Are you a hotel eMarketer looking for ways to better communicate, educate and develop the role at your property/ies? This article explores some of the issues surrounding these efforts, complemented by a dose of perspective and a generous helping of best practices, all garnished, hopefully, by your own ideas and experiences. By Jitendra Jain

Finding Meaning: Wikipedia attributes the word ‘evolution’ to the Latin term ‘evolutio’ meaning "unfolding". While the tech and Internet revolution have anything but “unfolded” upon us (“exploded” would be more appropriate, given the short span of time over which most Internet-related developments have occurred), there is something to be learnt from the nature of these changes.
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The Apple iPhone has been causing waves long enough in North America and the most users have found a workaround, hack or just a usuable alternative to get a hold of this magnificient device and start using it...even in the Middle East! Dubai is already flooded with a plethora of "distributors" - each who claims a working hack, spew of add-ons and the best deal you'd get in your life :) (Read the post and comments here for a preview of the frenzy!). How about buying and using an iPhone in Bahrain however? Though the official launch of the iPhone in most countries worldwide is still a few months away (mainly due to bundling and distribution issues with the local Telecom providers) the iPhone is already being sold and brought into the country and used with the hacks now easily available online. And while the phone has its drawbacks for advanced users, the beauty of the interface and the feel make it worth all the trouble! How has YOUR experience been with the Apple iPhone? Did you buy in Bahrain? What issues did you face with local distributors and making it work with Batelco / MTC Vodafone? [Read More!]

BATELCO (The National Telecommunications Company of Bahrain) has launched a new, first-time video mail service in the Kingdom of Bahrain. This is part of their 3.5G portfolio that promises the fastest broadband services to mobile users in the country:

Batelco’s 3.5G ‘portfolio’ includes mobile broadband, video calling and a new mobile portal with a wide range of exciting content targeting all segments in Bahrain. To use the exciting new services, customers need to subscribe to Batelco’s O services and register for video mail. Each customer will be assigned a video mailbox. The cost for registration is only BD1 and video mail forwarding is free of charge.

tags: batelco, voicemail, video-mail, video, broadband, mobile, telecom, 3.5g, mobile-broadband, bahrain, manama, kingdom, video-mailbox

UAE has just blocked the popular Social networking tool / site, Orkut, which is used by millions of people around the world and is possibly among the top 3 sites used in India. Following the Orkut block, this hoax email / rumor / chainmail has been circulating in the UAE:

The Story....
A guy lost his girlfriend in a train accident....
but the gal's name nowhere appeared in the dead list. This guy
grew up n became IT technical architect in his late 20?s, achievement in itself!!.
He hired developers from the whole globe and plan to make a
software where he could search for his gf through the web..
Things went as planned...
n he found her, after losing millions of dollars and 3 long years!!
It was time to shut down the search operation, when the CEO of Google had a
word with this guy n took over this application,
This Software made a whopping 1 billion dollars profit in its first year,
which we today know as ORKUT .
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TIME Magazine recently released an article, titled “25 Sites We Can’t Live Without” - some obvious choices and great finds in there, no doubt, however again a little disappointing since some of the choices are very USA focused. The rest of the world seems to be on the backburner again… in response here is a list of Top 20 websites that are making waves in the United Arab Emirates and the Middle East, based on traffic and popularity:



Yahoo!
www.yahoo.com
According to web traffic analysis companies (including Alexa Internet and Netcraft), Yahoo! has been the most visited website on the Internet, with more than 412 million unique users. Yahoo provides a wide array of internet services that cater to most online activities. It operates the web portal http://www.yahoo.com which provides contents including the latest news, Yahoo Finance and gives users quick access to other Yahoo services like Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo Maps, Yahoo! Groups and Yahoo! Messenger. Over 50% of the users on network visit to use their Yahoo! email. View the complete list of products and services offered by Yahoo!
Traffic Rank: 1 | Sites that Link here: 76,894 | Speed: Average (2.2 seconds) | Online Since: 18-Jan-1995

Read the full Top 20 UAE (Middle East) Website list here

tags: internet, websites, sites, web, top-20, best, top, popular, uae, dubai, abu-dhabi, middle-east, TIME, magazine, list, most-visited