Since I moved back to Israel, my goal was not to work on the same thing every day. I am happy to say I have succeeded so far. I am busy working on a number of projects and the diversification is something I enjoy very much. Among the projects that I am currently working on I can name:
Organize the house and setup a lovely home office – picture below
Getting ready to launch my new company. More to be announced soon.
Advising MoMinis, a mobile games enabler and distributor, on areas such as product & project management, product development processes.
Advising a stealth online advertising company on strategy and go to market tactics.
Helping my wife set up her BirthSpeak practice here in Israel. For the readers who are pregnant and looking for a unique and different experience – contact her, she is already taking clients for both doula services and prenatal Kundalini Yoga classes.
I have also met and spoke to many who are active in the internet industry here in Israel - entrepreneurs, VCs, and members of startups and larger companies looking for tips, advise and consulting services.
If we have not had the chance to meet yet, drop me a line here or on twitter and lets setup some time.
Last week Henry Blogdet and his team from BusinessInsider were at our office building for a video interview with Idealab CEO & Snap Chairman Bill Gross. Today it was published.
It is a fascinating interview where Bill shares his vision on renewable energy and how he has turned a dream he had when he was 16 years old to eSolar, one of the most promising green start up companies, that uses fields of mirrors to produce solar energy as affordable as fossil fuel-generated energy. Beyond that he speaks about Idealab, entrepreneurship and the importance of failure in the life of every entrepreneur.
Can’t believe it has been a year since the previous visit of the Israeli New Media Delegation to Los Angeles. Next week it will happen again and I will participate in it for the 3rd year in a row (see my post about the 2007 visit).
The delegation is organized by Yossi Vardi and Arnon Milchen and its purpose is to give young Israeli start ups the opportunity to meet with potential investors and executives from large media companies and pitch their companies and products in a speed dating format (participants — make sure you practice on your elevator pitch).
I will take part in a breakfast panel where the participating companies will meet a few Los Angeles based Israeli executives for tips and advise, Q&A and some networking. Together with me the panel will also include Alex Sirota from Yahoo/FoxyTunes, Roy Bahat from IGN Ent., Yair Landa ex President of Sony Digital and Leor Stern from Google. After two years of sitting together on this panel, I will miss my friend Nimrod Lev who recently packed his staff and family, left Fox/MySpace and moved back to Israel.
In addition to days full of meetings, the participating companies will also enjoy some fancy cocktails and dinners, LaLaLand style. So if you happen to be at the BetaSouth event next week in Santa Monica, you will have a chance to meet them over there.
Finally, here is more information about the visiting companies as provided to my by the organizers.
AnyClip enables consumers as well as professionals to find any moment from any film ever made. AnyClip seeks to create a new revenue model for Hollywood based on our core belief that clips have value as standalone content. With scale and efficiency, AnyClip will bring three nascent business models to the movie industry.
BloggersBaseis a platform for discovery and delivery of premium user generated content, targeting newspapers, media companies, bloggers and readers. We aim to solve the problem of user-generated content overflow, of uncontrolled (usually low) quality. BloggersBase offers its solution as a white-label platform (B2B) and as a target site (B2C).
Dopa Music operates a background music service customized for each website and context that brings a whole new sense to online content. Dopa Music service is based on a sophisticated algorithm (patent-pending) that selects the best tracks in real-time based on more than 100 parameters. Site owners can pay monthly subscription or enjoy service for free and receive commissions on audio ads played at their site. Dopa Music secured seed funding from Israel’s Chief Scientist. Erez Perlmutter, Founder, former VP BizDev at Kasamba sold to LivePerson.
Funtactix combines the best of AAA game and web technologies to bring console-quality, multiplayer gaming to the browser. The studio’s end-to-end, white-label solution turns popular franchises into profitable online gaming communities through avatar-based, high-end game content and microtransactions.
IPgallery is a privately held company with more than 40 deployments. Its solutions deliver highly scalable, flexible and reliable solutions enabling SPs to deploy new revenue generating services.
MAGYX develops “Smart Content™” – unique interactive solutions combining high-end technology and content, powerful marketing platforms empowering the communication between end-users, media platforms and advertisers.
P-Kama operates Rummikub.com, an online platform for family style entertainment based on the world’s 3rd bestselling board game. The game attracts players of every age, including Baby Boomers and young teens. It connects to family values which are enhanced by social media features. An average of 15 minutes playing each game makes Rummikub a powerful tool for promotion and customer retention.
PicScout – With 85% of the images detected by PicScout on commercial web sites being used non-legitimately, there exists a vast opportunity to track, protect and monetize images on the internet. PicScout™, through its proprietary image recognition technology created a new era in image copyright protection, is now leading the way to authorize the image marketplace to become a legitimate internet economy.
Tweegee.com is a pioneering destination site designed exclusively for kids. The site empowers children and pre-teens ages 7 to 13 to express themselves creatively and safely through an innovative and customized online environment. Tweegee integrates social networking, digital content and interactive tools offering kids a complete web platform. All the online communication is protected with technologically advanced safeguards including the patent pending “wordup!”, giving the parents the reassurance they need to protect their children. Tweegee was recently reviewed and qualified for meeting the standards of the CARU kid’s privacy safe harbor program in the USA.
Qlipso is your den and your favorite sports bar all rolled into one. It’s an impromptu online party with your best friends from FaceBook, your favorite media from video, game or music sites – all synched up and live! Avatars, webcams, voice and text chat – Qlipso brings it all together!
XSIGHTS service allows consumers using their cameraphone to transform any static objects, (products, newspapers, magazines, wall-posters, books…) to an interactive multi-media experience. XSIGHTS is the only company capable to identify many links within the same image. The links may be, as small as, a “single-word” in a text document or a “street crossing” on a map, thus activating classified listings, product catalogues, advertisements and street maps. The user can navigate and view different links within the same session. XSIGHTS mature and field proven solution is operational with or without the need to download an application to the phone.
