

Yahoo! acquires مكتوب  - sibilsalim
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/25/confirmed-yahoo-acquires-arab-internet-portal-maktoob/

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areaMan
For HN readers who may not be aware that much about M.East tech scene, let me
state that this is huge. I am in UAE and even though I've been only an
ocassional reader of Maktoob and not much attached to Yahoo, still I am
excited.

~~~
cool-RR
Yeah? I always thought there were hardly any start-ups in these countries. Can
you name some?

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patrickas
Shameless self promotion ... my (part time) startup <http://yoolki.com>

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mahmud
Impressive how it does the harakat as well.

patrickas, unless you want to alienate friends and disenchant people, please
don't use a national flag to stand for a language. It irks me when I see the
British/American flag used to mean "English Language"; just yesterday we were
talking about a site that used the Saudi flag to mean "Arabic language".

Either use the letter `Ain ع. Or if you need a flag to fit in with the rest of
your icon set, use the flag of the Jami`a alarabia:

[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2b/Fla...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2b/Flag_of_the_Arab_League.svg/800px-
Flag_of_the_Arab_League.svg.png)

Good luck, you have a "cool", darling of the media competitor :-(

~~~
patrickas
Thanks for the feedback!

The flag is a bug not a feature! It was supposed to display the flag of the
country the user is connecting form but I messed up the geolocation api and
forgot to remove it :-) It is gone now. (actually replaced by a white image
until I have time to work on geolocation again).

Having a "cool", darling of the media competitor is not so bad actually keeps
me from getting too lazy.

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bilbo0s
OK,

I must be missing something.

The guy kept his EBay equivalent, he kept his PayPal equivalent, he kept the
Arabic search tech, and arguably most crucially he kept Tahadi, the MMO games
equivalent.

I mean think about it, try to make an Arabic Twitter, without Arabic search
tech.

So Yahoo gets the 'portal' part?

What exactly is the plan here?

Why is this a good deal for Yahoo?

Because it SEEMS like a slick, young businessman just sold a boat anchor that
was slowing him down, to a Western sucker who was in the process of drowning.

If anyone has a better idea of what Yahoo might have been going for here I'd
be interested in what you have to say. I'm just having trouble putting it
together on my own.

~~~
sachinag
Well, Yahoo doesn't have PayDirect any more, they don't do search tech
internally any more, and they don't do MMO game development internally either.
It would be really bizarre for them to buy stuff - even if it's high growing -
that they don't do in their US/EU regions.

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halo
I think after a long time in the wilderness, the people who are in charge of
Yahoo! have finally figured out exactly what their strategy is and where
they're taking the company.

Instead of investing their time, effort, and money trying to compete in search
where they can't possibly hope to win, they're focusing on strengthening,
investing in, and expanding their already-popular core brands and services. I
think this is a really good move.

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dotcoma
way to go! "portal" is the name of the game! ;-)

~~~
mahmud
Maktoob is not a portal, it's a conglomerate; the most real, brick and mortar
Web startup you have ever seen. They have enviable and very deep ties with
government, academia, NGOs, banks and everything you can imagine. They're
humongous.

(they're not part of the deal, but Maktoob also owns Souq and Cashu; middle-
eastern equivalent of Ebay and Paypal, imo)

~~~
areaMan
True dat!

mahmud, you seem to belong to this region or atleast have previous ties with
working with people in this region. (I don't know, I'm just guessing based on
some of your previous comments), so I guess you are the best person to ask
this. Any news/info about if they are going to invest in expansion and hire
more people? And any ideas how I can get plugged in the tech industry here in
MiddleEast? I am a relative newbie in this region (previously worked in
Bangalore/US for Fortune-10 companies, 7+ yrs work-ex) and even though I love
the work here (we are a small shop with a big govt cust), I feel I lack an
environment where I can come across other technical people and events and
exciting things happening here and keep learninng and upgrading myself. Most
of the tech companies (and hence I suppose the happenings) here are
concentrated in glitzy Dubai Internet City, far away from my place. I guess I
need a meetup with a techie or two and who knows where the network takes you.

~~~
gms
If you're looking for technical anything, Dubai Internet City is a joke. It's
all sales/PR people.

~~~
areaMan
Thanks for that info. Actually, I haven't even visited it. Just from what I've
heard and considering that most tech. companies are situated there I assumed
there must be atleast some dev. going on there. Any ideas where I should look
at?

~~~
gms
I don't mean to sound pessimistic, but if you're really interested in tech
stuff I'd suggest moving to a western country (preferably the US).

