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I was taken aback lately by the huge movements going on in the Arab startup scene. Things are “moving” around pretty fast. You hear the first piece of Arab startup news item, you say “how nice”, and then after the second you go “oh swell, good luck”, then the 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th … all in a matter of few weeks, then you ask yourself “what on earth is going on?” Clearly, the first question that comes to my business oriented mind is: should I rejoice or should I worry? I don’t know about you, but from my side: both actually.

The first piece of good information came from Berytech’s Dermandar, a free Panoramic imaging solution for your desktop, iPad or iPhone, launched only last year. If you know Arabic, you surely realize Deir-man-dar or Der-madar means “All Around” in Arabic. According to Dermandar the application received 200,000 downloads in just two weeks after being published on AppStore. People from all over the world are tweeting in all languages about it, even Chinese. Dermandar filled me with a sense of pride, let's hope it remains Lebanese.

Dubai’s Bayt.com (not a startup) recently announced it will add social networking to its services, LinkedIn style. So people not only post their CVs and look for jobs but now they can interconnect as well. What’s strange to me is the Bayt.com announcement came around the same time LinkedIn launched its IPO. Could Bayt be upgrading its services to attract investors or major global players?

Another piece of news also from Dubai is Cobone’s overtake of Groupon. The first apparently served twice as many deals in one month as the second (May14th to June 14^th). Although Cobone has a right to rejoice, but I would say if a newly introduced American competitor manages to take 50% of your market share in the first year of operation, that’s not a good sign Cobone. Especially when the performance figures are comparing Cobone’s UAE, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi & Egypt's operations to Groupon’s UAE-only operation. Samih Toukan ex-founder of Maktoob.com the Arabic web-based email service that got acquired later by Yahoo tweeted the Cobone announcement as “example” of local success. It seems to me like someone is positioning Cobone to be acquired by Groupon at one point of time. Call it a hunch, but I'm pretty certain Groupon will acquire Cobone specially after Groupon's recent failure in China.

So, moral of the story: The way things are heading in the Arab “Innovative” Startup scene, you don't have to innovate or create anything, simply Arabize or copy a major player, play on people's sense of Arab pride to gain popularity, then offer your startup to be purchased by a relevant global player and voilà. This is my worst nightmare and yes I am worried. I truly hope I'm wrong. To reinforce my point of view, Mediame.com has reported that 9 firms are set to attend key NY tech industry events and meet with the city’s leading tech firms and venture capital players. Founders of leading Jordanian tech firms Jeeran, ShooFeeTV, The Online Project, Wizards Productions, MediaScope, Dakwak, Kharabeesh, Fustuq and Oasis 500 converged in New York City to interact with over 30 entrepreneurs and Vcs, including Openview Ventures, Oak Capital, Lux Capital, First Round Capital and RHO Ventures, Legion Enterprises, Groupon, and Mohiva.