Picture by respres.

I read a great post today on Global Voices Advocacy presenting the incredible power of Twitter as a mechanism for enabling communication and better networking despite state repression.

So much is said about Twitter, but not a huge amount about its emerging role in the Middle East.  So it’s great to see this conversation emerge.  It will no doubt enrich and forward the ‘what have bloggers done for the Middle East’ discussion – which has started to feel stale.

But two important caveats need to be made about Twitter in the Middle East before we simply assume that it already plays a critical social role.

First, the user base. In a post published last month, Spot on PR estimated there are only just over 14,000 Twitter users in the region.  Forty percent of these users are in the UAE, and well over half are in the Gulf. Just 11 percent are in the Levant – reminding us that this tool is largely used by web users in rich countries and geeks + activists in poorer ones.

Plus when you compare these stats to Facebook – you start to realise that in fact the tool has some way to go.  According to O’Reilly Research, Facebook boasts 1.8 million users in Egypt alone.  Egyptians love the internet, they love social networking, but to date they are not mad about Twitter or don’t know about it.

Second, Twitter crucially lacks social translation and markup tools.  Social translation is key to enabling Middle East users reach wider audiences – Google MT API is just not enough when you think that ICANN predicts the next 20 million Arab users of the web will not be speaking English.

Markup is important for enabling users to better share provenance information about important Twitter voices – crucial in the Middle East where trust and credibility are key.

Nevertheless an important article this one – well worth a read.