Ever since we began blogging on HilalSpark as well as regularly posting on our Twitter account, we have been closely watching our analytics to better get to know our audience. One of the things we keep a close eye on are the sources of our traffic - such as what blogs are linking to us, who's tweeting about us, as well as a few other metrics that help us understand what others are expecting of us as an Islamic media company. 

The metrics

• 29.41% of our traffic is direct
• 41.21% of our traffic is from referring sites
• 29.27% of our traffic is from search engines

A closer look

Some of our top referrals are Facebook, Twitter, and my personal Tumblr page. 

We are excited to announce that our latest iPhone/iPod Touch application is approximately 2-3 weeks away from being launched into the market (iTunes App Store).

We have been eagerly working hard for this moment for nearly 5 months. This is the first in a series of applications that are aimed at enriching the learning experience.

Many are in the pipeline, including version 2.0 of this application, which will provide much more functionality.

Yesterday, Steve Jobs announced the upcoming release of the new Apple iPad, a much anticipated tablet device that has been rumored around for the past couple of months all over the internet.

Alhough many are disappointed with the features currently offered in the iPad (or lack thereof), there is still loads of potential in the future upgrades.

We know Apple to be smart with the way they approach the market, so the iPad should certainly not be considered a "fly-by" product. Rather, it is important to look at what the device is capable of offering in the future and how it can transform our lives.

The iPhone and iPod Touch are currently the hottest gadgets to be carrying around. Apple has well over 100,000 downloadable apps and has recently hit 3 billion downloads worldwide. Whether you are a book nerd, sports fan, or a digital nomad, chances are that there's an app that suits your interests.

I decided to make a list of some useful applications currently available in the iTunes Store that may come in handy for Muslims living in non-Islamic countries.

If you are a big user of web apps like me, you probably get annoyed just as much as I do having to access everything through the web browser. Every time I start to use a new web app, I usually search around to see if there are any AIR versions available for it. For example, if you don't like visiting Facebook through your browser every time, you may find interest in Facebook Desktop or Seesmic for Facebook.

Similarly, I just recently started to use Basecamp, which is a great service by 37signals for project management/collaboration. Since there is currently no real desktop application available for Basecamp, I decided to quickly make one myself using Fluid.

It works great for me and I hope it comes in handy for you as well!