If you are in Dubai, the based internet startup Yadig.com, which provides real-time feedback on restaurants and entertainment via user reviews, is set to release their iPhone application within the next two weeks and a BlackBerry app next month. Users have a dashboard that shows them their review buddies, and are notified when those users post reviews or when something new opens in their designated city. Yadig was launched last month is set to hae big plans for their country. The site, which was self-financed, incorporates elements of social networking portals such as Facebook and open-review sites such as Yelp.
“With what we’re doing, you have to have a mobile app,” Johnny Huntington, Yadig’s chief technology officer, said in an interview with Arabian Business. “[They] go hand in hand.” Soon, Yadig’s users will also be able to see restaurant picks in Dubai and around the GCC by clicking on map locations, which will be available online and on mobile devices via the new applications. “We want to expand to other markets – we’re GCC based, but we also want to spread to Jordan, Syria, the rest of the MENA region,” said CEO Saif Abdul Rahim Al Zarouni. “We want to add [reviews for] medical services, financial services, salons – if you come to a city, would you know where to get your hair done? We’re expanding.” “There’s fertile ground for startups in the Middle East,” Huntington said. “In the last couple of years a lot of people have been starting up in the Middle East. It’s still raw in terms of ideas and business, but a lot of these dot-coms are starting to pop up,” Al Zarouni said. “People were always asking, ‘where do you want to go tonight?’ What do you want to eat?’ They needed a place to go that would have reviews. You might not have the same taste as your friends and family.”
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