From the bursts of electric violin to the furtive bodyguards accompanying Russian oil oligarchs, you could not accuse the Middle East launch of Godudu.com of being low key.
But whether the site makes as much of an impact as the bright green laser show that seared onto the distinctive sail of the Burj Al Arab hotel, remains to be seen.
Billing itself as the world’s first multilingual social network, Godudu hopes to take on the likes of Facebook by offering real-time translation that it says will allow people to communicate beyond language barriers.
Already it translates the likes of news and status updates between English and Russian – the language of its founders – but the event on Dubai’s shoreline was to launch its Arabic service.
