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Tony Saghbini Lebanese bloggers: pioneers in the Arab world A recent survey of readers of the more than 400 blogs in Lebanon shows that their numbers are close to the online readership of the most well-known Lebanese newspapers: both averaging 14,000 visitors daily. This is a clear indication that blogs have become one of the main media sources for Lebanese youth to access diverse information and various opinions. But do their high readership rates mean that blogs can be a tool for real social and political change It is difficult to answer this question in a country in which the future of blogging is closely connected to conditions that frequently change, such as internet connectivity, internet publication laws and censorship. The blogosphere in Lebanon has recently witnessed several changes: the migration of some bloggers to newspapers, the publication of books containing material collected from electronic media, the launch of blogs by radio stations, and the birth of civil movements and new organizations that show the impact of blogs on the ground. In this way, the Lebanese blogosphere is breaking down the barriers that separate traditional media from electronic media. It has become an alternative media source on many issues, particularly the environment which isn’t routinely covered by traditional media. One example is coverage in the blogosphere of a young Lebanese man, Rami Eid, who spent three days and nights in a glass cube in the Ain el Mreisseh neighborhood in Beirut last October, representing the last man on earth in a hopeless future as a result of humankind’s failure to act against climate change. His stunt alerted the public about the need to face these changes. The media campaign for this experiment focused on electronic media, beginning with Eid’s personal blog which was read by thousands in just the first few days of the campaign. In addition, Twitter and Facebook sites reported on developments in real time. This coverage succeeded in galvanizing public opinion, the media and various environmental research centers, which culminated in the Lebanese government deciding to participate in international negotiations on combating climate change in Copenhagen in December 2009. Lebanese blogs have also served as key political mobilization and organization tools on many occasions, especially in preparing for the March for Secularism in April of this year. The march started with a Facebook invitation, as well as a few blog posts. It eventually developed into a march in which thousands of people participated, without the need for a central organizing committee. And during the last municipal elections in Lebanon, in May 2010, bloggers turned into a makeshift independent elections monitoring agency. Some of these bloggers – in partnership with a Beirut-based organization specializing in new media training called Social Media Exchange – were given a license by the Ministry of Interior to enter election stations, observe voting and submit their own reports to media and constitutional bodies about the voting process. This was the first experience of its kind in the Arab world and was seen as being quite successful, with more than 60,000 hits on the site where bloggers published their live reports, lebloggers.org. One incident in particular perhaps best demonstrates how influential bloggers can be. After a far-reaching electronic campaign, bloggers were able to stop a proposed law in the Lebanese parliament to organize the blogosphere, a law that they decided would curtail freedom of expression on the Internet. This incident proved that when organized, blogs are not only an alternative media source or a tool to mobilize the public in support of specific causes, but they can also influence the legislative process. Well on their way to becoming pioneers in the Arab world, bloggers in Lebanon comprise a fledgling movement that has just begun to assume its role in the field of information media, benefiting from relative media freedom and the achievements realized thus far. T 36 www.teletimesinternational.com 15Oct - 14Nov 2010
Alcatel-Lucent and Blue Coat form global reseller agreement and collaborate to help service providers deliver better video experience for customers Blue Coat Systems, Inc. and Alcatel-Lucent, announced a multi-year, global strategic reseller agreement to bring industry-leading web caching and content delivery solutions to service providers worldwide. Under the terms of the agreement, Alcatel-Lucent will sell Blue Coat products, including Blue Coat® ProxySG® and CacheFlow® appliances, to Alcatel-Lucent customers worldwide – including tierone telcos, managed service providers, regional ISPs and mobile operators. The products are available immediately. Alcatel-Lucent will specifically leverage the CacheFlow appliance as a complement to Alcatel-Lucent’s Velocix Content Delivery Network solution. The Velocix Digital Media Delivery Platform manages the distribution of digital content and is based on open Internet based video standards. The CacheFlow appliance reduces the strain of bandwidth-consuming dynamic Web 2.0 and video content by transparently caching such “over-the-top” content, providing bandwidth savings for carriers and a better experience for users. The CacheFlow appliance also helps service providers manage traffic “spikes” due to unusually high demand for content on breaking news or special events. Working together, Alcatel-Lucent and Blue Coat will exploit innovative content delivery technologies, including a new generation of Web and video caching, to enable service providers to enhance their customers’ video and web experience while offering reduced overall costs associated with bandwidth delivery and backhaul. Multimedia caching technology allows operators to store some content locally closer to the user to improve delivery performance across the network and user experience. In addition, Blue Coat ProxySG and PacketShaper® appliances can provide service providers with a range of security, application acceleration and visibility capabilities to further improve the user experience, add value in content and application delivery and provide protection from malicious threats and phishing. “With this relationship we see significant opportunity to help service providers capitalize on growing consumer demand for access to high-speed video over the Internet by leveraging their existing infrastructure investments,” said Paul Larbey, vice president of Alcatel-Lucent’s Velocix Content Delivery Network solutions. “The Blue Coat platform is proven in some of the largest service provider and enterprise environments in the world, and it complements our existing products and services, giving service providers another tool to improve and simplify video delivery.” The Alcatel-Lucent Services team will play an integral role in assisting customers to take full advantage of intelligent application delivery using Blue Coat solutions. Expanded services include deployment and configuration support, capacity planning, custom security and compliance policy definition and implementation, as well as other consulting and technical integration services. With more than 100,000 appliances deployed globally, Blue Coat delivers proven, service provider-class solutions – with the ProxySG and Cache- Flow appliances – for accelerating, optimizing and securing Web content and applications and reducing costs. “With Alcatel-Lucent’s marketleading position in networking infrastructure solutions and its well-earned reputation among service providers, Blue Coat sees tremendous opportunity with this strategic relationship to expand its already established global footprint with service providers,” said Mike Borman, president and chief executive officer, Blue Coat Systems. “Alcatel-Lucent’s selection of Blue Coat also highlights the strong synergies between the two companies around application delivery and next-generation service Michael Borman enablement.” Colin Saldanha Companies will leverage Velocix delivery platform with Blue Coat CacheFlow appliances to manage highbandwidth video and Web 2.0 content Alcatel-Lucent brings together the unique experience as a CDN platform provider and a prior provider of CDN services, along with the focus on bringing technologies that provide intelligent delivery for large Multi-gigabyte media assets. The Velocix Digital Media Delivery platform is enabling operators today to dramatically improve their subscribers’ experience and become part of the digital media value chain. It’s also a key element of Alcatel-Lucent’s High Leverage Network (HLN) architecture which addresses the dual challenge of simultaneously scaling and managing network capacity to meet increasing bandwidth demand while delivering differentiated, revenue generating services. T 15Oct - 14Nov 2010 www.teletimesinternational.com 37
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