Israel Innovation 2.0

The most read posts on Israel Innovation 2.0 in 2008 reflect the overall hot areas of technology in 2008 which included cleantech, CRM, data storage and casual gaming. They also provide a glimpse into what can be expected in these areas in 2009. 

On the enterprise level, acquistions of Israeli companies by IBM in 2008 were part of growing trends in cloud computing and data storage that show little sign of slowing in 2009. Contributing to the need for cloud computing and better data storage solutions, will be the CRM and marketing automation solutions offered by companies, such as XMPie, which, resulting from everything from the economy to technological advances to the rise in listening to customers, are leading the way for easier cross-media dynamic publishing  in an increasingly digital world in 2009. 

In cleantech, along with the electric car and wind power continuing to gain momentum will be water technology in 2009. While Oberon Media, among other casual gaming companies, was forced to cut jobs in 2008 despite growth, given the poor economy and the history of success for inexpensive entertainment when the economy is down, the casual gaming market is expected to still thrive in 2009.

Without further ado, the top 10 Israel Innovation 2.0 blogposts of 2008 are:

1. XMPie unveils new products

2. Coming Soon: ooVoo.com video conference chatrooms

3. First online TV-PC network: RayV?

4. Coming soon: Your next game console innovated by Israeli sensor technology

5. Rumors of IBM being in talks to purchase Diligent Technologies Corp.

6. Company in Focus: Walla Communications Ltd.

7. Company in Focus: XIV

8. Company in Focus: Oberon Media

9. Company in Focus: Precise

10. Water Technology and Israel: Invest now

The week of November 2, 2008 was filled with conferences and awards. Deloitte announced the 50 fastest-growing high-tech companies in Israel for the year 2008 with Runcom taking the top honor and last year’s top company, Voltiare coming in second place. On Monday, at the Globes and Ernst & Young Israel Journey ’08, Amobee was named Globes “Start-up of the Year.” Companies in the Top 10 that have been covered in Israel Innovation 2.0 in the past include, Aternity, Inforgin and N-Trig. Also making headlines was SportVu, which provided the hologram technology that CNN used on Election Day in the United States and iSkoot, which raised $19 million. For the links to these stories and the rest of this week’s 14 Israel-related technology headlines, scroll down.

Cleantech
1. Electric cars of the future at the Web 2.0 Summit

Investments and the Economy
2. Downturn-Busting Venture Round For iSkoot: $19 Million

3. Pawlenty’s Israel trade trip takes shape

4. Central bank chief says Israeli economy resilient

5. Top 8 Creative Ideas For Startups To Triumph Over the Current Economic Downturn

Information Technology
6. Red Bend Software Earns MobileVillage’s Mobile Star Award

7. Runcom Technologies Ranked First Place in the Deloitte “Fast 50″ Program for Fast-Growing High-Tech Companies

8. Tufin Technologies Moves Beyond Firewall Auditing to Support Cisco Routers and Switches

9. Aternity Named To Annual Top 10 List of Most Promising Startups

10. N-trig Offers Suite of Multi-Touch Solutions for Windows 7

Miscellaneous
11. XIV head Yanai named most influential figure in high tech

12. CNN’s ‘Hologram’ Shows How Far TV Has Come

13. Agent Vi Announces Launch of Video Content Analysis for Digital Media Processors Based on DaVinci(TM) Technology

14. ANALYSIS / Obama will star in Israel’s election campaigns

Caption: Panel discussion at the Ernst and Young and Globes Israel Journey ’08, titled “Digital media – trends, developments and future outlook,” with moderator, Michael Eisenberg (far right). Panelists from right to left after Michael Eisenberg: Shmil Levy (Sequoia Capital), Tomer Ben-Kiki (Oberon Media), Guy Bauman (Pelephone Communication)Uri Shinar (aniBoom), Peter Hirshberg (Technorati).

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.

*About
the Weekly Headlines image: The Star of David in the image was found on
Flickr and is used under the Creative Commons license. It was
originally uploaded by Flickr member, zeevveez. The overall Weekly Headlines image was designed by Lisa Damast.

I wasn’t going to list the top 10 most-read blog posts of 2007 for Israel Innovation 2.0, however, considering that I have covered a broad area of topics related to technology in Israel, the results are rather interesting. According to Google Analytics, the list is as follows:

1. First online TV-PC network: RayV?

2. Companies in Brief: 23 Israeli technology headlines from this past week

3. Israeli TV on the Internet: ahead of the curve

4. Company in Focus: Oberon Media

5. XJet Ltd. raises $9M in funding

6. Coming Soon: ooVoo.com video conference chatrooms

7. Facebook’s Israel Network reaches new heights

8. Company in Focus: Precise

9. Company in Focus: Explay

10. Companies in Brief: 25 Israel-related technology headlines from the week of December 2nd

Are these the posts that you enjoyed? What other posts did you enjoy reading? Let me know in the comments below.