Sami Al-Taher, CEO of Mecca.com, and the rest of the Mecca.com team have graced us with an exclusive interview. We still have a few invites available, click here to see how you can acquire an invite and click here to see the original post about Mecca.com.

IslamCrunch: What is your web application/service about?

Mecca.com: Our website is a community portal that is devoted to serving Muslims around the world by creating a positive and unifying environment. Every member gets unique services as soon as he/she becomes a member. For example, members have the freedom to post articles about their lives, thoughts, hobbies, and dreams in the editorial section and the forum section. They also can post any article from a different site they think will be valuable to share with other members. Also, the site provides a wealth of content from respected Muslim scholars. Our members also get free email accounts (yourname@mecca.com). They can access an internal instant messaging function, a unique user search function, a prayer time calculator that shows paper times based on your location, a Zakat calculator, weather forecast based on your location, and much more coming soon. The site is available in Arabic and English at this stage. More languages will be added in the future.

IslamCrunch: Why did you start this project?

Mecca.com: There are well over 105 million online Muslims globally. To date, the only mainstream online communities available to them are based in the USA such as AOL (America Online) which does not resonate with the heart of Muslims in the Middle East, USA, Malaysia or Pakistan.  Our goal with Mecca.com is to give these Muslims, whether they speak Arabic, English, Farsi or Bahasa Indonesia, a safe home to connect with their brothers and sisters and support each other in their lives.

The image of Muslim society around the world has been adversely affected by the negative reputation implied by the Western media. Sometimes it even seems as though Muslims are only known as terrorists and killers. This awful misconception about Muslims encouraged us to create Mecca.com; a community that projects a positive image for Islam and Muslims around the world. Many of us are intellectuals and educated individuals that want to have a better future. We realize that there are over 1.5 billion Muslims around the world, including 105 million online Muslims who would like to have their voice heard by the rest of the world. Mecca.com will be the place to deliver their voices and values to the entire world.

IslamCrunch: How does your project relate to Muslims? Or is your project geared towards a general audience?

Mecca.com: Mecca.com is the place for all online Muslims worldwide. The site also welcomes non-Muslims to join us in discussions about issues that affect people everywhere, regardless of their religion.

IslamCrunch: If your project is related to Muslims, how do you hope your project will impact the Muslim community?

Mecca.com: We want to build bridges and foster discussion between Muslim communities all over the globe in a unifying environment. We want Muslims from different countries and different background to interact. We also want non-Muslims to participate in these discussions with Muslims.

IslamCrunch: How much time do you devote to its growth?

Mecca.com: We devote 100% of our work time to expanding our site.

IslamCrunch: How large is your team and what are your backgrounds?

Mecca.com: We are 11 employees in the company. We are Muslims from the Middle East, specifically, Palestinians and Jordanians. Our development office is stationed in Amman, Jordan. We also have a regional office in California, United States.

IslamCrunch: What is your design/service philosophy?

Mecca.com: Our philosophy is to help people express their thoughts and dreams and help them achieve their goals. That is why our motto is simply, “Pursue Your Dreams.” Every aspect of our site’s functionality and design exists to serve our mission of creating a beneficial, positive, and energetic community.

IslamCrunch: What technologies are you currently using?

Mecca.com: Mecca is based on open source technologies such as PHP and Ajax to allow for rapid, robust and standard development. We have also partnered with world-class partners to provide email, chat and other high tech functions.

IslamCrunch: What are the most requested features from your users/community?

Mecca.com: Our biggest request and the number one priority of the site is to provide the most robust, easy to use Social Networking functionality. Other functions requested a lot are chat and blogs, both of which will be integrated within the next quarter.

IslamCrunch: Where do you see the project heading in the next 6 months?  The next 2 years?

Mecca.com: We are currently open to membership by invitation only. Within the next 2 months we will begin actively marketing the community and expect to dramatically increase membership in the Arabic and English speaking countries.  Following that we will begin to open the site up to other languages and geographies such as Turkey, Iran, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Pakistan etc.

We are also actively recruiting world class content about lifestyle, finance, health, travel, relationships and religion.

IslamCrunch: What is the greatest challenge to your success?

Mecca.com: There are numerous challenges to success in the online community space as well as specific issues to be met by focusing on the Muslim space.  We will need strong marketing to become known as the Muslim Yahoo in the community and we will need to clearly communicate that we are a place for Muslims to congregate and discuss the issues dear to their heart.  It will be an ongoing challenge to ensure that we appear to be independent and not associated with any political movement or sect.

IslamCrunch: What is the one thing you need to get to the next phase of the project?

Mecca.com: There is no ONE THING that gets us to the next phase.  We will have to grow our organization to handle the increase traffic and content. We will need to be developing a strong identity in the marketplace.

IslamCrunch: Do you have a business model?  If so, what is it?

Mecca.com: Yes, we provide our services to the members for free. But we create our revenue from sponsorship and advertising packages from companies and organizations. Obviously, all content and advertising will be consistent with Islamic values.

IslamCrunch: If you’re able to disclose this information, how much traffic or usage do you see on an average day?

Mecca.com: We currently are not publicly launched yet and the numbers are proprietary.

IslamCrunch: Are there any aspects of this project that has made you proud?

Mecca.com: Virtually every aspect of this project makes us proud.  It is rare in life to be able to create a business that is both successful and improves the world.  Our whole team believes that Mecca.com can be such a company.  We are proud to see our team members grow, to see Muslims have a forum to reach out and support each other, to give the world a glimpse of the positive benefits that Islam teaches.

IslamCrunch: How would you describe the shift that’s occurring with the web right now to future generations?

Mecca.com: There are two major shifts that are key to Mecca.com. First is that the geographic areas with the highest Muslim populations are also seeing the worlds highest Internet adoption rates.  Presently, even with the high growth rates there are few sites devoted to the people that live there. Secondly, there is a major shift from Internet 1.0 where entities published content and users passively read it, to Internet 2.0 where web sites are based on syndication of content from partners combined with active participation and content creation by the actual members of the site.  Our vision is firmly planted in the Web 2.0 philosophy.

IslamCrunch: What site(s) do you visit everyday other than your own?

Mecca.com: Every one of us has their own favorites, so there are no particular sites; some of us visit AlJazeera.net for news, and Google for search.  Of course, we visit IslamCrunch to learn about the newest projects involving Muslims.

IslamCrunch: What do you hope IslamCrunch can help you to accomplish?

Mecca.com: IslamCrunch is a highly respected source of technology news involving Muslims. We hope that IslamCrunch will introduce us to its readers and we can continue to work together as we pursue our dreams.

IslamCrunch: If you could collaborate with another organization or participate on another project, please list them here.

Mecca.com: We have public ally announced relationships with:

1. Muslim Girl Magazine

2. Link TV

3. The author of the The American Muslim Teenager’s Handbook

4. Reza Aslan Site

We are developing relationships with other organizations such as Muslim Student Association (MSA) West, United Muslim Medical Association (UMMA) community clinic to help each serving all online Muslims and a wealth of other partnerships in the Middle East and USA who provide value to the Muslim communities.

IslamCrunch: Any other comments?

Mecca.com: We would like to thank IslamCrunch for this wonderful opportunity to introduce Mecca.com to its readers. We look forward to working with IslamCrunch in the future insha’Allah.