6 - 12 September 2001
Issue No.550
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 6 - 12 September 2001 Issue No.550 |
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Web watch
Elbowing for room
You've got some cash in your pocket, a night stretched out ahead of you and your sweetie waiting -- but what to do in big, bad Cairo? It's the sad anticlimax to many a promising evening: the unhappy realisation that though there may be exciting things happening out there, you don't know about them. If you've graduated from weekends spent doing face-time at the club but haven't resigned yourself to watching sliced and diced American movies on television in your bathrobe, what you need is a guide.
Online guides are the consummate vehicle for a city guide because, in theory, they are always fresh; they can keep pace with the pulse. In Cairo, the concept of the city guide has yet to flourish, which is either a damning valuation of the cultural scene or an invitation to those industrious enough to tackle cataloguing the goings on of the city victorious.
At Yallabina.com, one senses the earnestness with which the Yallabina ("let's go") team have thrown themselves into their task. "We take your fun life seriously!" the Web site banner declares. Sign up for the newsletter and you'll get some aggressively friendly advice: "Summer time is almost over, oh noooooooo -- only 2 more weeks until colleges and schools start kicking in -- so it means party till the max people, perfect your tans, and end your summer romances ... In all cases, whatever you guys are doing, live and enjoy to the max ...". Doing things at max level is very important at Yallabina, and no wonder. As a prominent online city guide, these guys are trying to define cool.
Two things are crucial to a successful guide: currency and reviews. Accurate information (addresses, times, phone numbers, etc.) comes in a close third, but straight information can be collected elsewhere. What one really wants is for someone else with discerning taste to sift through all the dross and pick out the gems; the things worth seeing, hearing, eating and buying. Yallabina is still coming into its own; its tone is still diluted by self-congratulatory cries of "We're here!", but it does provide a much-needed service.
What Yallabina lacks in connoisseurship, it makes up for in user-friendliness. A restaurant finder allows you to search restaurants by location and cuisine, offering a short description of each place along with its vital statistics: address, phone number, opening times, etc. In some cases, this short description threatens to shrivel into uselessness. Under the handy "Our Picks" section, clicking on the restaurant Mashawina tells you that it is "one of the nicer Lebanese restaurants in Cairo." In other cases, the links are more a game of chance. Clicking on the enigmatic link "Ostrich meat" took me to the description of the restaurant-bar Le Tabasco, although the connection was never explained.
I highly recommend Yallabina's movie finder, which provides short reviews of current and soon-to-be-released films and even offers visitors the chance to peruse the results of an ongoing user poll. Users can rate a film as Fair, Good, V. Good or Hit of the Year (note that there is no option for say, Stinker, Bomb or I Had to Leave During the Intermission). The response on Youssef Shahine's new film Sukout, Hansawar (Silence, We're Filming) was rather feeble, I'm afraid: Fair (33%), Hit of the Year (67%), Total Participants (6). The short review also indicates that Sukout tells the story of Princess Diana and Dodi El-Fayed in "Shahine's way," which is a fairly obscure account of the movie. The movie section also offers local and international news, which is worth a look-through. Where else can one read a review of a current movie and find out that Shaaban Abdel-Rahim is suing a female fan for stalking him, and Iraqi singer Kazem El-Saher reportedly refused payment for the inimitable honour of participating in Cairo's Song Festival?
It is in the "Nightlife" section that Yallabina could really make a name for itself by providing a useful commentary on what's hot, what's no longer hot, and what to look out for. In this, they have made a promising start: a feature on bars in Cairo was written along these lines, and promotions selling tickets to concert events and even offering to deliver the new Amr Diab and Mohamed Mounir albums to your Cairo address (cash-on-delivery) are quite impressive. It would be advisable to keep these offers up-to-date, however, as I spied an offer for tickets to a 27 July concert by Shaaban.
Numerous missteps in the English on Yallabina's site point to a larger question which remains unanswered: why is the site in English? The assumption is that English is the lingua franca of Egypt's young élite -- those with the money to eat in fancy restaurants, who are interested in seeing the latest American movies and visiting art exhibitions. But like so many English-language publications and Web sites, Yallabina is still uncertain who its audience is. Are they family-types looking for some good wholesome fun? Or young, would-be hipsters hunting down a licentious night on the town? Yallabina longs to be something for everyone, but perhaps this goal is misguided. With more online guides pushing their way into the market, honing down its style and voice to fit a certain audience may be what Yallabina will need to survive.
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