Politics Popular Topic on Maktoob
Posted on March 14, 2006
A Strategiy.com article says political issues like the Mohammed cartoons and the Iran conflict are some of the popular conversations on the rapidly growing Arab blog community at Maktoob.com. An English version of the website can be found here.
Politics, culture and literature have topped the list of favorite topics among the rapidly growing blogging community in the Arab world. These were the findings of a month-long study conducted by Maktoob.com, the world's largest and most popular online Arab community.The intensity of political blogs on Maktoob.com will be familiar to those who witnessed the political blog activity here in the U.S. leading up to the 2004 elections. The activity on U.S. political blogs has not diminished but coverage of the blogosphere has expanded to include other kinds of blogs.The study, covering over 4,500 blogs created by users on Maktoob.com, showed a clear stand towards politics, with 40 percent bloggers voicing their concerns on recent issues such as the Denmark cartoon controversy and the Iran nuclear stand-off. Cultural topics, at 25 percent, came in second, with literature, entertainment and internet issues following closely.
***
A prime example is Yasser Abu Hilalah, the Jordan-based President of Al Jazeera TV, whose political journal on Maktoob.com has evoked a strong response from the Internet browsing community. Posting an average 3-4 blogs per week, Abu Hilalah's site features his observations about politics and life in the Arab world.