Last month I was following the coverage of Democamp Amman on Twitter and read about some really good ideas, I thought I would get in touch with some of the people that were presenting their demo’s. I got in touch with AlHudhod and got a response from Mohammed Al-Bishtawi one of the Co-Founders and he was very happy to answer a few questions to give us a little bit more insight on what he and demoed.
Background:
Q1) What is AlHodhud?
Alhodhud is a Lead company aims to create and develop the content targeted for the Arab and Muslim children in creative and attractive modern way starting from age of preschool age -early childhood-, we provide the content to be customized in the most suitable way to enrich the childhood. Our content was implemented in many fields Smartphones, interactive boards for schools, PC’s, web applications social communities, and any other available technologies we are concerned to develop its content according to our vision.
Q2) When was Alhodhud Launched?
Alhodhud was launched on Dec 2010.
Q3) You recently demoed your iOS application “Hurofy al Mariha” in democampamman, can you please let us know more about it? And what was the thought behind it or what do you plan to achieve with it???
- Alhodhud’s first project was “Hurofy al Mariha” launched to AppStore on 26/2/2011, this application occupies the first step of huge educational project aimed to learn the Arabic language alphabet in creative and attractive modern way targeted for early childhood.
- the concept of this application is 28 characters and 28 wonderful animal in the framework of friendship between them, each character has a certain Arabic name related to a letter of alphabets, each character is combined with an animal where both of them (character and animal) starts with the same letter. In the App child will discover letters, related characters, animals and combination between them, and being able to perform a sentence from two words . This Application set up the feeling of joy and happiness to the child, he will play the alphabet game, and color his preferred characters and animals.
- we aimed to develop the child’s knowledge In a unique unprecedented way, so that the child can spend time in a useful and enjoyable way gaining the wanted benifits.
- the most important part of our plan is to make Arabic language, culture, and content available worldwide to all Arab’s and people who are interested on the Arabic language. And we achieved a part of this since more than 20% from our users are from USA.
- we have entered a partnership with “Baramjeyat company -for software solutions” to handle all the technical and development issues.
Q4) Who are the main players at AlHudHod?
Main Players are:
- E.Mohammed Al-Bishtawi (Co-Founder, business and marketing manager)
- E.Shaima Al-Bishtawi (Co-Founder, content development manager)
- Laura Scaron (Illustrator and Art director)
About the App:
Q1) How many downloads do you have so far?
we have more than 70K downloads of the free version which was launched on 26/3/2011.
Q2) From the twitter feed about democamp amman I think it mentioned that there were 60K downloads in the first month, how did you manage to achieve such a sucess?
We got 60K within 45 days by 4 basic elements:
- Quality of the product and unique concept.
- Paid version was launched one month before free version.
- All minor details where revised based on child’s user experience so children’s feedback was excellent. Which means a great word of mouth.
- Twitter campaign was accomplished on days of launch with an average reach of 15K.
Q3) What advice do you have for people who are launching a mobile application, what should they focus on?
- Get a Unique concept and don’t repeat other Apps.
- Get a Real benefit to user.
- Simplify the Usage of application .
- Concentrate on interfaces, and items design and artwork.
Q4) How do you think they should market it?
- Reviews by specialists and Apps networks should be upon launch.
- Social-Media coverage.
- ADS on mobile (We still didn’t use that) or other Apps.
Q6) The application was developed by Barmajeyat, are you connected with them in anyway?
Future plans:
Q1) How do you plan on extending the application in the future
adding one more basic feature soon, developing and supporting the existing items such as animating the cartoons, and Adding more coloring illustrations and audio effects.
Q2) Do you have plans for any other apps?
- Yes, We finalized our next application concept, logic, illustrations, and related content. It Will be soon on the appstore inshallah.
- Our third application will be with a different style (surprise) within two months.
After huge success and expanding reach we gained we are now going to launch free/semi free apps to distribute Arabic content as much as we can and we will cover cost via Sponsors and supporters of Arabic content.
We’d like to thank Mohammed for his answers and all of the team involved for such a helpful initiative. You can also view the presentation they used in Democamp Amman below: