For those unfamiliar, FORA.tv has been collecting and uploading big ideas on video from various conferences and think tanks from all around the world for about the last 5 years.  Recently, an interesting Picnic 2009 presentation was posted entitled “The Arab Social Web”, with participation from Creative Commons, Al Jazeera and Lebanese NGO Social Media Exchange (Donatella Della Ratta, Moeed Ahmad/@moeed , and Mohamad Najem/@SMEXbeirut respectively.)

In contrast to Western youth/teens usage of Twitter, it was interesting to hear of Twitter uptake amongst Arab youth as noted by Ahmad (considering 70% of Arab world population is under the age of 25).

Some other highlights:

• The increasing significance and role (business development) of Jordan
• Almost all of Al Jazeera’s content is freely available on YouTube
• Al Jazeera’s use of Ushahidi and crowd-sourced information during the Gaza War
• Lebanon’s access to internet is increasing, up to 35% in 2009 (from 25% in previous year)
• Predominance of web cafes in Arab world; online penetration therefore difficult to accurately calculate

All in all, some interesting reflections on crowd-sourcing, traditional and citizen journalism, social media, and participatory culture in the Arab world, not to mention the common challenges facing media organizations in this digital age. As Ahmad noted, “If you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking up too much space.”

If you’re interested in social media research and recent trends amongst Western teens and youth, albeit American research, the Pew Research Center recently released their “Social Media and Young Adults” report, here.