Women, like men, are capable of flocking en masse when the time demands it, be it to Hawaaworld.com or the launch of Jimmy Choo shoes, seen above.
One of the great mysteries of the Arab internet is "the forums thing," a phenomena where web users, predominantly in Saudi Arabia but also across the region, continue to flock to seriously old-school bulletin board discussion forums. Sure, Facebook is taking off, but if you want to find the masses online, head to the forums.
Business 24-7 has a good overview of the phenomena, viewed through the lens of Hawaaworld, the Saudi women's site that is one of the biggest in the region. Hawaaworld and its ad agency, NetAdvantage, are owned by National Net Ventures (N2V), the Saudi web giant that also owns Mubasher, a kind of Arabic Bloomberg. If an Arab web company is going to IPO, it will be these guys (I included some comments from N2V in a wider look at the Saudi web published in April.)
But back to the forums.
Hawaaworld is currently rocking about 5 million unique users every month, which is pretty amazing given that there is about 60 million Arabic speakers on the web, less than half of them women (estimates range from 25-40%). Other, even more obscure forums, frequently break the one million mark. Here in the UAE, the English-language forum Expatwoman is one of the country's biggest sites.
So why do forums remain so beloved? There are some good guesses in the 24-7 article, which is worth a read. I've heard lots of explanations: the relatively slow development of decent Arabic-language web 2.0 type sites, a preference for anonymity and rapid replies/debate, a wish to stay around like-minded people you have build a relationship with, etc.
But my favourite answer came at the Submit web conference in Dubai last year - one techie gave me his take: "We Arabs are natural aggregators," he said. "We like to gather together in big crowds and yell at each other, and forums are the best way to do that."
Update: Saleh Esmaeili, an Abu Dhabi-based developer, sent through a link to a blog post he wrote on the topic, which is worth a read if you are interested in this stuff.
