Internet users are increasingly creating their own online experiences by uploading videos to websites like YouTube and Vimeo, authoring blogs on Blogger, micro-blogging on Twitter, and creating their personalized online profile on Facebook and MySpace. Bayt.com recognizes that talented, creative individuals are expressing themselves through the internet in numbers and will a level of skill and creativity like never before, and that this creative group is not limited to creative “professionals.” Talented amateurs make up a significant portion of online creators – and the more than2,750,000 registered users on Bayt.com – and these users want to play an active role in shaping their online experience. When discussing video content as a core part of their user experience, Bayt.com decided to diverge from the creative agency route for its video production. Instead, Bayt.com has just launched a Video Contest titled “I can draw” asking Bayt.com’s users to create engaging, artistic videos that bring the words of Bayt.com to life.
“We spoke to several local and global agencies about producing a suite a videos for Bayt.com, including an introduction to our role in the recruitment process and how-to videos, but the solution was right in front of us all along,” said Dan Stuart, Head of Strategic Initiatives at Bayt.com. “With over2,750,000 users – many of whom tell us they want to play a larger role in shaping the user experience of Bayt.com – this was a chance to tap into their desire and their creative abilities, and to continue the innovative spirit we have been pursuing through events like our Virtual Job Fairs to help our users find jobs in Dubai and other areas in the Middle East – North Africa region.”
“People often use the term Web2.0, but the essence of Web2.0 is to make users into authors who are building their online experience. Guided by this principle, we’ve already had great success with other innovative approaches to crowd-sourcing content for our website,” Stuart said. “Ultimately, we learned from these experiences and decided to bring this particular contest in-house so that we could incorporate user-generated submissions into the very core of Bayt.com – both now and in the future.”
The “I can draw” Video Contest runs from January5th to March6th,2009. Users can visit the contest Microsite at https://icandraw.bayt.com. Bayt has provided two video scripts on the Microsite. Users are to create a video for one of these scripts using an original visual concept. The winning video concept will receive the contract to create more than three trilingual videos for Bayt.com. Also, both the winning designer and design will be promoted on Bayt.com, in all contest-related PR, and promoted on the contest Microsite.
“For us, this contest is only the beginning,” said Stuart. “We have an ambitious plan to continue innovating in all areas of Bayt.com in2009 – including our core goal of helping match talent with opportunity. In all cases, we are driven by our mission to empower users with the tools and information to build their lifestyle of choice. We hope the “I can draw” Video Contest is another example of this empowerment.”
Bayt.com is the #1 job site in the Middle East, offering a complete range of end-to-end employment solutions and career planning tools. Bayt.com is fully functional in English, Arabic and French, and offers the fastest, easiest, most effective and cost-efficient methods for employers to find quality candidates, and for job seekers to find top jobs, in the Middle East and North Africa. Bayt.com is firmly committed to the region and understands the Middle East market better than anyone else. This is evidenced by its fully trilingual recruitment platform, which is the first and only such platform in the region, as well as its11 regional offices in Abu Dhabi, Al Kuwait, Amman, Beirut, Casablanca, Doha, Dubai (Head Office), Eastern Province, Jeddah , Manama, and Riyadh. With over2,750,000 professionals and over30,000 leading organizations using Bayt.com's recruitment services across all industry categories and career levels, Bayt.com is today the single largest marketplace of professionals and companies in the region.