A website created by two young Jordanians in a coffee shop six years ago has become the most popular site in Arabic, highlighting a vast vacuum: less than 1 percent of the Internet is written in the language spoken by 4.5 percent of the world's population.

The growth of Mawdoo3.com - Arabic for "subject" - is part of a steep rise in Internet use in the Arab world in recent years, along with an Arabic content publishing frenzy in which governments, independent journalists and Islamic militants also compete for page views.

The idea for Mawdoo3 goes back to 2010, when Mohammad Jaber, at the time finishing his medical studies, teamed up with entrepreneur Rami Qawasmi. The two Jordanians, now both 27, shared a birthday and a vision for changing the World Wide Web.