Worldwide, only 45% of twitter users specify a location. Since SpotOn's figures for twitter users rely on this data, the estimate should be doubled to give a more realistic figure.

The WatWet figure seems to come straight from the company. I wouldn't trust such data. When I worked in dot-coms in the late-1990s, it was common practice to multiply usage stats by two or three before public release.

Thank my friend Tom :) it took me few hours of work and some help from some friends :) ur posts are also cool.

As for WatWet, the problem they need to have actual users who tweet, twitter has more of those in the region. If u read the leaked Twitter Internal doc. at TechCrunch u ll notice that they see facebook as the biggest threat, at my Twiiter vs. watwet post, i mentioned that facebook allows you now to see the updates of people who you ask to friend even before they accepted, which means like follow on twitter. Facebook has 3 millions people in the region!

PS: ArabCrunch is written ArabCrunch= A capital and C Capital :)

What about statistics for percentage of ACTIVE users compared to total number of Users?

I remember reading a while back that more than 30% of twitters base were inactive or had twittered only once... lots of people find trouble adopting a service that they dont really understand... Just the other day i gave a twitter session to like 15 internationals!!!

So given that twitter faces numbers like that - what about WatWet? What are their demographics? What is their percentage of active users? etc... would love to see a story on that...

cheers!
cheers!

What about statistics for percentage of ACTIVE users compared to total number of Users?

I remember reading a while back that more than 30% of twitters base were inactive or had twittered only once... lots of people find trouble adopting a service that they dont really understand... Just the other day i gave a twitter session to like 15 internationals!!!

So given that twitter faces numbers like that - what about WatWet? What are their demographics? What is their percentage of active users? etc... would love to see a story on that...

cheers!
cheers!

Neither watwet nor ikbis are anything close to the success you make them out to be. Contrary to your finding, neither is really popular (if you take how long they have been around) and they are both still very small in terms of effect in the region (most of their traffic is from Jordan, one of the tiniest web spaces in the region).

We cant even say they're innovative. They are both testimony to their teams' inability to come up with something different, something of their own. Those who copied facebook are now looking on in confusion as Facebook loses ground to Twitter (yes it's happening), eventually something new will come up that will draw Twitter's crowds, and it definitely ain't some emerging market copycat :) so when that happens, Twitter will still innovate to stay alive, just like Facebook is doing right nowThis will make copycats doubly behind (behind whoever is "it" and behind Twitter). people who copied Facebook are now dizzy looking back and form wondering who to copy next, facebook or twitter... I can see that happening here.

Why don't we stop the clapping charade and ask ourselves why nowhere in the world has a Twitter clone emerged as even a very distant second competitor.. not even in the US where we usually have at least 5 recognizable names pursuing the same spot.

Watwet recently transformed themselves into just another Twitter application by connecting their accounts with Twitter... what is the value of having your tweets in two locations? what is the value of using watwet as an inferior twitter app when you have all hose other really useful apps to use (on your mobile)? why would anyone want to maintain two accounts for the same function? Why would anyone follow you on watwet when they can do that on Twitter? Why would anyone be looking for you on watwet when you "and they" are also on Twitter? Why do all the hard core watwet users (very few btw) still maintain a more active stream on Twitter? and before the twitter busines plan was leaked, did the watwet guys know where twitter -or they- were heading? or were they just twaiting for twitter's next move? Ask them that, but don't wait for an answer.

Question for you Tom; Why do you think Twitter became what it is today? You can ask watwet, but i doubt they will know.

I can go on with question, but you get the picture.

I'm all for supporting local products, but hailing something that was poorly copied to be better than its source is going overboard in trying to get these guys some exposure...

Cheers.

Salman - The Arabcrunch post goes into the whole issue of active users. Both services have low percentages of active users, but it seems particularly low at Watwet according to the Arabcrunch post.

Salem - All I can do is take the Ikbis guys at their word: what they told me when I met them in Jordan was that the service is already profitable, and serving up 7 million videos per month. To me, that's a pretty decent number given the small'ish number of Arab internet users. And that the service is making a profit is good news for anyone who cares about the Arabic web.

I'm not pretending Ikbis or Watwet are innovative, and in the articles and posts I have stressed that they will never compete with the big guys on engineering talent or technical innovation. Where I do think they can compete, as I mentioned, is in playing the "ground game", doing local deals in each country with media companies, mobile operators etc.

The "me too" business model of cloning a global success and customising it for the region is not the most amazing or exciting route to success. But it is totally legimate - look at the big search engines, portal sites or social networks that have taken off in places like Russia, China and India. All of them are just me-too clones, but well executed with local users in mind.

I'm not going to speak on Watwet's behalf, or claim to know anywhere near enough about building a successful web business, especially in the Middle East. So I've sent your questions to the Watwet guys, lets see what their answer is.

I have been getting all these alerts on Watwet in the last few days and it has all been coming from this blog. While you run 5 stories on the "CopyCat Team", I wonder why you guys are missing a lot of the companies out there who are really innovating, growing, and digging their own path trying to define what the Arab Internet should be... have you heard of Talasim, Akhtaboot, Dubizzle, Jeeran, ShooFeeTV, Elcinema (all dotComs)?

p.s Ghaith's blog -ArabCrunch (with a capital 'C' like TechCrunch)- is an example of a good Copycat... although I would have called it "ArabCabseh" (also with a cap 'C') which would actually count as somewhat innovative :)... maybe you can still catch arabcabseh.com and register it.