Yahoo's acquisition of Maktoob posed an interesting challenge to Google, whose approach has been slow and calculated. The truth of the matter is, there are millions of Arabic-speaking Internet users who are not interested in English-based content. So, Yahoo bought their way in.

Google appears to have gone their own way and decided to build their own base. The Egyptian Egabat (egabat.google.com) is the answer. As a product, it is completely uninteresting. It offers nothing that is new or exciting, except that it is an Arabic-only product. In fact, it's so Arabic it's Egyptian.

Now I understand that Google recruits a lot of their Middle East staff from Egypt, but the Egyptian branding of their first Arabic-only product is curious, to put it mildly. It is either Google doesn't understand the region or that their staff are taking this as an opportunity to highlight Egypt's importance in the region.