When the Chinese internet giant QQ released Fanfou a few years ago many criticized it as an obvious clone to twitter. The same again happened with the launch of Watwet the Jordanian startup. After all, at first glance the sites do look a lot like twitter. Maktoob, the company behind the Arab internet success story was always described as the Yahoo of the Middle East because of the very similar services it provided. It didn’t come much of a surprise when Yahoo actually acquired the company in 2009.
But is localizing an existing product or business idea imitation or art, and does that limit innovation or actually requires it?
The Middle East and North Africa region is home to 350 Million Arabic native speakers, 65% of which are under the age of 30. While internet penetration is still low at 20% it’s growing at the fastest rate in the world, mobile penetration however is at 80% with about 220M users. The education and health are booming due to the fast population growth. This growth coupled with the wealth of some countries especially in the Gulf is creating significant opportunities that are yet to be explored. 