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Written by Benjamin Joffe-Walt
Riyadh, November 14, 2009 – Saudi Arabia has a new king. He has no
political power, is not a member of the House of Saud, his authority as
king is tentative at best and he's not even Saudi.
Meet Paul Martin, an American entrepreneur living in the Saudi capital
Riyadh and the proud owner of a 2009 Maserati Quattroporte he has
nicknamed ‘Sniper’.
Martin is the co-founder of Street Kings Arabia, the Arab world's latest
online social network set to serve enthusiasts of classic and luxury
cars across the Arabian Peninsula.
Although Street Kings Arabia is still in a trial period online, Martin's
Maserati ‘Sniper’ has been voted number one on the site's current list
of ‘Street Kings Arabia’.
"awsomeeeeeeeeeeeee CAR," writes Huzaifa Khan, one of the site's first
Saudi users.
"This car is a unique one really," adds Mohammad Hemady from Lebanon.
"I know," replies the humble king, Paul Martin.
In an exclusive interview, the new Saudi ‘King’ acknowledges that his
crown may be temporary.
"I'm only the 'King' of Saudi because we don't have enough users yet,"
Martin says laughing. "We haven't done any marketing on the site yet.
We're just waiting for the right time when the site is strong enough to
sustain the traffic."
"I love cars, I've been into cars since I was a little kid," Martin
says. "There is an overload of demand for something like this so the
idea was to create an online community for kids to showcase their cars."
"Kids here don't have many entertainment outlets," he explains. "There
are no bars and no movie theaters, so the fun thing to do is to get a
nice car, a paint job and some nice rims and just cruise down the
street. This is kind of their only way to express themselves... School
got out an hour ago and there were probably 50 cars on the street that I
would put on the site."
An online community of exotic car enthusiasts, Street Kings Arabia
promises "eye candy" and "the true meaning of bling", allowing users to
show off 360 degree views of their cars in a virtual garage, share
snapshots of other cars "Caught in the Wild" and rate the cars of others
by voting for the "Street King”. The platform features luxury car
events, a classified section to buy and sell that old Lamborghini and
celebrity interviews in both Arabic and English.
"You've seen the hip hop glamour stories on shows such as MTV's "Cribs"
or "Pimp My Ride," but please, we all know where the real opulence comes
from," the site reads. "You could spend weeks or even months traveling
around the Middle East, sitting on the busiest street corners, watching
all the luxury drive past you, or you could sit in front of your
computer, pull up our website, and get all the entertainment!"
Designers say the site, which is still in a trial period, will be
launched with all features shortly.
"It's almost done but we're still testing the website," Eli Abi Haybar,
a developer at Zone Creative, the company designing the site, tells The
Media Line. "The site hasn't officially been launched yet but we hope to
allow users to upload car photos, sell cars, etc. There is lots of
demand for this kind of thing in all the Arab countries."
"We've been getting a lot of hype," Fotis Gerakis, the site's
co-founder, tells The Media Line. "It's only a few weeks old and it
hasn't even been fully launched and the response has been incredible."
"There's a big demand for this," he says. "We've seen some pretty
intense cars over the past few years - chrome covered cars, vintage
Mercedez and BMWs - and a bunch of us were sitting around thinking what
would be the best way to have some fun while doing what we really love
which is developing websites. We thought that an online forum would be a
great vehicle."
’King’ Martin says that while the site may make money, its purpose is
not commercial.
"The end goal is not necessarily to make money," he stresses. "We're not
really into that right now."
"It's kind of an experiment for us and we just want to see this thing
grow. If it starts to pick up popularity, who knows what could happen,"
he says laughing. "Maybe one day I'll be the real street king... I mean,
a Maserati is a pretty nice car and it has that flash factor, but it's
not a Lamborghini."
Source: The Media Line, November 11, 2009
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