Tag: Lebanon
Typical Lebanese Twitter Conversation
I joined twitter on the 13th of February 2007 and i don’t remember for how long the service was already out and running.
At the beginning I was not really active tweeting then became addicted to a certain extreme limit and lately I am controlling this addiction and this control led to one of my new year resolutions which is being less active on twitter and more on Quora (which I believe will be big in 2011 because of the accumulating knowledge the site is carrying).
This post is not about discussing the blogging or micro blogging services and their impact, it is about how Lebanese tweeple communicate and tweet. Since joining twitter i have followed and unfollowed lots of people, i have seen the clever and stupid, the smart and dumb, the useful and the useless and filtered my time line very often, but what kept coming to my head is the Lebanese way of tweeting (not everyone but most of them) and below is a typical time line out of my imagination.
Tweeple #1: morning Lebanon
Unlimited number of tweeples: morning tweeple #1, long time no see, long time no hear, we miss you, i love you, how are you, bla bla bla
Tweeple #1: oh thank you thank you i miss all of you too
(knowing that they had a tweetup 24 hours before this conversation)
Tweeple #1: i feel like having a breakfast, what should i eat?
Unlimited number of tweeples: have a man2ouche, no a croissant, i suggest labneh 3al saj, no eat healthy, i adore nutella, bla bla bla
Tweeple #1: ok i will have all what you have suggested
Tweeple #2 (girl): i was thinking of buying a new bag and shoes, what about we make a tweetup and discuss it???
Unlimited number of tweeples (girls): akid charchoura, i have wonderful ideas for you, chefet skarbineh mbere7 bel Hamra bett tayyer el 3a2el, yiiii la2 ana ma fiyeh ajlouwa please, bla bla bla
unlimited number of retweets for the tweetup via twitvite starts filling your time line
Tweeple #3 (boy): Guys, i am thinking of buying a new Camaro model el 2015, haydi special edition ou ma fi menna ella 100 cars worldwide, i need to have one of them to feel i am aligned with life ou se3ra bass 75,000 dollars bass iza bjiba men dubai bwafer fiya chway (knowing that he can barely afford to buy a Nissan Sunny 1995 model, with all my respect to people driving Nissan Sunny cars).
Unlimited number of tweeples: no dont buy that camaro, it is not good, i heard that there is a strange noise in the engine and they cannot locate it, so fiya deffo menel cherkeh, no buy this car, much better, no buy that car, and the discussion goes on the “lebanese style” analyzing and finding what all the engineers of Mercedes-Benz and Ferrari and Porsche missed while designing their cars.
OK, let us have a tweetup and design our own car and while we are there we can also discuss the political situation in Lebanon and the region and analyze what will happen next.
unlimited number of retweets for the tweetup via twitvite starts filling your time line
Tweeple #999: I feel so down today because my cat did not feel OK yesterday, took her to the vet and i could not sleep all night long as i wanted to make sure she is sleeping peacefully.
Unlimited number of tweeples: yiii sorry to hear this, walla bssayentik ma btesstehal, bassita allah karim, ra7 dawila cham3a la tsso7
Tweeple #1025: i became the mayor of restaurant “best hamburger in town” (and this check-in is number 3,752 at the same location) ya khayeh walla fhemnna enno bet 7ebb el hamburger taba3 “best hamburger in town” ou jarabneha ou btekhod el 3a2el ou ra7 na3mellak wassel fiya.
Tweeple #3710: let us have a tweetup because i did not eat sushi since our last tweetup at “best sushi in town”
unlimited number of retweets for the tweetup via twitvite starts filling your time line
Tweeple #2762: I cannot believe my eyes, i crossed the line of 50,000 tweets, i feel great!!!
Unlimited number of tweeples: mabrouk el 50,000 tweet, walla ma 7ada addak 3al twitter ya chabb el twitter enta, ya allah my wish is to have the same number of tweets, starting this moment i will tweet everytime i use the bathroom, maybe it can help raising the number.
Hey you, “Stupid with 50,000 tweets”, i am sure that barely 1% of your tweets might have something useful for me or for others, you got to that number because you tell good morning every morning to the 1000 people following you and every time you take a breath you tweet about it.
And it goes on and on and on … so please go and download a messenger.
Having caricaturized the twitter time line the Lebanese style, i cannot hold myself saying that there are lots interesting tweeple out there who can easily fill you time line with useful tweets and information and point to interesting subjects. No need to make a list of names, you know who you are.
Tagged with: Lebanon
BIG LIARS – Both Of You
Municipality elections are here and here you are one more time with your shiny billboards and messages, trying to convince us to vote for you.
