Israel Innovation 2.0

Israel’s hi-tech scene was in a bit of a lull during the week of June 29, 2008, perhaps because of July 4th in the United States. The biggest news was about Google AdWords killer, Peer39, which has a semantic search engine that brings back more accurate results and can thus display better ads. It also has the ability to differentiate between positive and negative contexts of words. After Peer39, Microsoft made headlines with two announcements. The first announcement was that it has partnered with Ben-Gurion University and the second was that MSN Israel will now be controlled fully by Microsoft and no longer jointly with Internet Gold. There was also a lot of technology investment-related news that took place. For these and the rest of the 12 technology-related headlines from the week of June 29, 2008, as well as a special bonus check below.

Technology
Microsoft and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev announce agreement

A First Look Inside Peer39 & Its Semantic Advertising Technology

Microsoft to take full charge of MSN Israel

Alvarion® Sets Off First Mobile WiMAX™ Internet Service in the U.S.

Business
Cleantech Index (CTIUS) Expands Globally, Adds 33 New Companies

Israel’s high-tech culture must rejigger, VC says

Options trade points to stronger shekel

VMware Completes Acquisition of B-hive Networks

IncrediMail and Google Sign AdSense Direct Agreement

Metalink files to raise $25m

Miscellaneous
What Determines the Price of Oil?

Destination: San Francisco. And Still NoGoBoingo

Bonus
This past Tuesday, popular Israel Web 2.0 blog, the.co.ils hosted its annual web startup competition, TWS2008. Ten Israeli Web 2.0 companies were selected by an impressive list of judges and gave brief presentations about what they do. Some of the winners included, Nuconomy, Dapper, HiveSight and WorkLight. WorkLight securely brings personalized Web 2.0 into the enterprise. Here are two video clips of part of WorkLight’s presentation:

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.

Blogging is a phenomenon that isn’t just perceived as important in the United States, but in Israel, too. Back in October, I wrote a few posts about blogging in Israel and the different networks and platform technologies that I noticed being used. A lot of the attention I gave to blogging in Israel was in anticipation of attending the first annual WordPress Israel conference.

Recently, there was some discussion on the Digital-Eve Israel listserv (an email list for hi-tech professionals in Israel) about how to start a professional blog and which blog platform to use for it. In one of the posts, Miriam Schwab, CEO of Illuminea Marketing and Media and an organizer of the WordPress Israel conference, directed everyone to an entry on her blog about how a “really professional blog” is hosted on WordPress.

As there are several blog platforms aside from WordPress that are used by some highly-regarded professionals, including Blogger and MovableType, I decided to leave a comment disagreeing with the idea that “really professional blogs” are only on WordPress. I also included my belief that professionals just starting to blog should consider different platforms and that if the blog isn’t directly for their company, then it would probably be fine to start off on Blogger while learning the ins and outs of blogging.

Miriam’s response to my comment and Jacob Share’s short list of Digital Eve Israel members who blog (only 11!), piqued my curiosity as to how many Israeli companies (including VCs) that I have covered in my posts, have blogs. Surprisingly, and not so surprisingly, most of the companies I checked (especially the biggest companies, such as Teva Pharmaceuticals and Alvarion), don’t have corporate blogs. Many Israel-based venture capitalists on the other hand, do.

Here’s a list of a few of the Israeli companies that I have mentioned that do have blogs:
RedBend
eSnips
Metacafe
Gemini
Tvinci
Jajah
ooVoo
Aladdin
Commtouch

Here’s a list of some companies, including ones that I haven’t covered, that are noticeably missing:
Comverse
Commtouch
BluePhoenix
Magic Software
InfoGin
Alvarion
Vringo
Ness Technologies
Teva Pharmaceuticals
Voltaire

Update: August 8, 2008.

The week of December 16, 2007, was filled with new headlines related to the future of nanotechnology in Israel and abroad. Cleantech received its usual attention about investments, plans and government initiatives, and internationally, speculation of a recession in the U.S. and inflation continued. Check out these headlines and the rest of this week’s 29 Israel-related technology headlines below.

Cleantech:
Israel And The US Partner For Clean Energy

World Bank mulls financing Negev solar project

Evogene and Ormat subsidiary receive biodiesel grant

Ben-Eliezer offers plan to promote renewable energy

Israel Cleantech Ventures invests in Citrine Renewable Energy

Solar Market to reach $40 Billion in 5 Years

Investments and M&A:
Value of Israeli VC exits rises 30% in 2007

Don’t believe them: Brokers will tell you TASE stocks are a bargain. Here’s why they aren’t.

Noise control co Silentium raises $1.8m

Plenus invests $2.5m in Logia Content Development

Radcom raises $2.5m in PIPE offering

American VC funds favor Israel, China

CopperGate to be the 1st Israeli start-up to list on NASDAQ in 2008

Nanotechnology:
Israeli Nanotechnology companies have doubled since 2005

Yissum gives birth to biotechnology start up Nanolymf

Nanotechnology Companies Planning to Sell Shares

International:
South American trade block signs trade pact with Israel

Jim Rogers: US is in recession, the administration is lying

Your Taxes: Korea welcomes Israelis

Global Agenda: It’s back

China Less Willing to Be America’s Piggy Bank

Telecommunications:
Ericsson to equip Partner Communications with advanced 3G equipment

Breakthrough deal for Alvarion

Why The Internet Needs to Become a National Priority for Israel

Miscellaneous:
IBM Unveils Semantic Search For Corporate E-mail

Plexiglas-like DVD to hold 1TB of data

Meeting of the minds

Israeli women: Harassment vs. high-tech

The 1st Human Operating System

The week of December 9, 2007, was good for Israel’s cleantech sector with the announcements of the Oasis Investment Fund being a new VC fund investing in the Negev and the creation of a new energy tower by Technion researchers that could provide enough energy for entire regions. Also, HP announced its plans to buy NUR Macroprinters and Wall Street Journalist Technology Columnist, Walt Mossberg admitted his surprise at how technologically advanced Israel has become. Israelis abandonment of the U.S. dollar for rent and other purposes continued to prevail. Check out these and the rest of this week’s 26 Israel-related technology headlines below.

Cleantech:
Hebrew U. tech transfer co focuses on cleantech projects

New proposals for competitive energy market

Energy Tower: Power for 15 Earths?

Oasis Investment Fund — new VC investing in the Negev

MK tries to advance major environmental law reform

Investments and M&A:
HP to buy Israel’s NUR Macroprinters

Wound management co Polyheal raises $1m

OptimalTest raises $16m.

Chief Scientist to fund 8 new companies

Tactical UAV co Bluebird Aero Systems raises $7m

International:
India next goal for free-trade agreement

Yahoo! to start Internet Program for Technology Investors

Clyde Prestowitz: Israel should join the EU

Walt Mossberg: I’m amazed how Israel has changed

UN adopts Israeli-sponsored resolution on “Agricultural Technology for Development”

Telecommunications:
Breaking News: Kwiry launches viral platform, connects offline world with online

WiMAX Woes Weaken Alvarion

012 Smile.Communications: Competition in Israeli Telecom

Miscellaneous:
Social networks in Israel?

Aternity to collaborate with Oracle

Oracle and Israel’s Chief Scientist form joint venture with Aternity

Dan Dankner: Israel can be an investor’s paradise

Israelis start to abandon dollar linkage

ISRAEL – N-trig makes an online presentation of DuoSense next generation technology

New 3D Camera Makes a Hand a Joystick

Hi-tech output slides for fourth straight quarter