The product will be an E-Commerce site tentatively named "Q8Wadi." The name was chosen for two purposes. First, although the two letters "Q8" to the novice appears to be semantic nonsense, they are, in fact, an online abbreviation for "Kuwait" and is used by many users in message boards around the world ("Internet Still", 2000).
"Wadi" is an Arabic word for an Oasis or Valley [settlement] it is a name that has a great deal of cultural relevance in the Middle East, and particularly in Kuwait, suggesting as it does, the life blood of early settlements. Second, "Q8Wadi" implies that there will be a complete community at this site, one that has an active and vital historical past, and a commercial present since a main part of any wadi was the establishment of a "souk" for the buying and selling of goods. This is because "wadi" also has a meaning of finding or unearthing treasure. "Q8Wadi" will become an oasis in the desert of Internet sites. Plans have been made to develop the site in English and Arabic.
Q8Wadi has multiple potential sources of revenues. These include but are by no means limited to
Advertising revenues from companies in the market area that already have web sites that are geared for E-Commerce (Mansuri & al-Zoman, 1996)
Web hosting fees for companies that desire an Internet presence yet do not have the time, interest, nor capital to go into a full E-Commerce operation ( Haynes, Becherer, & Helms, 1998)).
Finder's fees since there will be a membership section where outside businesses from around the world will have to seek Kuwaiti partners in order to do business in Kuwait. This section will be completely password-controlled and will be based on Cold Fusion programming running on a Linux platform.
In addition, there will be a strong emphasis on community content, since the Wadi, in ancient times, also served as the communications center of the town. This will be achieved by the use of forums, job...