Plone in Egypt

It might seem trivial in light of the chaotic events going on right now in Egypt, but even Plone usage statistics reflect the Egyptian national blackout on Internet services. 

Location of visitors to Plone.org -- past 90 days

As is apparent from the map, Egypt sends visitors to Plone.org from Alexandria to Luxor with most of the activity centered, understandably, in Cairo.

Egyptian visits to Plone.org, 2009-10 vs 2010-11

From the number of Egyptian visits in the above graph, it can be seen that things were largely the same as this period last year until this week when the bottom fell out.  Current daily visits are zero.  Admittedly, Egyptians have more immediate things to worry about than theming their Plone sites.

Also, Plone.net lists a USAID ICT Portal in Egypt.  The URL returns a "server not found" error.  Not a surprise there, either. 

Over the past month there have been significant dips in Plone.org traffic from Tunisia as well.  Site visitors hit zero on five days, which has never happened for even a single day since last Ramadan (11 August).

I was pleased to see that the Telecomix News Agency (@Telecomix) has been promoting Internet access via "the old way," dial-up modem.   If anyone has any bright ideas on how to help out via Plone, now's the time speak up.  Maybe EC2 portals could be useful? 

Meanwhile, PloneMetrics' thoughts and prayers go out to everyone in the region during these troubled times.