Facts show Twitter yet to lure Middle East users

Which website has been the focus of more than 100 stories in the UAE's English-language media in the past 12 months? It isn't Ikbis, the Jordanian video-sharing site that dishes up nine million videos to Middle-Eastern viewers every month. And it is not Darrb, the brainchild of an Emirati entrepreneur, which could shake up the logistics industry as Craigslist has done to classified advertising. It is instead the mini-blogging site Twitter, which according to figures released yesterday has almost 5,000 UAE users. That is not a typing error; no missing zeros. The most promoted website in the country has as many customers as the average corner store. Obviously, who these customers are matters more than their number. Among that user base, which would fit into a couple of residential apartment towers, is a healthy mix of journalists, spin doctors, marketers, media personalities and decision makers. When a story erupts on Twitter, the country will hear about it; when one breaks out in the local corner store, it is unlikely to make it to the next city block. For a business such as Spot On, the public relations firm that produced the numbers, the growth of Twitter among decision makers and influencers is a big deal, "opening up new marketing opportunities and, indeed, challenges", according to Carrington Malin, the firm's managing director. Reaching an influential crowd once meant spending big dollars on lavish parties and high-end advertising space, or wooing journalists and radio hosts with the promise of a big story. For those smart enough to use it properly, Twitter opens up a free, instant, two-way communications channel with that very same crowd. But what it has not achieved, and seems unlikely to do, is change the dynamics of a Middle-Eastern internet culture that has shown a clear disinterest in the kind of open, public self-expression that Twitter is all about. For many technologies, adoption begins in the US and Japan, before spreading elsewhere in Asia and on to Europe. The concept is then taken up in the Middle East, spreading outward from wealthy GCC countries. Mobile phones are a good example, as are online advertising and internet banking. Like every rule there are plenty of exceptions, and the phenomena of what many call social media seems to be one of them. Middle-Eastern internet users have taken to watching and sharing online video and multi-player games, but blogs and Twitter remain a niche pursuit. Consider the UAE, where 780,000 people have set up a Facebook account, of which 75,000 use the site in Arabic. There is clearly no lack of interest in web surfing and the country is among the most connected in the world. Yet only 5,000 people have set up Twitter accounts, and even less are writing a blog. The "walled garden" provided by Facebook clearly has an appeal. A note posted on your personal Facebook profile can be viewed only by the people you list as friends, and is kept away from the prying eyes and permanent public archives of Google. Cultural traits of the region, such as an emphasis on protecting the family name, play a part. So do governing structures that discourage free expression, particularly when the expression tends towards criticism of rulers or powerful personalities. Even though blogs and online self-expression remain far from the mainstream, the notion that they have emerged as a potent tool of the masses is a powerful and attractive one. For the media, particularly those trying to attract an international audience, the story of a young generation in the Middle East driving social change through new forms of expression is one too good to let the facts ruin. In Egypt, talk of a Facebook movement is widespread, particularly among foreign correspondents and democracy activists, whose optimism regarding social change often eclipses the facts. The country is home to the largest number of Facebook users in the region, with tens of thousands joining groups on the system dedicated to changing the country's political and social system. But when the groups asked members to join public protests this April, none showed up. "The failure of the 'Facebookiyin' to organise significant strikes on April 6 this year should have surprised no one," wrote the Middle East analyst Marc Lynch. "I have a hard time thinking of a communications technology more poorly suited for organising high-risk political collective action than Facebook. Joining a group is perhaps the lowest-cost political activity imaginable, involving none of the commitment and dedication necessary to go out to a protest." Spot On PR and other technology and media types heralding the growth of Twitter are thinking more about corporate communications than public protest, but their belief that Twitter will become a mainstream form of expression in the region is as stretched as the belief in a Facebook revolution in Egypt. Sometimes the success of a technology or idea in the West does not lead to its inevitable acceptance in the Middle East. The region's blogging community, which remains minuscule, is a good example of low adoption. Twitter will stay in the same basket, no matter how many journalists and PR types wish to tell you otherwise. tgara@thenational.ae