Mostly open minded, moderate and people searching for alternative views and news.

In the coming future, I'm coordinating with few Middle East bloggers to hold an annual regional bloggers conference. This should give us a forum to discuss tools and strategies to develop blogging in the Arab world.

On the other hand, due to low level of education in some countries, and high cost of Internet access in others, language and censorship, Internet is still not so publicly used resource. In fact it is very much under utilized in so many parts of the Middle East.

When it comes to blogging, we are witnessing now a huge increase in the numbers of blogs, both in Arabic as well English. Earlier, it was difficult for Arabic blogs to take off due to limitation of tools online. Now that many open source projects, volunteers and tutorials exist to assist and help spreading the use of blogs, both in English and Arabic, the number and quality of blogs are improving.

I'm not an enemy to my society, nor I'm a missionary. Having said that, we have to lead by example. Not only in the Arab world, but in front of the whole world as well. If I criticize any, that's because I like to find a solution to it, or to dispel the myth that surrounds all the taboos around us. Now, that is not a crime, so why should I hide behind a anon ID?

Beside that, moderate Arabs and Muslims are in fact majority of the Middle East public now. Unlike what is said about Arabs and Muslims in the MSM and the tags and labels that were stick to us. Therefore, speaking without hiding faces is in fact a reflection of what we live these days. It is very important for me to be transparent, so that visitors to my blog are encouraged to practice the same. This makes it easy to break ice and establish bridges of communication.

Having said all that, I don't believe one should hide his ID when blogging. The world is becoming even smaller than a global village, and one should not fear that he will be accused for something he said or thinks as far as what he says is objective and does not break rules. One has to remember that a big mass of supports and NGO's will jump in if a blogger is detained or accused unfairly by any local authorities. Unlike the old days, authorities can not hide this. I believe one of the best ways to fairly protest and express his freedom of expression can be online, and with original ID. This way he will establish support, beside get interaction and maybe form or reform his ideas for best, yet not fall in the trap of negative criticism.

On the other hand, if blogging anonymously is extremely important due to personal security reasons, then that's welcome. But one has to keep in mind that blogging anonymously opens the doors for intruders to spread lies and rumors claiming an ID of a local or a country that he might never even visited or knew. Organized propaganda is a serious tool that is cleverly used by extremists of all parts of the world as well to spread poisoned theories among bloggers thus society. So, one has to be careful to what he reads and whom he believes and support.

as for statistics, I don't have much, sorry, but I can tell you of some aggregators which list many (but not all) of the best Middle east blogs. here are they:

Bahrain: http://bahrainblogs.com/
Another Bahrain: http://ping.bahblog.com/
Saudi: http://saudiblogs.blogspot.com/
Tunisia: http://www.tn-blogs.com/blogs
Maghreb: http://www.maghreblog.net/
Palestine: http://palestineblogs.net/
Kuwait: http://safat.kuwaitblogs.com/
Arab: http://arablog.net/
Iraq: http://iraqblogcount.blogspot.com/
Jordan: http://jordanplanet.net/
Arabic: http://arabblogcount.blogspot.com/

Of course, presenting the truth as they live it and see it is not necessary counted as pro local governments and regimes, and not necessary against them, but in most cases resulted that blogger try to achieve the following:

1. Have a new window to represent the Arab countries, from within its people.
2. Anonymous (as most of them think they are) blogger, where no one can question him or hold him accountable for what he claim against, or for the country he represent. In other words, this created an attraction for the blogger to be free to reveal as much of their identity as they choose, unlike the public media
3. Correcting, and in some cases introducing the point of view that you never see on western media
4. Open new channels of discussion with formal and non formal identities inside ones country as well as outside
5. Get attention and support from international media as well as NGO's for cases that one day were impossible to cross the borders of the room or the country they toke place
6. Mobs organization and unofficial groups� space for declarations that are not permitted by the local governments and societies they live in. An example of that could be gays, or religious extremist, both of which are rejected widely within the Arab society
7. The unlimited topics and means of presentation that defeats the old Arab media style, which unfortunately is not showing any tendency of developing towards representing the pulse of the citizens rather than the rules by which they have to live within as dictated by their governments
8. The commercial and out-of-culture entertainment media, which in all cases was and still is a copy of imported foreign values that do not represent the Arab culture in general, and the refusal to accept that as the face value of the moderate citizens, hence the Arab bloggers
9. The emergence of few organizations who have sprung up to protect and to fight for the human rights in these countries, encouraged to have an extension of activities through bloggers who in all too many countries, face clampdowns on their freedom of expression
10. Another attraction of blogs in Arab world is the feedback, with readers of blog entries able to post their comments directly to blogs, thus hearing the hidden local news as well the opposite point of view that will never have space or means to appear to the public
11. War blogs and bloggers as a tool. This is conceived by some Arab bloggers, specially the depressed ones who feel that they have no chance to fight the war against their enemy (whoever and whatever that enemy is) face to face, due to the external and internal boundaries that govern his society
12. At the same time the online technology for setting up blogs has become increasingly user friendly, and is free

Maybe this is partly because younger people have fewer inhibitions about mixing their writing about politics with contributions on more personal matters. It seems as if there are more English than Arabic-language blogs, and in the Maghreb there are of course many French blogs.

Therefore, what they represent is what modern reality of their social and cultural life is. I don't agree to describe them as being in prison and ready to fly, no, they are what they are. However, unfortunately this is not what the West perceives about the Middle East. Being it a matter of heritage or a result of biased media, westerns still think that Arabs means camels, tents and 1001 nights.

On the other hand, I believe English blogs of Arabic bloggers has different objective than those written in Arabic, and that is the reach to the west in most, and the first language of some for those who live outside the Arab world.
For decades, there were no open channels between the East and the West. Blogs was and still is a great opportunity for Arab with bilingual skills to reach other around the world. To start a process of "learning to unlearn" on the non-Arab mass, so that the old believes and values perceived about Arabs, their culture and society are corrected and/or updated, and to represent an alternative point of view than that presented by local and foreign official views. It is very essential mind opener tool.

At the same time, Arabic blogs are also essential tool for open discussion between Arabs. A tool that never existed before to share ideas, to form a position, and to organize a move. Arabs in general never got the chance to live a democratic life locally or regionally. Hence, I believe that Arabic blogs will also help transfer of knowledge and strategies directly and indirectly will help in the long run to empower the Mobs. The recent Egyptian elections, and the reaction of Arab blogger (Arabic and English) from Egypt and outside, is a good example although it might have not made a big difference on the Elections process, but I think will be more powerful next elections, not only in Egypt, but in all Arab countries.

On the other hand, and as was mentioned before, most of the bloggers are very young. And to tell you the truth, Al Jazeera is not so much famous TV channel between this generations. However, that maybe does not apply to the political bloggers, which are not by the way that young. But, did Al Jazeera revolution have an effect on Arab bloggers? Yes it had, and probably will continue to do, specially that most if not all Arabs see it as the first open-debate channel that touch on taboos, similar to what Arab bloggers do touch on.

Having said all that, sometimes one has the impression the young Arab bloggers cannot believe the attitude of the older generation and especially figures of authority locally and internationally. And these are often challenged on Al Jazeera, but do not represent the Arab bloggers views, which mean that it does not represent the mass educated and ignored young generation. In fact, I believe that young generation has no presentation in the Arab media "revolution", except few, very few Arabic newspapers articles here and there, on the other hand, much more attention from the western media, and this interview is an example :-)
Period.

Anyway, please feel free to answer above questions and add correct me if I'm wrong...