Internet users in the Middle East have been very active on Social Networks. Arab spring has acted as a catalyst to increased adoption 
of Social Networks in the region.
Substantial growth of information infrastructure; stable growth of the number of active Internet users and lack of regional social projects that consider the cultural specifics, encouraged a Lebanese national, Pierre Kayrouz to launch a social network dedicated for the Arab world.
A social network called Belbeit.com has been launched in Beta mode that would appeal to the culture, customs and traditions of Arab countries.
“Our project is one of the most outstanding multi-user project with a large localized social network aimed at the people of the Arab World”, says Pierre.
The global research and analysis of potential project development market sectors revealed a number of factors contributing to the development and promotion of the product in the selected region. Pierre expects the growth of registered users to reach 3-4 million in the first year, while the volume of targeted traffic will reach 2 million people per day.
The choice of the project name was predetermined by the wish to associate the product with the homely atmosphere, comfort and peace of daily life, and the polling results revealed the positive connotation common and frequent usage of word belbeit by the region population in various word combinations.
Pierre says that the Social Network doesn’t intend to compete with Facebook but would be running on a parallel. There are 45 million Facebook users in MENA region.
The Social Network is being developed by a company called Fillmonous Consulting Limited, parent company of Belbeit Fzc.
The company has recently signed us with Universal music and Qanawat for providing Arabic songs. It has also signed up with Newscred, a news aggregator to provide regional tid bits.
The company aims to make revenue based on subscription model. They expect users to buy music and consume news other than the ad based model
The site will be officially launched on 22 of November 2012
In the past there have been calls for a dedicated social network in the region. Recently there were reports of Osman Sultan, CEO of UAE telco Du, discussing a plan to create a pan-Arab platform to take on internet giants such as Facebook and Google.
In July 2012 a dedicated Muslim Social Network called Salaam World was launched in Turkey.
