Google offer almost all of their services for free. How can other companies compete with “free”? They say, “Google is like crack for Web publishers.” True, especially when you get high :-) I mean in the Google ranking, not on crack.

Sabbah asks about comments, Jawaher asks about anonymity. What’s about all these blogging questions by Arab bloggers these days?

Regarding to Jawaher questions, I don’t really know if I was comfortable with my family and friends reading my blog. I mean I would be happy if someone I know talked with me about something I wrote on my blog, but it can be embarrassing sometimes. I mean, I think some of my family members and friends know that I’ve been writing since I was 13, but those writings remained always private. Even when I got published in a local newspaper few years ago, almost no one talked with me about it.

For me, writing has always proved effective to release feelings and ideas that I could not tell to anyone. Probably, in the past I used to be afraid about such thing. But then, I just decided there was nothing to be afraid of, and published my whole archive of writings on the internet.

So blogging was just another medium for me. I think we share some of the stuff you mentioned in your post. Maybe most of bloggers do.

Saudi Arabia is the largest market for books in the Arab World, with an estimated size of SR 2.5bn. According to some surveys, the average Saudi spends 35-50 US$ a year on purchasing books, however, most of this tiny amount of money is spent on buying not good books, but books known as “junk books.” (Arabic)

There are several reasons for this, I think. One reason is that we don’t grow with reading as a habit. The weak education system produces students who hate reading because it reminds them with the school crap. Another good reason is the censorship that prevents the good books, and leave readers in the country with crappy titles such as How to Win in the Stock Market, and How to Lose Weight in a Blink.

Yahoo! have launched their Yahoo! Podcasts service. How is this going to compete with Odeo? Let’s wait and see. Btw, like MMM, I’ve been thinking about this podcasting thing for sometime now. Not just this, I’ve been also thinking about video blogging. I even shot some short clips, but I’m still not sure If I really want to do this.

Riyadh is a huge city, where everything is already big, or supposed to be big soon. No objection, of course. But what I don’t like is how some people assume that I want to make my stuff big, in the time that I really don’t.

Last night, I went to Hardee’s (yes, I do consume junk food from these big monopolies, symbols of globalism, and the total evil of our time) with a friend of mine to have suhoor (is there a translation for this word?). After we finished ordering, the cashier told us to pay SR 38. This was more than we were supposed to pay, so, guessing there was some sort of mistake, I asked him to review our order.

“Can you tell me what we have ordered, exactly, please?” He looked at the screen, and read the order. After our meals, he read, “Supersize, two. Extra cheese, two.” We did not ask for supersizing, we did not ask for extra cheese, I said, telling him to cancel that, and asked how he assumed what we have not ordered.

He was embarrassed, but I think that was mainly because his manager was watching him, and not because of the mistake he made. He did not even say he was sorry.

This was not the first time. The same thing has happened to me so many times at different restaurants here, much more than I can remember. I think that these workers, mostly south and eastern Asians, think Saudis would always go for the biggest size, and even if they did not want it, they won’t mind paying the four or five extra riayls.

For people like me, these few extra riyals are no big deal. What I hate about this is how those people judge me. Not just because I’m wearing some decent clothes and speaking less-than-fluent English with a fake accent mean I’m a spoiled kid who doesn’t give three shits about anything. I want that attitude to be changed, and I want all people to be treated fairly and equally.

* Part of the Things That Bug Me series.

What a Saudi blogger would do when she gets bored?

Comments or no comments? That is Sabbah’s question. I don’t think that comments are an essential part of a blog, and I don’t think that comments would make any blog less or more democratic. Comments can be a good tool for communication between a blogger and the readers, and they encourage taking part in the discussion. However, I still can’t think of them as something critical to blogs.

I don’t receive many comments because of my limited readership. Plus, with the current design of the blog, many people find it hard to find their way to comment. You need about three clicks to comment on any item on this blog; this is too much effort to take. And don’t forget the Word Verification step. It really takes too much to do anything over here! ;-)