It’s interesting to see how active Facebook is in Kuwait, most people say it’s dead and/or they’ve moved on to twitter and instagram. I’ve noticed Kuwaiti accounts are either very inactive or slightly active while expats accounts are fairly active. Out of the entire arab region Kuwait was the only country with a decrease in Facebook penetration (-14.3%).

This is intriguing because Kuwait is also happens to be most active country in the arab region on instagram. The hashtag #Kuwait was used more than 6 million times, way more than #uae, #saudi or #qatar. I guess Kuwait is quick to move on to the next trending social platform and abandon the previous one.

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People who don’t understand Arabic often think it’s okay to shrink someone’s name for their convenience if it starts with ‘Abdul’. What they don’t know is that it’s offending to many Muslims including myself. I’ll explain in detail why it’s offensive, as my name ‘AbdulAziz’ is a sentence not a word.

In pronunciation, it is (Abdol Azeez), but linguistically, the name contains three parts:

Abd = means the worshiper
Al = is the definite article in Arabic that is equal to “the” in English
Aziz = A name of God’s 99 names Muslims like, it means strong

The 3 parts compose what we call (Phrasal Name) that must be said or pronounced in full. Neglecting any part of it may create an insulting, ironic or opposite meaning of the wording. Phrasal names aren’t specific to Muslim names, they are used all over the world in different tribes and religions.

In old English (started in Ireland and Scotland, and now everywhere):

The prefix Mc or Mac means (Son of).
So, James McDougal would be James, Son of Dougal

Examples: McDonald’s, McKenzie, McPherson

In Germany the prefix (Fitz) in Fitzgeral, mean (son of Gerald)

Examples: Fitzwater, Fitzhugh, Fitzakerly

I understand that some Arabic names are hard to pronounce for non-Arabic speaking persons, but it’s not about pronunciation, it is about omitting or dropping parts of the name, which leads in many cases to unpleasant meaning of the name.

It’s Abd Al-Aziz
Spelt as AbdulAziz

A thank you goes to Aeid Hassoun for helping me structure this post.

The title quotes John Hayes, a professor at Gulf University who wrote an [interesting read] about the health of the local blogosphere in Kuwait. John talks about the influence Kuwait blogs have in customer preference and when blogging become popular back in the 1990′s when WordPress and Blogger were first introduced.

Interestingly enough, John brings up a subject that has been on hush hush for a very long time, bloggers that are paid under the table to promote a product or service. In my opinion there is nothing wrong with an advertorial or a sponsored post but under the crucial condition that the readers know a post is sponsored.

I read a lot of popular blogs all around the word that sponsor posts (example), the only difference is they’re not doing it behind closed doors and the readers know what’s sponsored and what’s not. If blogging is consuming so much of your time it kind of becomes a part-time job that you need to cash-in on else can’t withstand.

For bloggers that want to stay safe, having banners on the blog should suffice. When your blog becomes fairly known, companies start to have interest. The blogosphere in Kuwait is still on the raise, I estimate there are around at least 150 active blogs in Kuwait. I wonder what other bloggers take on this is, do share.[Kuwait Times]

I went to Service Hero’s ceremony at Missoni Hotel yesterday to see who was 1st place in each category. Those that don’t know about Service Hero can read about it [here]. Many of the companies that won have already won last year, 8 of them actually. Service Hero also shared some interesting facts that I’m going to share at the bottom of this post.

Here are the results:

Best Cafe

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Best Car Service

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Best Casual Dinning

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Best Electronics Store

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Best Fast Food Chain

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Best Fine Dinning

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Best Home Furniture

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Best Hospital

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Best Islamic Bank

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Best Internet Service Provider

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Best Mobile Operator

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Best New Car Sales (same score)

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Best Arab Airlines

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Best Retail Bank

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Best Retail Shop

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Best Supermarket

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Highest Satisfaction Score Overall

Interesting facts:

• Kuwaitis have the least satisfaction rate
• Arab Airlines satisfaction rate has dropped by 2%
• High School students have the highest satisfaction rate
• Woman have higher expectations from brands than men do
• Men are less satisfied than woman overall in every service dimension

This question has been on my mind for as long as I can remember. UK researchers are a big step closer to finding the answer, they’re suggesting it might be because our ancestors hunted food in wet conditions. So the skin adapted because when wrinkled it improved grip on objects and dealing with any wet surface.[Source]

Photo Courtesy of Mr.Barlow

I was impressed to find there’s a handful of Google Doodle’s celebrating iconic Arab figures. The biggest portion were from Eygpt, so far I couldn’t find any GCC figures who were brought up on a Google Doodle but I guess there’s going to be one soon. Feel free to point out someone I’ve missed out.

Google celebrating Mohammed Mokhtar‘s birthday

Google celebrating Khalil Gibran‘s birthday

Google celebrating Ibn Buttuta‘s birthday

Google celebrating Naguib Mahfouz‘s birthday

Google celebrating Taha Hussein‘s birthday

Google celebrating Ibn Khaldun‘s birthday

Google celebrating Ismail Yasin‘s birthday

Google celebrating Mohammed Al Mahdi‘s birthday

I like the idea of this freeze mob that took place in 360 Mall on 12/12/2012. It starts out as a group of guys fighting out their differences when they suddenly freeze and 3 huge posters get unveiled (Stop, Think, Decide). This  relates to yesterdays incident where a 17 26-year-old was stabbed at the Avenues for God knows what reason. We need a change of mentality.

Diet Center shared a very interesting infographic based in Kuwait. It’s disappointing to know by 2030 1 out of every 10 people in Kuwait will suffer from diabetes. I can’t see this changing with a burger store opening every other weekend unless there’s a huge awareness campaign with diet plans on how to prevent diabetes.

Infograph Source: Dasman Diabetes Institute