Accelerating everything with the Web

Michael Hedges July 31, 2009 Follow on Twitter

Slowly but surly the internet has arrived in developing regions. Broadband connection to the Web is becoming more available, for a price, and with it access is moving to homes and offices from the internet cafes. All things are possible, and happening quickly.

The growth rate of the online population in Egypt is expected to rise rapidly, reported Forrester Research (July 22), the highest in North Africa. Available bandwidth, enabling faster access to video and audio content, has increased to 27,000 Mbps from 850 Mbps since 2003. Internet penetration in 2005 was estimated at 7% of Egypt’s population, doubling by 2008. In 2002 the Egyptian government reduced the cost for internet access to the price of a local telephone call.

Egypt’s traditional media, State controlled if not State owned, remains very top-down editorially. With internet access accelerating, the young, the wired and the restless have turned to websites and blogs for entertainment and news. Social networking sites and YouTube are popular, much to the irritation of authorities.

Facebook has become the defacto bulletin-board for Egypt’s wired population. The social networking site is the third most accessed Website after Google and Yahoo. There are more than 1 million registered Facebook users in Egypt, up from 70,000 in 12 months, reported Facebook Global Monitor (March 2).

Armed with Facebook pages anti-government activists organized demonstrations in April 2008. Some 500 protesters were arrested including one of the Facebook protest organizers, Isra'a 'Abd al-Fattah. Her story, from protest-light to jail, was detailed in a New York Times Magazine article (January 25) by Samantha Shapiro. A similar attempt at Facebook activism this April fell rather flat.

PC density in Egypt is high compared with the rest of North Africa but low compared to the West. Driving the growth in Web usage are mobile devices. Mobile web user growth in Egypt in 2008 topped a report by Opera Software (September 2008), more than 1800% in less than a year. And Facebook was the second most accessed site by mobile users, following Google.

Blogs, too, have risen in Egypt. Social and political criticism fill many. This has raised the anxiety level among the state security apparatus. Blogger Wael Abbas was detained at Cairo International Airport (June 30) as he returned from a conference in Sweden. He was held, searched and questioned for five hours. Two Islamist bloggers - Abdel Rahman Ayyash and Magdi Saad - were arrested in separate incidents at the Cairo airport last week (July 24). Another, Ahmad Abu Khalil, was arrested at his home the day before.The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) asked Egyptian authorities to explain.

Locally hosted blogs and websites are easily harassed when authorities feel threatened. Harder, but not impossible, are the big international sites like Facebook, Wikipedia and YouTube. Pulling the plug, so to speak, on a specific domain is a matter of a few lines of code in backbone routers. The risk censoring authorities, however, is upsetting other Web users who like to post pictures of their pets, videos of their children and messages to their mothers.

Egyptian authorities faced stony international criticism when a video posted to YouTube showing – graphically – the slaughter of baby pigs as a response, so authorities said, to swine flu fears. As the video spun around the world, animal rights activists were outraged. The World Health Organization (WHO) said the pig slaughter was “entirely unnecessary.”

Another Web development - less noted by media critics but very important on the home front – has arrived in Egypt: online shopping. Starting up in January was Nefsak, a local Egyptian online shopping site. And people – about 50,000 visitors a month – are shopping.

“Registered users shop regularly and on overage spend up to EGP 2000 (about €250)," said Managing Director Sherif Nassar, to Business 24/7 (July 7).  “Because of the popularity of the website we are planning to include fashion and furniture and make it a complete shopping portal.”

Online shopping is not exactly exploding in Egypt. "Online sales have not added to business bottom lines yet but in countries such as Egypt customers are using websites to buy food,” said Lenovo Middle East General Manager Khaled Kamel. "Consumers in the Gulf will go on to an Amazon to shop but will not visit a local website. They want to feel and touch the products at the mall.”

As more Egyptians connect to the Web the possibilities, in every respect, are endless.

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