Syria: Hyperlink Podcast Caters to the Arabic Tech Crave

Hyperlink Podcast [ar] is being received with enthusiasm among Syrian bloggers as one of the best technology podcasts available in Arabic. Hyperlink is created weekly by two Syrian blogging brothers: Mohammad and Beshr Kayyali, who garnered the respect of many due to the meticulous attention to detail in executing the recording and the wide variety of technology topics covered and interviews with influential IT professionals.

Global Voices’ own Alloush expressed his admiration[ar] of the quality of the work saying:

صراحة لم أتوقع هذه الاحترافية من مدونة عربية صوتية، فما بالك أن تكون سورية!! احترافية للوهلة الأولى تعتقد أنك تستمع إلى اذاعة بي بي سي بالعربية، كلّ ذلك بجهد شخصين فقط!.

Honestly I didn't expect such professionalism from an Arabic audio blog, let alone Syrian! It's so well done that initially you think you're listening to BBC Arabic – and all of that is with the effort of two people only.

3bdulsalam also wrote a positive review[ar] of Hyperlink, but he had a suggestion to improve it:

العمل على تنظيم المداخلات بين بشر ومحمد أثناء الحوار بطريقة تقلل المقاطعة والتقطيش بالأفكار من جهة والمحافظة على العفوية والتفاعل بين الإثنين من جهة أخرى.

The dialogue should be more organized between Beshr and Mohammad in a way that minimizes interruptions and incomplete thoughts and preserves the spontaneous interaction between the two.

Beshr Kayali, one of the creators of Hyperlink, explained some of the aspects of preparing the podcast:

We face many difficulties, most importantly is the internet connection. Uploading a 50MB file is a major crisis. As for our interviews, we have been lucky to have great treatment from the people we interviewed, like Wael Ghonim from Google for example. Juanne Kubba the Public Affairs manager in Google MENA helped us so much.

And speaking about the project's development Kayali added:

We have a lot of ideas to convert Hyperlink into a Netcasting or Podcasting Network that does not solely revolve around technology, but also caters to other areas of interest like movies and music. We're waiting for some kind of a sponsorship deal we can give the whole project the time it deserves.

If you're an Arabic speaker, you can download Hyperlink podcasts from iTunes or stream it directly from the blog, or click play on the embedded player to listen to the latest episode now.