Yesterday Jeff Pulver’s second Tel Aviv 140conf took place. Conference speakers (“characters”) discussed how they’re using social media in real-time for different things from fashion and food to promoting Israel abroad. Speakers included Kfir Pravda, Yosi Taguri, Yoni Bloch and Answers.com CEO Bob Rosenschein.
Special thanks to Niv Calderon and Roniet Berci who took these photos and let me use some for this video. Check out more of their photos from the conference on Facebook.
In the first post of this series, I wrote about The Israel Conference which took place in LA last week and how its purpose was “to showcase Israeli excellence in technology and products and to expand business and investment opportunities between Israel and California.”
The conference had more than $20 billion in capital represented and brought together over 50 Israel-facing companies for a day full of presentations and advice from some of Israel’s most well-known investors (Jeff Pulver and Yossi Vardi) and most successful startups (i.e., Check Point, Tigo Energy, Answers.com, etc.).
Bob Rosenschein
Answers.com is one of the most interesting websites coming out of Israel. It was founded by current CEO, Bob Rosenchein in 1999 as GuruNet and struggled as a desktop software company before its reincarnation as the Web-based answers service, Answers.com in January 2005.
The site which used to dub itself an “encyclodictionalmanacapedia” started out licensing content from encyclopedias and dictionary companies, such as Barron’s, Miriam-Webster and Wikipedia among over 250 others. In November 2006, the company acquired the user-generated Q&A site, FAQ Farm and renamed it WikiAnswers.com.
WikiAnswers has since fueled Answers.com’s current growth, which, in a recent interview I had with Bob Rosenschein, he attributes to a successful cycle of “Traffic. Questions. Answers”- traffic leads to questions being asked which leads to questions being answered on a continuous basis.
WikiAnswers
The increased traffic has led Answers.com to become one of the top 20 fastest growing websites in 2009 and the site to become profitable.
“The biggest news of 2008 for us was that in the second half of 2008 Answers.com turned profitable,” Rosenschein explains.
Answers.com’s profitability isn’t just from an increase in traffic though. As it has shown from its GuruNet days, it isn’t afraid to make changes and tweaks to anything. To increase profitability, the company changed its revenue model in 2008 moving from direct ads to display ads and performance ads, “the performance ads being the most profitable.”
Among the constant tweaks the company is making, we can expect to see in the next year “improvements in search, more functionality and internationalism.” The site will be made available in the languages of non-English countries that currently provide significant traffic to the site.
Rosenschein’s advice to startups is, “Be flexible. Roll with the punches, hold onto cash and be able to adapt. The most important thing is perseverance- don’t give up too quickly.”
Update June 15, 2009 Globes reported today that Answers.com has raised an additional $7 million from Redpoint Ventures.
(Disclaimer: As part of a work experience program in the summer of 2006, I interned at Answers.com in Jerusalem for six weeks.)
Despite the economic downturn, Israel’s startup scene is as strong and vibrant as ever. Just as the innovation hasn’t stopped, neither has the need for outside funding to develop these exciting technologies. Several conferences and forums have been organized in the past few weeks to maximize the access of Israeli startups to the funding they need. One that hasn’t happened yet, but will on June 4th in LA, is the The Israel Conference.
Considered the first of its kind, The Israel Conference will have more than $20 billion in capital represented when it brings together over 50 Israel-facing companies to showcase Israeli excellence in technology and products and to expand business and investment opportunities between Israel and California.
Presenters and panelists include Yossi Vardi (“the Father of Israeli Hi-Tech”), Erel Margalit (founder of Jerusalem Venture Partners, a venture capital fund) and Jeff Pulver (social media guru and VoIP pioneer) . The presentations will cover a wide range of topics from a look at VCs and the CEOs they back (why they were funded and the results today) to green tehcnology (how innovation in that field is helping the earth and changing our lives) and sales opportunities in a slow economy (where the money is, what the current market is like and how Israeli companies are maintaining a competitive edge).
Some of Israel’s overall edge and Caifrornia’s role in it can be attributed to the following:
The conference will also feature a presentation by Bob Rosenschein, the CEO and Founder of Answers.com, one of the Top 20 fastest growing Websites. I recently had the chance to interview Rosenschein and will post about that next in this series.
I recently met Daniel Shein of the Media Innovation Lab (miLAB) during Jeff Pulver’s Breakfast in Tel Aviv. Shein told me about the different research going on at miLAB and the projects he is working on in specific. In this video he gives a brief overview of miLab and one of his projects.
A little more on the Media Innovation Lab, according to miLAB’s website,
“The Media Innovation Lab at IDC Herzliya (miLAB) is a research and prototyping lab that explores the future of media and technology; Through a collaborative creative process new concepts for media experiences are transformed into working prototypes.”
Several of its projects are in collaboration with other research labs around the world, including MIT’s Media Lab. Some current miLAB projects include a study on the “Media in Context”, answering “How does the context of use influence a media experience? What types of context have a stronger influence than others?”; Urban Insights, a social-computerized system that more accurately connects you to the help you need; and ARG’s, a lab experiment in which the lines between “real and virtual, true and false” are blurred.
