Publishers to benefit from the launch of a new syndication service from Al Bawaba
Al Bawaba, who operates Albawaba.com, a leading pan-Arab news portal established in 2000, has recently launched Syndigate. The digital service will help Middle East, North Africa and Central/South Asia focused publishers generate revenues directly from their news, features, photo and video content to supplement newsstand, subscriptions and advertising sales.
Syndigate is an electronic content syndication service for newspapers, news and photo agencies, magazines, online news sources and blogs in any language. Syndigate will also enable publishers to increase the distribution of their content into new international markets; increase brand exposure; and if applicable, drive traffic back to their website.
Mark Gatty Saunt, Content Sales Director at Al Bawaba commented: "There is an ever increasing demand from Al Bawaba's international customers for content from the Middle East, North Africa and surrounding region. And with nothing to lose and only multiple benefits to gain, publishers should consider licensing their original content to Al Bawaba for distribution.â€
Focus on the publishers:
Currently, Al Bawaba has the rights to distribute in excess of 160 information sources, comprising titles in Arabic, Dari, English, Farsi, French, Greek, Hindi, Kurdish, Kyrgyz, Pashto, Turkish and Urdu. High profile sources such as Gulf News, Arab Times, Dar Al Hayat, L' Orient-Le Jour, ArabianBusiness.com, TradeArabia and government news agencies such as Emirates News Agency (WAM), have all licensed their content to Al Bawaba for distribution.
Nicholas Coates, Associate Editor at Gulf News commented: "As the leading Arab-based English language newspaper in the region, Gulf News is pleased to be associated with Al Bawaba and the launch of their new service Syndigate." David Westley, Editorial Director at ITP Digital Publishing commented: "We are hugely pleased to partner with Al Bawaba to offer ArabianBusiness.com's unique mix of in-depth analysis stories and up to the minute news, for those wishing to understand the dynamics of the booming economies of the GCC and wider Middle East. ArabianBusiness.com, the home of over 40 B2B and B2C weekly and monthly magazines, is staffed by over 100 journalists and analysts, all experts within their field, who provide unparalleled insight and access to the region's decision makers." Sajjad Valadi, Foreign Service Manager at Moj News Agency in Iran commented: "Being the first and sole Iranian economic online news source, we are very excited about working with Al Bawaba on the Syndigate project and providing them with our up-to-date news and reports in both Persian and English language."
Focus on the customers:
Al Bawaba has finalised distribution agreements to supply the publishers' content to the leading aggregated information businesses including: Dow Jones Factiva, Financial Times Information, Lexis Nexis (a Reed Elsevier company), ProQuest, COMTEX News Network, Thomson Reuters - West, EBSCO, NewsEdge, YELLOWBRIX, NewsBank, CENGAGE Learning, McClatchy - Tribune Information Services, Newscom, InfoDesk, ISI Emerging Markets and more to come.
Karin Borchert, Vice President, global content and customer operations at Dow Jones Enterprise Media Group, commented on the new agreement with Al Bawaba: “Our customers look to us to provide highly relevant business news from around the world, and the addition of Al Bawaba's collection of local content from the Middle East, North Africa and Central/South Asia will provide expanded insight into these regions. The combination of this content with Dow Jones Factiva's global collection of business and news sources will provide our customers with a more comprehensive view of local and global business issues.â€
Alison Parker, Director of Content Syndication at the Financial Times in London commented: "We are finding that the Middle East region continues to be of growing interest to our clients. Being able to provide relevant content from that region, via our relationship with Al Bawaba, enables us to fulfill that need."
Chip Brian, Comtex President and CEO of Comtex News Network, Inc. (OTC BB: CMTX), a leading provider of economically useful electronic real-time news, stated, "Al Bawaba has significant experience and a strong market presence in content from the Middle East and North Africa. Comtex is always looking for innovative expansion opportunities - through partnerships and new products – and this partnership with Al Bawaba brings our users important content and the reliability they find with all our news, content and market alert products.â€
Rich Sawyer, Manager of Publisher Partnerships for EBSCO Publishing commented: "We are very pleased to provide access to the full text of key Middle East and North Africa titles provided by Al Bawaba via our growing collection of online databases. Our partnership with Al Bawaba will help to expand overall readership of this collection of titles while simultaneously enhancing the full-text content available to our existing customers.â€
