Introducing Ejabat

Last night at simultaneous suhoors in Dubai and Cairo, Google unveiled

(

Answers

), a new product developed by its

team. Think of Yahoo Answers, but in real time, and in Arabic.

As the Google guys kept telling us (to a backdrop of bubbling shishas), this is not an Arabic translation of an existing product, this is a dedicated new product for the region, developed in the region.

It looks pretty slick, although I haven't had a chance to play with it that much. It definitely has that Google look and feel of industrial-strength minimalism. Basically, users can register as "experts" who will answer questions on certain topics, and others can simply visit the site and ask a question, with the question answered (ideally) in something approaching real time by the pool of users who are online at that moment.

Obviously the viability of the service really depends on getting a critical mass of users participating. Without that mass, the whole thing will flop. With that mass, it could get very interesting.

The Arab world is full of a lot of "hidden knowledge" - things that are commonly known but not publicly known. The best recipes, the best shisha / shawerma place, the store that can fix your laptop for half the price of all the others - and lets not get started on directions and traffic tips. There is a lot of stuff already out there in the collective knowledge that has yet to make it online, and if Ejebat can get it out there, good luck to them.

And can more product launches please be done over shisha?

Full press release from Google is here:

----------- PRESS RELEASE ----------------

Have a Question? Google Ejabat May have the Answer
Google Launches - Ejabat a Question and Answer product to help users share information

How do you cure a stomach ache? What is the best way to make macaroni? What is the best hotel for beach access in Dubai? What airline should I fly to go from Riyadh to Beirut? - Questions such as these are ones that users have on a daily basis and the place they turn to is the internet. Today with the launch of Google Ejabat or ?????? ('answers' in Arabic) users can start answering these questions for each other.

Google Ejabat or ??????, is a tool which allows users to post and answer each others questions in Arabic. This tool is purely based on user generated content. Given that less than 1% of content online is in Arabic users often are unable to find the same information that they would if they were searching in other languages such as English. However as more users in MENA are turning to the internet to find information, the Google Arabia team focused on launching products that empower Arabic speaking users to create more online content in their language. Google Ejabat is the latest effort to enrich the Arabic web.

"In our effort to understand the needs of the market we found out that Arabic users ask Google a tremendous number of questions every day however a lot of these remain unanswered due to the lack of Arabic content online. We recognize that users are the best at answering each others's questions within a community and this product is the prefect way to be able to share and contribute information" said Wael Ghonim, Regional Product & Marketing Manager MENA.

Recognizing the online content issue in Arabic, Google launched Ejabat in Arabic before English in order to address the needs of the market specifically. Ahmad Hamzawi, Head of Engineering MENA, further commented "The Google Arabia team is committed to enhancing the user experience for Arab speakers. We work on developing and launching products that will continue to enrich Arabic content online with Ejabat as the latest step in our ambitious plans."

Over the last two years Google has been busy launching other tools such as Ejabat that are useful for the Arabic market such as Google Translation Toolkit and Blogger.

?

To start contributing questions and answering questions go to