a lot more to say than a few lines can take.

Cons:

Timing: 1 day expo, 4-10 PM. 6 hours only. I arrived at around 4:30, left around 5:30 PM. If I want to recommend the expo to a friend, he only has like 4 more hours to go. The traffic jam these few days also would make him hesitate more. I understand how the low budget may had something to do with this, but still it’s a point I think worth looking at. 3 days I think is good. Big sponsors can take part of the hosting costs and make it easier for contributors and P2BK to afford 3 days expo.

Space: The large amount of exhibitors condensed inside the small area has made it very difficult to move around, let alone set and talk to exhibitors. To make the most out of these forums, area must be wide enough for a person to walk around and watch. See what he likes and go to it. But rather I literally had to watch my steps while walking, and it’s not the heavy crowd as much as the small areas to be honest. This may have also resulted in the extreme heat inside the place.

Media Coverage: I mostly heard about this expo from the blogs. I may have seen some online ads, not sure though. I also got one spam email somehow about it. But all people I talked to didn’t know about the expo, and I never saw anything about it in the newspaper or streets. Neither I did see any review about it today even in the newspapers.

Varieties: Big portion of the exhibitors were about fashion and food, which would appeal for females maybe, but not for the majority of males.

Preparation: We were there after 5 PM when at least one of the top brand exhibitors was still working out his booth. Taking into account the exhibition is only one day makes it even worse. I know every exhibitor is responsible for his area, but the overall image of the expo depends on it’s exhibitors. So proper time management and more control on exhibitors for the overall good of the expo is needed.

Suggestions:

Categories: Hoping to see larger expo next year with larger varieties, it would help both exhibitors and visitors if the expo is organized into categories. Say Fashion, Food, eBusiness, technology, etc. One would go to the section he wants, finding what he expects. As yesterday, there was almost a whole lane full of women clothes and stuff, for some reason we passed through it and found the car bluetooth hands free device on one of the booths. It was too crowded with women we couldn’t even make a stop and just left. If it’s categorized, people would go to their preferred sections, and exhibitors would get the target audience.

Talk shows: Just like western ones. Certain companies hire the stage to present their new ideas and services to the public. This would attract more attention I presume.

Even though I was in general disappointed, I still like the idea and think there is a potential behind it if some of the points are taken care of.

Last words are: Good luck.

Popularity: 100% [?]