A few days ago, my wife asked me to create a new brochure for her birth doula business. A quick search in my gmail inbox took me to VistaPrint’s website where I quickly completed the design process and ordered new brochures.
The last time we used VistaPrint was two or three years ago. My wife created business cards using their service and I remembered a fair experience. Since then, for a couple of years, VistaPrint has been sending me all sorts of promotional emails several times a week. Most people think that these folks are pretty good at spamming their customers, but I think differently. Probably because at my previous role as VP of Products at Spark Networks one of my team’s responsibilities was email marketing, and I know how complex email marketing campaigns and systems could become. And so, when I look at these types of things it is not from a regular users prespective.
In a nutshell, VistaPrints email marketing efforts are great for:
They have dozens of campaigns running simultaneously. There is an offer for everyone.
There is a clear connection between the offer received via email and the website experience. Emails are always tied to promotion codes.
Emails are being sent several times every week. VistaPrint never drops the ball and ensures they are always on your mind. Or at least in your inbox.
VistaPrint also offers personalized emails with dynamic content based on customers status. For example, if you start a project and then leave in the middle without completing it, within less than 24 hours you will get an email, that contains a preview of your current work and an additional discount. Just come back and complete the project. This is not that trivial when done at large scale.
I think that what VistaPrint is doing is pretty impressive for an eMarketer, and anyone who has an email marketing component in his marketing activities should look into them and learn.
The only negetive thing I could say is that as a customer you have to pay for everything on their site (very good for their business though), including for a PDF version of the file designed. So, I just waited for the shipping to arrive and last night I scanned the brochure and uploaded it.
My wife likes the result and so do I. And so, if you live in the greater Los Angeles area, San Fernando valley or Ventura county and looking for a birth doula or a private prenatal yoga instructor, you should check her brochure (below) and website – BirthSpeak
I was extremely disappointed to hear that Hulu was forced by their content partners to turn off Boxee support. Here’s a situation which turned from a win-win-win-win case to a loose-loose-loose-loose one:
The networks (NBC, CBS, FOX and others) lost empathy & credibility. If they think this move will drive people back to the TV they are wrong. This is exactly the type of shortsightedness that got those content providers into the downslide they’re facing today. They have to realize that there is a big generation out there that is not going to accept to a walled garden approach, loves services such as internet TV and boxee for them was the access point to those services.
Hulu is trying to come out good from this situation, but at the end of the day, they have cooperated and agreed to the networks’ mandate.
Boxee users, a growing passionate community of early adopters with lots of influence, loose because they won’t have access to great shows that are available on Hulu. However, these folks are going to participate in the battle actively and use every social media tool to protest and try to get the situation back to where it was.
And Boxee, well unfortunately, they are going to loose active users. They are probably not going to loose the users love and support, but since the biggest content provider users had consumed is no longer supported, there will be less reasons for people to login into and use Boxee daily.
But if anyone think this is going to last forever, he is wrong. I predict it is just a matter of time and plenty of discussions between the executives of these three companies (with some help from investors as well) until we will be able to enjoy Hulu on Boxee again.
This amusing new year’s greetings video made by First Round Capital and their long list of portfolio companies, located in so many places around the globe (it was nice for me to see the two Ramat Gan towers, and that London pub looks like a really cool spot).
What is common to all of these people who bust their asses trying make it big? They are happy!
So, if you fill miserable at what you currently do, think of making a change and starting (or joining) a start up. Who knows, by the end of 2009 you might be dancing next to Howard, Josh, Rob and Chris.
Congratulations to the founders of FoxyTunes – the Sirota brothers, Alex and Vitaly, for getting acquired by Yahoo and joining the Yahoo Music group.
This deal is yet another example that a great engaging product, millions of downloads and presence on the desktop/browser, a passionate community of users around it, and a strong team, are the keys to success and a very valuable asset to any company.
AOL has acquired Yedda to make it the Q&A service of the AOL network.
Congratulations to Yaniv, Avichai and their team for creating a great product and becoming AOL’s forth acquisition in Israel, following Mirabilis ICQ), Relegence and Quigo.
While most the Israeli Internet scene got together to shomooze at iDrink 7 in Tel Aviv, a selected group of them showed up last night on the red carpet of the Beverly Hilton for the reception event. I had the pleasure to be there and meet in person very smart and creative folks who came to LA to impress the local media giants with their ideas, products and passionate personalities.
The reception was the end of a long day which started early in the morning in a breakfast/panel with a few Israelis who work in US media companies: Nimrod Lev, Shaul Olmert, Roy Bahat, Tal Pink, Sam Gonen, Itzik Ben Bassat, Ofer Shaked and myself. Later on, the delegation hopped on busses and went to visit MTV, Sony and other media companies. The format of all the meetings was very similar to speed dating – each company had two minutes to pitch their product to a group of executives, and then companies and executives could spend more time together in one on one meetings.
Personally I find three companies to be very interesting and with great potential: Prime Sense (technology/device that can see, track and react to user movements outside the computer), Musestorm (widget creation, syndication & distribution) and InnerActive (advertising in mobile gaming – check out Adidas ads inside the Fifa game).
I look forward to meeting the participants of the 2008 delegation which I am sure will be even more successful.
Previous companies I was involved with include Snap.com (as VP of Products), Spark Networks (parent co of JDate as VP of Products), AOL (as Director of ICQ Mobile).
Some of the topics I am passionate about are social applications, web usability, design, mobile applications, sport and music.
Congratulations to the founders of FoxyTunes – the Sirota brothers, 
