Today marks the launch of Cairo360.com’s mobile-friendly site, m.cairo360.com. The guide's new face is accessible from any mobile phone browser, offering easy access to events, cinema times, reviews, shopping, and a number of other sections.
“The mobile version of Cairo360.com is great for anyone who is on the go and always on the lookout for fun things to do in Cairo,” explains Soraya Morayef, managing editor at Cairo360.com. “Our average reader is the type who is enthusiastic and active in this city and always seeking further information.”
Media Republic launched Cairo360.com only nine months ago, but its introduction in the world of Cairo lifestyle forums has been widely felt. A visit to Cairo360.com will not only offer a slideshow of the site's features and reviews, but also a calendar and description of events for the day and the week.
Cairo guide readers have gone through a number of mediums by which to navigate the restaurant/café/delivery scene in the city. The Croc was perhaps the first guide that party goers and restaurant frequenters pocketed–picking up copy after copy from different destinations so that they would have a Croc in the car, a Croc in their bag, and a Croc lying around the house. GMAG provided a fatter and more activity-packed alternative, mixing little games, random articles and "only-in-Cairo" pictures into the guide and review-based booklet.
At the time of their inception, the portability of these guides was a priority. Both magazines are small and easily carried. Cairo360.com picked the idea up online–making the guide accessible on this generation’s favorite information highway–the web.
“I decided to create Cairo360.com because there appeared to be a lack of information about the city and its activities online,” explains Waseem El Tanahi, managing director of Media Republic. And as mediums tend to morph and "smart phones" are finding their way into Cairo’s pockets, a mobile site makes city-wide information even more portable and easier to find.
Although Cairo360.com does plan on making applications for the iphone, Blackberry and Android, El Tanahi’s wap site step was a planned one. “The wap site is accessible from the most simple browser phone all the way to the Blackberry, iphone and Android.”
“We made life a little easier by offering this smooth, user-friendly mobile version so if you're stuck in the car on your way to the cinema, or you want to read up on a restaurant just as you're walking into it, the mobile version is there for you,” says Morayef.
As a user of the site as well as a member of the Cairo360.com team, she adds, “I can’t tell you how many times I check Cairo360.com when I walk into a place to find out what drinks the site recommends or what dishes I should avoid.”
The mobile site makes this process easier for Morayef and the other users of Cairo360.com–and at 100,000 users per month so far during its six-month lifespan, those users are many. “There has been a convergence of technology,” explains El Tanahi. “Everyone is connected and we are now used to accessing information whenever we want it, consuming content wherever we are.”
