Arabian Hulu: Cinemoz

Cinemoz is a website, founded in June 2011, offering on-demand streaming video of movies, TV shows and other media clips from the Arab world.  So basically it’s the Arab version of Hulu. It was set to launch at the end of this year’s summer, but the project is still in the making.  It is obviously an interesting project, but the question is: Are people still interested in Arab cinema?  Well, maybe not as much in Lebanon as in other Arab countries, especially in the Gulf region and Egypt.  Another question concerns me: How will people be able to enjoy Arab entertainment with a shitty internet connection?  But, Karim Safieddine, founder of the website, says that the project is projected to be on a global scale, meaning that everyone anywhere in the world can watch and enjoy the website’s content.  Let’s hope that Arab TV networks and production companies will understand the project and give Cinemoz the right of streaming their  shows and movies without making such a big fuss out of it.  I’m not even sure if the presenter at LBC understood what this project was all about, she kept on asking Karim on how the website works and questioned the purpose of the site.  Are people in the middle east ready for changes like these: watching Bab el Hara (Famous Syrian TV series) on a small computer screen? I don’t think so!  Family and friends gatherings are the quintessential characteristic of an evening plan in most of the Arab world.