I have tried, with all of you. When you were friends and when you were enemies, when you were nice and when you were bad, in every occasion I have tried because I wanted to see what you will end up doing to my city, but unfortunately all you did was to screw this wonderful Mediterranean city more and more.
Maybe I am exaggerating because I love Jounieh more than you do, maybe because I want it to be the most perfect town, but every now and then you prove more and more that you never deserved my last vote for you.
You have no more attractive words to put on your billboard campaign that you ended up bringing Virgin Mary to be part of it, how low things can go to get a simple vote. While the others are turning the page for a new start that they were supposed to make happen long time ago.
Surely things will be different for me this Sunday, because both of you are BIG LIARS!
Tagged with: Lebanon
Hard Life In Lebanon
Source Maya Zankoul and Qifanabki
Why Blackberry Will Fail In Lebanon
For the last one year or maybe more, Lebanese tech gadget geeks waited for the Blackberry to land in their country, and at last the service was announced by MTC Touch, one of the 2 local mobile service providers, these state owned companies that are monopolizing the lebanese market are operated by foreign companies.
But the dream was soon demolished when MTC Touch announced its plan price which was way illogical in a country where Lebanese thought they are by far leading the technology knowledge in this part of the world.
The subscription cost is US$45/month including 20 MB of consumption (for local usage only). Extra usage is charged US$1/MB.
Compared to the service offered by Etisalat in the UAE (United Arab Emirates), you would pay in Dubai AED185 (US$50) for local unlimited data and AED295 (US$80) for unlimited local and international usage which compared to the lebanese plan, would let the consumer say, DUH am i screwed in my own country? Just for a real life example, I have a French friend living in Lebanon, he is simply using the Blackberry service from the UAE, and I am sure lots of other people are doing the same.
I have never been a Blackberry user, but I think that all Blackberry phones are not wifi enabled, which forces you to stay within the boundaries of the 20MB data you have per month, which is not really sufficient for a heavy user, even on just a simple work email account, in case we drop net browsing. (i read somewhere that Blackberry will be launching a wifi enabled phone in 2009)
On the other hand, I am an MTC Touch client and I use their GPRS service which cost me US$20/month for 30MB of data, which I believe is fair and enough if used properly, larger packages are also available.
It is more convenient using such plan on a smart phone because it gives you more flexibility specially if you need to push more than 1 email address, I guess on Blackberry you are limited to only 1 email address, please correct me if I am wrong.
Lebanon was considered for many years before the civil war that started in 1975 and ended in 1990, as Switzerland of the Middle East, but I am not sure if this myth is still living specially that technologically we were left behind for quite a long time. Lately Lebanese consumers had a slight hope when the government lowered the mobile calling rates, for the first time since cell phones services were launched around 1995, consumers paid one of the highest cost in the world, the same price of US$0.13 (excl. VAT) per minute and for sms, is now US$0.11-(excl. VAT) and US$0.09-(excl. VAT) respectively.
Without mentioning the bad service on cell phones for the last few months, because as it seems the network when first installed had a certain capacity and the 2 companies are still issuing more sim cards serviced on the same network which is causing lots of technical interference when making calls.
Consumers still believe that these new low rates are expensive compared to other neighboring countries, they are looking for a new hope as rumors have been for long time talking about the privatization of the telecom sector in Lebanon and the arrival of a 3rd company that will push the competition harder.
Until this moment, all these are pure rumors and Lebanese consumers are still paying the highest rate for the lowest service no only in the region, but in the whole world.
Lebanese Beggaring
For the last few years, every few months you could easily spot billboards in Lebanon, thanking a bunch of what we call in lebanese sister countries, for donating or helping Lebanon.
And everytime I see these I have the feeling that Lebanese are beggars and I am one of them.
But I always feel bad about it, why ? For many reasons, first because we are not beggars and I don’t want ever to have this feeling (if you want to call it “The Lebanese Proud”, I have no problem with it), second if anyone is helping Lebanon, they should not wait for a non-stop thank you on billboards, third if these thank you messages are for political objectives, well i am sure majority of Lebanese are really pissed off with it.
Whomever put us in this deep shit, should work hard to take us out of it, who is it? I don’t really care for the name and I don’t really care to know, maybe all of us are responsible, every and each one of us, maybe some more than others, but at the end we are all responsible.
If I disagree with these billboards, it does not mean I am with the ones politically on the other side, I am with myself, because I might be the only one who can help me.
You want to help Lebanon, great we appreciate it, do it low profile and you, the Lebanese who are managing these donations and help, again keep it low, no need to shout loudly.
And please, all politicians, get the hell out of my life.