The Web Is Alive and Kicking Thanks to Tablets

A report by Adobe System released yesterday showed that tablet devices will generate more web traffic than smartphones by 2013, and will reach 10% of all web traffic by 2014, the same share that all mobile devices account for now.

This is in large part due to the rise of tablet shipments, which Forrester Research estimates will reach 375 million by 2016, bringing the total number of devices in use to three quarters of a billion, but also by the fact that users find browsing on a tablet more engaging. Operators process 3x more data volume on their networks for tablets than for smartphones. On average, Apple iPad subscribers generate 160% more data than iPhone subscribers.

What does this mean for businesses?

Sinbad Ventures Helps Arab Startups with Global Potential Reach Silicon Valley

Sinbad Ventures is a venture capital fund that focuses on early stage internet and mobile startups from Arabia looking to hit the international market, with the aim to help them grow and secure the next round from international VCs. The fund, which not only focuses on the consumer web, but on enterprise as well, plans to invest in 7 startups every year in a standard term sheet of $500K in exchange for 25% equity.

These companies have to have a global appeal, explains Ahmad Takatkah, Managing Partner at Sinbad Ventures. “Local funds focus exclusively on companies that are targeting the local Arab markets, like Egypt and the KSA. There are lots of companies that have global products but can’t find funds locally and as a result seek them abroad in the US and Europe. That’s the gap we’re trying to fill.”

Community Based Traffic Information Service Bey2ollak Wins LE 1.2 million

Egyptian startup Bey2ollak, a community based traffic information service, was named winner of Google’s Edba2 competition today after a final day of presentations. The six person Bey2ollak team will walk away with LE 1.2 million of seed capital. The competition, which kicked off 9 months ago, featured more than 4,000 applicants with projects covering a range of products including websites, mobile applications, and online services.

“We are thrilled that we won this competition - this is the first time we have received any funding and now we will be able to build and develop our business to scale.” - Waleed Mustafa, Co-founder

Study: 1 in 5 Pinterest Users Purchased Items They Had Pinned

Emily Carr University and research firm Vision Critical recently conducted a study over 500 Pinterest users to determine the social media starlet’s effect on purchasing, and the results showed a high correlation between pinning and purchasing with 21% of users reporting that they had bought items they had pinned before.

Unexpectedly however, Pinterest’s impact on offline purchasing is higher than on online with 16% of users having said that they had purchased items they had pinned offline versus 12% for online.