Tag Archives | 961

10 Years of +961 and 10 Days of Giveaways!

By Rami on February 17, 2018 in Blog news

Today is a special day for +961 as it marks the 10th anniversary since I started it!

I can’t say I saw this day coming when I first registered the domain name… at first I just started the blog to share cool finds with Lebanese online community and see how much traffic I can drive to it, but I have to admit that later on I even started enjoying the attention that media and businesses was giving to me. And here it is now, part of my everyday life and celebrating its 10th year online.

A lot has changed since February 2008 and +961 definitely had a lot of ups and downs. I got heavily praised for some posts that received thousands of hits but also heavily criticized for inappropriate or silly stuff that I shared. At times I was posting on a daily basis but also got inactive for a relatively long duration more that once (blame it all on having babies but family comes first!). However, what changed the most is actually how blogging is in general done in Lebanon. Back in time most of the posts contained original content generated by the blogger himself/herself, but nowadays society and lifestyle blogs are more like news aggregators that feed on bits and pieces collected from various sources with a lot of sponsored content in between (a special thanks to the Lebanese subreddit for being a huge inspiration for us bloggers by the way! 😀 ), and as long as this appeals to the people then you just go with the flow! I’m being just plain honest here.

Right now I have no idea if the blog will stay around for another 10 years, but what I’m certain of is that I enjoyed the past 10 thanks to you guys being part of it, and will definitely keep posting for as long as I simply enjoy doing it.

Now on to the really big news!

To celebrate this 10th anniversary, I decided to host a series of 10 giveaways in collaboration with very well known businesses and brands in town. So get ready as of tomorrow for some really cool freebies! The giveaways range from restaurant vouchers, to movie tickets, clothing, toys and gadgets, and fine dining.

To qualify for the draws you will only be required to interact with the giveaways’ posts on Facebook, so just make sure to follow +961’s page.

photo via jerseybites.com

Social Media Awards Beirut official results in numbers

By Rami on June 12, 2013 in Lebanon

The people behind the Social Media Awards Beirut took a great step towards being transparent by posting their official results in numbers in the latest issue of Cloud 961 magazine.

The results show how many votes did every candidate get from both the public and judges, and final score was calculated based on the below formula:

Total score = (Candidate’s public vote count / 2) + [ (Sum of public votes / 2) * (Candidate’s judges vote count / Sum of judges cotes)]

Basically most results made sense to me except for the best fashion blog, where only 1 judge voted in favor of L’armoire de Lana even though she’s making a great effort covering fashion event both inside and outside Lebanon.

Moreover, I was glad to see that 327 people voted for me in the best news blog category (and I’m truly thankful to each and everyone of them) even though I’ve never campaigned for votes and didn’t even nominate myself in the first place.

You can check the figures on pages 10-11-12 of Cloud 961’s latest issue here.

365 Jours pour rester positif au Liban

By Rami on October 31, 2012 in Lebanon

I was informed about this new agenda called “365 Jours pour rester positif au Liban” (365 Days to remain positive in Lebanon) when the dear people at Tamyras contacted me a while ago to inform me that +961 blog has been mentioned in it, but I never knew what this agenda was really all about until I read Hay Khabriyeh’s post about it last night.

Can you stay positive for 365 days in Lebanon? Tamyras publishers took on the challenge to offer you exactly what you need to do it – an agenda filled with daily upbeat notes. “365 jours pour rester positif au Liban” includes all the constructive social initiatives happening in Lebanon, from cupcake box charity to save Lebanon heritage to Nasawyia, and also fun initiatives like Tchenchol, Pure nostalgia and Lebanese memes.

The idea of the agenda came to Tamyras publishing director, Tania Hadjithomas Mehanna, to counteract all the negativity that was building up around her, be it on social networks, in the news or in her personal circle of acquaintances: she decided to uncover the positive side of Lebanon. There are countless people, groups, NGO’s who haven’t given up, who still wear rose-colored glasses and still dream of a better Lebanon, doing their part to make it happen. So Tamyras staff did an intensive research, gathered the names of positive initiatives, from the humorous to the serious ones, came up with a funky design, and the new agenda was born! Source

Unfortunately I haven’t got the opportunity to get hold of a copy for myself ~~and have no idea yet which day features +961, but I would appreciate it if anyone can send me a shot showing it!~~ turned out I’m featured on March 18th in the agenda. Thanks to Patricia!

Anyway, The idea sounds fun, and I agree with Sietske that it makes a nice gift idea this Christmas! It will be available for sale at major Lebanese bookstores in addition to the “Salon du Livre Francophone” at BIEL which lasts till November 4th 2012.

