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Key people at Akhbarak.net.
Akhbarak.net was founded in 2003 by Osman Ahmed Osman (Founder).
Founded in 2003 by Osman Ahmed Osman, Akhbarak.net is an Arabic-language news aggregator based in Cairo that consolidates regional media content from various Middle Eastern outlets into a centralized daily feed. The platform automatically clusters related stories across topics such as politics, sports, and technology to serve Arabic-speaking internet users throughout Egypt and the broader Middle East and North Africa. Historically ranking among the most visited websites in Egypt, the aggregator reached a scale of approximately 600,000 daily visits, over 1.5 million daily page views, and 10 million unique users. Generating revenue primarily through digital display advertising and sponsored content on its website, the platform redeveloped its underlying algorithms in partnership with eSpace in 2010 to improve maintainability. Following this technological modernization, the company was acquired by Sarmady, a subsidiary of Vodafone Egypt, in January 2013.
Key people at Akhbarak.net.
Akhbarak.net was founded in 2003 by Osman Ahmed Osman (Founder).
Akhbarak.net is an Arabic news aggregator that consolidates content from over 300 publishers across topics like politics, sports, health, lifestyle, economy, and technology, using data mining to cluster and rank stories for relevance.[1][2][3] It serves primarily mobile users in Egypt (60%) and the GCC (20%), reaching 3.5 million monthly users, 15 million pageviews, and over 6 million daily Facebook users with high engagement (1 million+ interactions and 38 million video views monthly).[2] The platform solves the problem of fragmented news consumption by crawling 100+ Arabic sites, clustering similar stories, and prioritizing key content, boasting 71% returning visitors (averaging 15 visits/month) and 89% mobile traffic.[1][2]
Founded in 2003 by Osman Ahmed Osman in Cairo, Egypt, using early PHP technology, Akhbarak.net started as a basic news aggregator pulling and presenting stories from multiple sources.[1][3][4] By 2010, scalability and maintainability issues prompted a rebuild by eSpace, incorporating advanced algorithms, modular design, and state-of-the-art tech to handle high traffic and improved clustering/ranking.[1] This upgrade enabled crawling 100+ Arabic sites and solidified its regional dominance, leading to acquisition in January 2013 by Sarmady (a Vodafone Egypt company), which boosted its scale to MENA's largest aggregator.[1][2]
Akhbarak.net rides the wave of mobile news consumption and content fragmentation in MENA, where Arabic digital media exploded with smartphone penetration and social sharing.[1][2] Its timing aligns with post-2010 regional digital shifts, enabling scalability amid rising internet access in Egypt/GCC; market forces like high mobile usage (80-89%) and video demand favor its aggregator model over siloed publishers.[1][2] It influences the ecosystem by amplifying 300+ publishers, driving traffic (e.g., 600K daily visits pre-acquisition, now millions), and setting standards for AI-driven clustering in Arabic content, competing with outlets like Al-Ahram and AlMasry AlYoum.[1][2][5]
Akhbarak.net's Vodafone backing and tech upgrades position it for AI-enhanced personalization, deeper video/social integration, and expansion beyond MENA amid rising Arabic digital ad spend. Trends like generative AI for news summarization and short-form video will shape its path, potentially evolving influence through partnerships or app innovations. As MENA's top aggregator, it remains pivotal for democratizing news access, building on its 20+ year foundation of scale and relevance.[1][2]
