HAPPIN!

happin! is the number one crowd sourced mobile application in the MENA region offering real time location based news and traffic updates. happin is an award winning app, with its latest award was ranking second in the prestigious GIST global enterpreneurship competition organized by the US state department. It was deployed on the 5th of August, 2012 for iOS and later on for Android devices by the old name of ma2too3a!. happin! allows any user to inform others about the whereabouts of traffic... jams, and news such as protests, armed combat, or road blockage instantly. Users can also capture a photo or a video of what's going on around them. Once a user posts news, it gets filtered, and then shared with all users, after automatically adding post time and location of the user using his smart phone’s GPS capability. For example, you can see a post about a protest that started 15 minutes ago blocking the streets in the city’s downtown, which is 10 km away from your current location. Since its introduction, happin! user base have increased exponentially to reach 100K users, and are growing daily as well. happin! is having an international media coverage including TV stations such as Al Jazeera, LBCI, news papers such as Daily Star and Al Sharq Al Awsat, and influential blogs such as Gino’s blog, and Plus961. happin! has become, as one user tweeted “as necessary as oversized shades and full make up before u leave the house in Beirut". happin!’s strength lies in the instant news propagation, the simple interface, and the location based news relevance. The crowd sourced platform, coupled with the simple interface is creating amazing user engagement, and is helping to broadcast news as it happens. Moreover, including the news location is adding value to the news, especially if it is about a safety-threatening event. Hence, happin! is satisfying the daily need for important and relevant news, and traffic updates in a simple way that has huge growth potential. happin! is aiming to become the de facto source for any news that might block the road or cause traffic in the MENA region. Moreover, we are working to provide a more customized user experience, as we will allow customers in the upcoming versions to receive customized push notifications for news and updates they care about. For example, they will be able to follow other users or entities such as news channels, choose the nature of the event they want to receive updates for, or to get updates for locations “near me”. We also believe that creating more user engagement is essential, and can be done by creating a reward system for the most active users. Further plans include expanding to the MENA region, and introducing the app on other platforms such as Blackberry’s and Nokia’s. happin's main business model is the crowd sourced news feed supplied to media outlets. The crowd sourced news is ranked via a smart algorithm that displays credible news for the media outlets to display on their main channels.