Rami Olwan

Recent research by PR agency Spot On suggests that Twitter is booming in the Middle East region with over 12 000 people from this region having registered a Twitter account. Interestingly however, Twitter is perhaps not the biggest micro-blogging site in the Middle East.

While I think one should question PR agencies (such as Spot On) as being reputable research houses, what one cannot deny is that Twitter is becoming increasingly popular all over the world. One cannot switch on the radio or television these days without, at one point or another, hearing what somebody said on their Twitter feed.

Having said this, Twitter is perhaps not the biggest micro-blogging website in the Middle East. According to the popular technology blog ArabCrunch, a Jordanian Twitter clone website called Watwet claims to have about 25 000 users, about double the number of Twitter users in the Arab world.

Watwet is basically a Twitter clone that allows one to post micro-blogs and follow others Watwet users’ feeds. In terms of features, it is still lagging behind the likes of Twitter, but in principle, Watwet performs the same functions as Twitter.

The owners of Watwet say that most of its users are Jordanian. It’s debatable then about whether it is then possibly the biggest player when it comes to micro-blogging in the Middle East, but it seems Watwet is becoming an important player in the micro-blogging space here as the likes of news organisation Al Jazeera have a Watwet feed.

For full article, please visit the following:

http://www.itp.net/news/563055-twitter-clones