The new year is upon us. 2010 will be a critical year for DriveArabia.com that will decide whether this site continues to 2011 and beyond. While nothing special happened in 2009, there were a few key moments for us. We had our first offer to go abroad thanks to Nissan, to go to France. We lost our first chance to go abroad, because the French embassy wanted to process us like terrorists. We drove the GT-R, Camaro and Mustang. We got to keep a Volvo for a week. We held our first ever professional photo shoot. We started the MyRide community. We held our first ever DriveArabia Meet. We pissed off Ford. We made up with Ford. We pissed off Nissan. We made up with Nissan. We tried making up with VW/Audi, unsuccessfully. We displayed our BMW at the Media & Marketing Show in the Dubai Trade Centre halls. We finally got audited by the great guys at Effective Measure, and can verify a unique readership of 100,000 users per month. DriveArabia.com is now the most popular English automotive website in the GCC.
Here is a list of all the cars we’ve reviewed for 2009, available under New Cars or New 4WDs:
Renault Safrane
BMW 135i Convertible
Mini Clubman S
Ford Focus Sport
Bentley Flying Spur Speed
Infiniti FX50 S
Hummer H3T
Chevrolet Traverse
Peugeot 407
BMW X6
Honda City
Lexus RX350
Infiniti G37 Coupe
Mercedes-Benz CLC 230
Mercedes-Benz ML 63 AMG
Nissan GT-R
Nissan Murano
BMW 750Li
Volvo XC60
Jaguar XKR Convertible
Ford Mustang GT
Ford Fusion
Toyota Land Cruiser Prado
Chevrolet Malibu
Here is a list of driving events we attended in 2009, in the First Drive section:
Volvo XC60
Mitsubishi Pajero Sport
Porsche 911
Porsche Cayman
Porsche Boxster
Porsche Cayenne
Chevrolet Camaro
Chevrolet Malibu
Ford Mustang
Kia Soul
Porsche Panamera
This is a list of special features we’ve done for 2009, found under the Feature Stories section:
Comparo: Altima vs Accord vs Aurion
Comparo: Nissan GT-R vs Ferraro F430 vs BMW M Roadster
Photo Coverage: The 1st DriveArabia Meet
Exclusive Desert Test: 2010 Toyota Prado
Have a pleasant 2010!
Special thanks to:
Faisal Khatib (photography)
Diego Martins (public relations)
Imran Bukhsh (back-end programming)
Imran Raja (upcoming interviews)
Brother Marouf (general running-around)
…and all 13 people from the MyRide forums who showed up at the first meet.
Hmm..so whens the 2nd meet
You’re welcome Mashfique..
And we need to have a 2nd meet…
@Mash
Might we know the reason why 2011 can be an empty drivearabia year? I would really hate not to have drivearabia on my side while at my laptop… drivearabia is 90% of the reason i am still paying my innet bills.
CAN WE HELP??
It has to start making good money this year, or I might move on to other things, and may or may not continue this site. Let’s see, things are happening.
oh my.. hope it turns around bro… take care
You got to get a marketing specialist to market the site as you can make money from adds. Can you strat marketing tires, auto cosmetics, car service, etc
Otherwise it is great. Keep on the good work
I think many people will be keen on seeing this site continue..
nice Mash, that is alot of stuff for small group of people. are you the only journalist?
question unanswered..when is the 2nd meet??
I prefer chicken. My second meat of choice is mutton.
Jumbo, the advertising scene here is a mess that takes ages to navigate, and I have been navigating, for the past 2 years.
Chicken??? Mutton??? :S
well a good idea would be priting 100 or so stickers with drive arabia logo , slogans and url
and asking die hard drive arabia fan to paste on their cars , this will be like free publicity when people move around with their car , other people will notice.
i bet you can find 100 or so members easily from myridecommunity .
pritning 100 or so stickers will cost you some where between 1.5-2 per sticker , not sure exact amount , but i generate some custom stickers for my cars and it costed less then 5 AED each. no need for highway stickers just basic windshield stickers
I haven’t even put stickers on my own car. It was made illegal last year. One can get lucky, or one can get caught for a 2-inch sticker, as has happened to some. Another plan then, hehe.
if you see my car there are stickers all over the place , i am not talking about big stickers , i am taking about the stickers like al masood , futtaim guys paste on windshield
Hi,
for advertising you cannot make it on your own. You need professionals to help you in this. Here lots of things are done on personal level and contacts rather than business sense like in the normal countries. Also, no offence, but if you are Sri Lankan it will not open lots of doors for you.
You need an Arabic person(agency) to do this for you
Good luck.
I am neither Sri Lankan nor have I been chasing ads on my own. I am pursuing various avenues.
but that sticker thing is actually a nice thought!
sorry then, I had a wrong impression
Keep up the good work
Thanks, buddy. Things are happening. Will announce when they finalise.
Its great to have the support of many. To have come this far with minimum resources is quite an achievement. Just keep spreading the word guys, end of the day its the public we need to reach.
Being a regulare visitor of this site, I would like it to continue for long time.
Hey Stickers was my idea. I told this to Mash about a year back. So if you guys ever decide to make one, I want 1st sticker to be shipped to bahrain for me alright????
We could make small stickers….all local car clubs have them…
Yeh how come some of the clubs have em?? do they require special permission??
The clubs have ‘em right until they get fined on Jumeirah beach road.
hmm….sucks!!!
What about stickers , that car dealers paste ?
On Rear Windshied ?
they have quite a bit of visiblity…
and most of them are not transperent they block visiblity from rear view miror , i do not think so you get fine on them
Those are dealer stickers, and therefore “stock”. People have even been fined for 2-inch stickers, if you read other forums. Maybe I’ll come up with something unique a bit later.