In addition to the website, more information on miLAB and these projects is available on the miLAB channel on YouTube.
The week of March 29, 2009 was one of the busiest weeks of the year for Israel’s Web industry, with conferences and events happening everyday. Three bigg events were TheMarker’s COM.Vention on Sunday and Jeff Pulver’s Tel Aviv breakfast and Techonomy on Tuesday. While these events showcased Israel’s most promising Web startups, there was buzz about Israeli companies starting to bypass the US market and target the market in China. For more on these stories and the rest of this week’s 13 Israel-related headlines, see below.
Cleantech
Israel’s Aora Solar To Begin Clean Energy Production
Leviathan looks to wind energy device sales
Global VC Funding of Clean Tech Plunges
Investments and M&A
Building A Bridge Between Israel & China
Israeli Entrepreneurs: Know What Game You Are Playing
The tycoons’ companies don’t create jobs
Information Technology
AICC member Unisfair Launches Channel Program to Capitalize on Growth of Virtual Events
Savvy entrepreneurs tapping risk (CTERA)
XMPie and NowDocs Introduce XMPie-enabled NowPrint 7.0
SaaS’ Testuff Nabs 2,000th Customer
Miscellaneous
Techonomy 2009: Great Startups And Amazing Event
MyHeritage: Avoiding the MetaCafe Curse
Impressions of TheMarker’s COM.vention from a new immigrant (Israel Innovation 2.0 coverage from guest blogger Jessica Korman)
Tal Chalozin (circa 2000)
Business Week has announced that topping its 2008 Best Young European Entrepreneurs reader poll is Innovid’s 27-year old co-founder and chief technology officer, Tal Chalozin.
Innovid was founded by Chalozin and, CEO, Zvika Netter in 2006 and provides a platform “that allows the integration of brand advertising into relevant video content.” The technology promises to solve the problem that publishers and advertisers have faced regarding monetizing online video.
In a post on TechCrunch about Innovid after it received $3 million in Series A funding in March 2008, Mark Hendrickson explained how the technology works as follows:
“The virtual items facilitated by Innovid are basically 3D objects that producers insert into videos post-production. They’re intended to look as realistic as possible so that they blend in with the real physical environment recorded by the video. And yet, they can’t go entirely unnoticed because users are encouraged to click and perform mouse gestures with them to derive additional functionality (for example, to view a popup description about the particular item with links to external resources).”
While the technology is promising and owes a lot to Chalozin’s leadership and innovation, that’s not the only thing that does. Chalozin and others at Innovid have been very active in the past few years in the Israeli technology non-profit, GarageGeeks, which provides a “physical and virtual space for innovative and creative people to introduce, network, expose, create, brainstorm, innovate and build.” In the past year alone, attendance at its monthly events has more than doubled and there is now a need to limit the amount of participants.
It was originally through GarageGeeks that Chalozin and Netter got to know angel investor Jeff Pulver who provided the early funding before the Series A round that has made it possible for Chalozin and Innovid to reach the international level of recognition it has achieved.
The week of of December 14, 2008 was filled with news from the Madoff scandal, including reports that the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology lost $72 million. Israel’s clean technology continued to draw interest from different states in the United States and reports were releases that U.S. investors are still seeking to invest in Israeli companies. A partnership between IBM and Samsung led to the development of a software reuse technology and WorkLight announced that it partnered with NetVibes to develop new secure widget technologies for the enterprise. For these stories and more, check below for the 13 Israel-related headlines from the week of December 14, 2008.
Cleantech
1. State of Georgia looks to Israel for solutions to energy and water challenges
2. MRI, Israeli firm will create renewable energy technology center
Investments and Economy
3. US investors seek out Israeli high-tech opportunities
4. Peres calls for tax breaks for growth industries
5. Government Gives Boost to Hi-Tech
Information Technology
6. IBM Israel and Samsung develop software reuse technology
8. WorkLight® and Netvibes Pair Up To Develop New Secure Widget Technologies for the Enterprise
Miscellaneous
10. Ron Yekutiel, Chairman and CEO of Kaltura (TV Week interview)
11. Terrorism spurs interest in Israeli tech
12. American Technion Society takes $72 million hit in Madoff scheme
13. USA Hockey to form Intelligym (Applied Cognitive Engineering Ltd.)
Bonus: Angel investor and Web 2.0 icon, Jeff Pulver hosted his famous real time social-networking breakfast twice in Israel this past week. The first one he hosted was in Tel Aviv on Tuesday, December 16th, which brought together over 400 people in Israel’s hi-tech industry. The second one was the following day, when Pulver hosted his first social networking breakfast in Jerusalem. The picture below is from the Jerusalem event. Pulver is in the center wearing a Hawaiian shirt.
