Of the 600,000 Arabic books on the internet, only 2 percent can be read on iPads and smartphones, according to a recent study unveiled at the official launch of Rufoof company, a revolutionary bookstore app developed by Flagship Projects.

Arab content on the internet is only 4 percent of the global content, and Arabic e-books constitute a small portion of it, the study showed.

The new company was launched at an event sponsored by Tecom in Dubai Media City, a statement from the company said.

Shadi Hasan, managing director, Rufoof, said: “Today marks a turning point in the world of publishing in the Arab world. Today, we are protecting the legacy of Arabic content from loss by having it in this digital application. The ebook market in US in the third quarter of 2008 was $13 million. It reached $120 million in the third quarter of 2010, and is expected to reach $201 million in 2011.”

The retail industry of e-books reached $930 million in 2010 and it is expected to reach $3 billion in five years time in US alone, according to Forrester.

Rufoof, which started development in mid-2010, has 4500 ebooks, of which 80 percent are free downloads. It has signed contracts with 21 publishing houses with a subscriber base of 74,000 all over the world.

“The huge advancement in the world of reading thanks to iPhone, iPad and other smart phone devices is still not fully exploited in the Arab region. Rufoof provides an amazing reading experience for Arabic content. It is a world-class mobile application that adds value to mobile phone end-users in the Arab world,” Hasan said.

Rufoof is a platform for publishing houses and content-driven organisations in the Middle East so that they can buy space for their Arabic and English content. They could buy a premium package to publish their books and articles in a special section on Rufoof or simply post their books individually.

Users of Rufoof store can go to the application and view a wide range of book titles in different categories including articles and e-journals as well as download a sample to have the content available even when the device is offline, the statement said.

Another feature of the application is reading through bookmark pages, search and change the font size as well and the colour of the shelves.

At the event, Flagship unveiled its innovative iPublishing service which provides power to authors in publishing their own book directly and easily on Rufoof, it said.

The benefits of this service are the international reach, promoting the books without incurring any publishing expenses and presenting an ideal opportunity to authors to generate more revenues.

Through Rufoof, Flagship, the application developer, is showcasing its best expertise and the ability to develop creative professional content for the local and regional market, it said. – TradeArabia News Service