UAE, 15 May 2007: Google has launched its Google Earth platform in seven new languages including Arabic. The other new languages are Czech, Polish, Russian, Dutch, Korean and Portuguese.
The company says over 200 million people have downloaded the free programme in the English language, or 20 per cent of the global online community.
“The whole objective is to grow online usage and the quality of this usage,” said Sherif Iskandar, Google Regional Manager for the Middle East and North Africa. “This is not a revenue generating activity. We see it more as an enticer for the creation of content.”
Currently, Arabic content measures around 150 million Arabic web pages, compared with over 30 billion web pages worldwide, according to Dubai-based Madar Research.
The low Internet penetration rate in some Arab countries is due to the lack of Arabic content as well as low illiteracy rates, which is over 40 per cent in some Arab counties, according to Abdul Kader Kamli, president and research director of Dubai’s Madar Research Group.
