Israel Innovation 2.0

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 upcoming WordCamp Israel conference in Tel Aviv on Thursday October 25th, isn’t just exciting for WordPress enthusiasts. The excitement leading up to it, has even had me, a Movable Type user, talking about it to my friends for days already.

Most of the conference’s topics won’t be WordPress-related, but will cover general blogging ideas. Here are some reasons why I’m looking forward to the conference:

To learn more about monetizing blogs
To learn more about where the blogosphere is going
To meet fellow Israeli bloggers whose blogs I’ve been following
To meet fellow Israeli bloggers who I haven’t heard about yet
To get feedback about current blog trends and ideas
To network
To spend the day in Tel Aviv

I am also looking forward to reporting back about how the conference and its topics relate to technology in Israel. If you will be there too, feel free to come up to me and introduce yourself!