My interview on “B Beirut”

By Rami on October 28, 2012 in Blog news

“B Beirut” Show which is aired on LBC Sat hosted me last night to talk about the blog. Below is my segment, and you can check the whole episode here.

2010 in the eyes of +961

By Rami on December 31, 2010 in Lebanon

A 300 words summary of how did the 2010 go according to +961!

January:
2010 Started with Victoria Beckham opening a new store in Tarik El Jadida, Israel smashing out hummus records, and me getting disappointed by the new Beirut Souks.

February:
February was a bad month for Solange Gemayel and Nayla Mouawad who were caught stealing some candies, and that was also when stolichnaya dispayed a girl inside a bathtub to promote one of their products!

March:
I went to Meen’s concert at USJ, I had bonjus for the first time in 9 years (that was big!), Shankaboot was launched, and K-Lynn did their yearly ritual.

April:
Lebanese politicians played a silly football game, and we got to enjoy a successful motor show.

May:
Beirut got some playboy playmates, Rima Fakih won Miss USA pageant, and I went to Le Chef for the first time!

June:
Everybody got crazy about the world cup, and a controversial ICT law surfaced.

July:
People were still having the world cup fever,a new miss Lebanon was elected, and Octavia Nasr got fired because of a tweet!

August:
Rahaf Abdallah proved to be really dumb, some retards got into a “personal” fight in Bourj abi haidar, and we were melting in very high temperature.

September:
I got rotten meat from TSC, and we enjoyed carless streets for a few days during the hamra festival.

October:
I ranted about people who park their cars like douchebags, I accused Bank audi of planning to replace Ahwet El Ezez by a new branch, but then I apologized because it turned out to be wrong.

November:
Super night clubs started mass mailing us, we got speeding radars working in the country, and some iPhone applications violating our privacy!

December:
I found out we had Arz missiles back in the 50’s and 60’s, and Ahwet El Ezez announced it will be shutting down by the end of the month.

I wish you and your loved ones a happy and prosperous new year! 🙂

Brand new theme!

By Rami on June 25, 2009 in Blog news

Once again, I got a new theme, I know it’s not good to change themes very frequently but this one is “cleaner” and its comment section is much cooler!

What do you think?

+961 getting new outfit!

By Rami on April 25, 2009 in Blog news

Just started to install a new theme on the blog… hope nothing goes wrong!

Update:

I am almost done, everything went fine except for some compatibilty issues with Internet Explorer (I HATE IT!).
The main advantage of this theme is the 3 tabbed widgets to the right (Recent posts, Recent comments, and Archives), and they appear normally in Firefox, however I noticed they’re appearing under each other in Internet Explorer. I promise I will work on fixing it by tonight.

I will also restore the missing widgets (Beirut photos & Eyes of Lebanon) later today.

Still, I’d love to have your feedback, what do you think about the new theme? Anything to improve?

Update 2:

Woohoo! I fixed the tabbed widgets! They’re working fine on Internet Explorer now.
The contact is now gone for a while since its background doesn’t match the new theme. Gotta go find a better one.

Update 3:

Be careful what colors you choose next time you plan the change your website theme, I just got a question asking if I am a aounist since the color of “961” in the header above is orange!!

961 Beer

By Rami on January 6, 2009 in Lebanon

Check what I found in the supermarket yesterday!

I don’t know for how long it has been around, but I like it, 961 Beer! Here’s their website www.961beer.com, it looks like theyre related to the “961 Beer” bar in Gemmayze which I don’t know if it is still open or not…

Drink Lebanon, but drive safely!

Copying me already?

By Rami on March 16, 2008 in Blog news

Arghhh my blog is not yet popular and I have already came across a website with a similar name.

Today I received a spam email that landed right into my junk folder (thanks to Gmail), promoting a new Lebanese gifts website called 961gifts.com i.e. Lebanon gifts. Ok they’re not really copying me actually but they did copy the name, no?

I did a whois query to see when was it registered, and I got the following result:

Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: 961GIFTS.COM
Created on: 19-Feb-08
Expires on: 19-Feb-10
Last Updated on: 23-Feb-08

Ok mine was registered on December 2007! 😉

By the way, if you’re looking for an online gifts store to get your mother a gift on Mother’s day, I recommend Zoohoor.com. I work in a sister company to them and the guys are pretty nice and friendly there.

Oh and talking about popularity, I see people are constantly checking on my blog through the RSS feed. Whoever you are I’m glad you’re interested in my content! I’ll try to post more often.