This past week, wind turbine start-up, TechnoSpin announced that it raised $8 million. Leviathan Energy signed a letter of intent to provide energy for India worth $50 million and WorkLight, an Enterprise 2.0 company, announced that it raised $12 million. Not surprisingly, the Jerusalem Post website, reported that Israeli start-ups have raised the most capital in 7 years. Also, making the news was that Best Buy will be partnering with community-based, product help site, FixYa, and that Mashable.com, a blog that covers social networks, will be hosting MashBash for 800 people in Tel Aviv next month. Expected attendees will be from some of the hottest Israeli start-ups today and biggest international companies with offices in Israel. I plan on going, and so should you. For more details on this and the rest of this week’s 17 Israel-related technology headlines, check out the list
below.
Cleantech
Wind turbine start-up TechnoSpin raises $8m
Solel Solar on the Hunt for Newport Beach HQ Space
Leviathan Energy to provide clean electricity for India
M&A and Investments
Start-ups raise most capital in 7 years
BluePhoenix shares jump after 1Q results meet Street views
Information Technology
Application security co Applicure gets Trafalgar investment
RoofArena Launches Beta Site; Interview with Shay Sharon
Best Buy buys into tech support 2.0
IBM setting up Israeli Lab for XIV
Miscellaneous
Jeff Pulver resigns as Pulvermedia chairman
Izzy Borovich sees Israel becoming “vacation state”
MashBash Tel Aviv and Israel Media Tour
Electric Nissans Planned in U.S. by 2010
“BusinessWeek” names Israel among innovation hotspots
Social networking meets search: Sightix
About the author: Lisa Damast is the Membership
Manager of ebizQ.net and currently resides in Israel. Any questions or
inquiries regarding this blog or ebizQ membership services can be
directed to her via email at ldamast (at) ebizq (dot) net. She can also be followed on Twitter, where she covers additional Israeli technology companies and Israel-related headlines and topics.
When my roommate told me in horror last week that our Israeli landlady friend-requested her on Facebook, my response was that I was not surprised.
“But she’s really old!” my roommate exclaimed. Pushing retirement age, our landlady’s using Facebook does seem to be a bit unusual, especially, since Hebrew is her primary language. However, considering Israeli’s propensity for adopting new technology and the weight that Israeli culture puts on protexia (networking) in general, I figured it was only a matter of time before she would join and search one or all of us out on Facebook.
And, indeed, her having joined Facebook does represent an overall Facebook adoption rate by Israelis that is starting to turn heads. A few weeks ago, when I mentioned in passing my observation that the Facebook Israel Network had over 100,000 members, I was not aware of the discussion that Internet luminaries, Jeff Pulver, Shel Israel and Moshe Maeir were also having about it between their blogs.
Now having read their posts (thanks to a post on Alec Saunders’ blog), I find that they have really put this into perspective. According to Moshe Maeir’s blog, from August to October 15th, the Israel Network grew from 18,000 to 70,000. By October 25th, it reached 100,000 and yesterday (November 10, 2007) it hit 150,000 – that’s 50% in two weeks. Of course, as someone raised in a comment on Pulver’s blog, this number does not even include the many Israelis who haven’t listed themselves in a network (such as my landlady’s adult children).
While this is something to watch, Maeir brought up an even more significant fact by pointing out that “about half [of the Israelis in the Israel Network] are above the age of 24, which means that Facebook is moving away from the college age origins.” (Something that rings true with my land lady’s joining it.) He goes on to state that this is part of a trend of Facebook becoming more of a “serious networking platform for business.” A trend, that given the amount of Israel business groups being created on Facebook, is clearly being taken advantage of and is in full force on the Israel Network.
The VON Israel telecommunications conference was held this past Sunday and Monday in Tel Aviv. Although I was unable to attend it, I have been following it in some blogs and have watched some of the speeches on PulverTV. In his keynote address, Jeff Pulver, the conference’s founder, mentioned that VoIP is the future of communications on the Internet and now is the time for companies to find the right innovations and solutions for VoIP.
In the spirit of what he said, here are examples of how I think social media areas can integrate these technologies:
Facebook- Have a special application that will let friends voice chat or video chat with each other. This would also be good for the marketplace section, especially for job seekers and potential employers, and for sales, similar to eBay having the call buttons.
MySpace- Musicians can hold special “conference calls,” or interviews, with their fans, similar to the idea of how companies have quarterly conference calls with their investors. Also, musicians can create their own TV networks and broadcast fan mail by embedding it on their MySpace page.
Flickr- While looking at pictures, you can chat with the friend or family who posted them using an application on Flickr.
For more on VON Israel, check out Jeff Pulver’s blog and if you want to view some of the speakers from VON Israel, including Pulver’s keynote, check out PulverTV. Also, if you have any ideas of your own on how social media can integrate VoIP technology, feel free to add a comment below.
UPDATE: Skype and MySpace have announced that they will integrate their chat services to add Internet voice chat to MySpace’s instant messenger and allow Skype users to contact MySpace friends through its service.
