First off, on behalf of the Arabian Bytes team we would like to wish all our readers Ramadan Kareem – we hope that your first week of the Holy Season has been pleasant so far. So firstly, we’re following on from last week’s report, bringing you another social Ramadan story from Google. Google Puts Social Twist on Ramadan Traditions With the Ramadan YouTube channel reaching over 10,000 subscribers in a week, it appears Google’s initiative to socialize Ramadan has been a hit.

As I’m relatively new to the region (6 months and counting), I wanted to share a few (or four) of my favourite finds and insights related to the rich Middle Eastern media landscape that I hope will enlighten, educate or at the very least, entertain: Brownbook Magazine – According to the magazine itself, Brownbook “is an urban lifestyle guide focusing on design, culture and travel across the Middle East and North Africa.

Ramadan is just around the corner and preparations are fully underway, so let’s jump to our old favourite YouTube and the corker they’ve come up with for this year’s Holy Month. Ramadan TV on YouTube With viewing figures for popular Arabic soaps set to go through the roof this Ramadan, YouTube has had the brilliant idea to launch an online channel dedicated to Ramadan shows. The channel is set to host over 50 Arabic shows, allowing people to keep track and catch up on their favourites during the month.

Little Monsters; The Social Network!? It can only mean one thing… our weekly Arabian Bytes wrap-up! Tweet-a-meet with Qatar Airways Qatar Airways are taking their Tweeters travelling! In an innovative Tweet-a-Meet campaign, the airline is offering two friends, separated by distance, the opportunity to physically meet in one of their favourite travel locations. The campaign asks followers to pick a Twitter follower to team up with, and Tweet about one of the 117 Qatar airline destinations around the world using the hashtag #tweetameet, in order to potentially win tickets to the destination.

So, fresh off our reading list, a colleague asked me “what is the one book a PR should read”, what’s the best “guide to PR”. I said – and please correct me if you disagree – that to my mind no such one book exists. The textbooks I’ve looked at have always seemed either too basic or too theoretical. So much of what we do is based on a combination of intelligence and experience.

A big shout out this week goes to Matthew Weiner, he is the prodigy behind Mad Men. This week AMC aired the season 5 finale of Mad Men. I highly, highly, highly recommend everyone (especially those that work at an agency) to watch the show. Aside from the show’s talented cast, excellent costume designer and dramatic story line, Mad Men perfectly depicts the agency life like no other TV show or movie in Hollywood – especially in terms of handling clients, staff and everyday work life.

Given the economic circumstances of today, companies are increasingly under pressure. This pressure is being firmly applied at the top of organisations. CEO’s, once loved, trusted and adored are now constantly in the firing line. Whether it be over executive pay, company performance, false CV’s, the list goes on. This pressure on CEO’s is coming from many angles. Shareholder activists are no longer dudes in long socks and an anorak who have a specific random bugbear.

Following a recent Arabian Bytes post looking at Facebook use in the Arab world, we have come across this rather nice infographic by Shusmo looking at Twitter use in the region: Image source: Mashable Created in March 2012 using data from a Dubai School of Government report on Arab Social Media, the infographic shows that there is total of 1,311,882 active Twitter users in the Arab world. KSA is the country with the highest proportion of Twitter users with 393,000 marked as active, followed by Kuwait with 235,000 and Egypt with 215,000 users.

With the celebrations of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee just wrapping up, the final day of the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) about to kick off in Los Angeles and the opening game of the Euro 2012 a mere one day away, it’s been an eventful week around the world. In local news, the UAE’s media landscape has undergone some interesting changes, which we’ll shed more light on in this edition of TWTW.

Last week, one of the leading social media agencies in the Middle East, The Online Project, published what may well be the first report and infographic that answers the question: ‘Who in the Middle East uses Facebook the most?’ Facebook Marketing Why Global Brands Need to Change Strategies in the Middle East View more documents from The Online Project Global brands wanting to tap into Middle Eastern market, with its 300 million inhabitants, the majority of which are youth, are definitely the biggest beneficiaries of such a report.