Category: Social media
Israeli invents instant face improvement, but is it ethical?
Posted on December 3, 2008 | View Comments
With the rise of social media and an increased reliance on the internet to create and maintain relationships, internet users are finding it beneficial, if not flat-out critical, to create a whole online persona, complete with the perfect profile and perfect profile picture.
In the world of social media, photos play a major role by connecting the opinions and information we send to the internet with a real flesh-and-blood person. It used to be easy to be brave online and not take any tangible responsibility for what you did and said, but people are starting to realize that if they want to be taken seriously, then they need to show a real person is behind the voice. Including photos of yourself is an important way to add integrity to your online persona. You’re showing people what you look like in real life; meaning someone who reads what you write on the web might actually come over and say hi to you in waking life!
It makes sense to try and put your best foot forward when stepping into the social media scene, especially with online pictures and profiles making more and more first impressions for us. Our profiles and avatars are like little familiars… ephemeral digital emissaries that we send out into the virtual forest in the hopes of finding the people and things we are looking for. They are our eyes, ears, and personal proponents.
What I’m rambling toward is that importance-wise, how we look online is closing the gap on how we look in real life. Amazingly, I am not the first person to reach this mini-epiphany… enter our old friends self-consciousness and vanity. People have been “improving” their digital likenesses for some time now, as we are already armed with a mighty arsenal of photo editing software. But this is such a bother. Isn’t there a better, faster, easier way? I mean, c’mon. It’s practically 2009.
The answer is yes (a heavy sigh of relief fills the room). Professor Dani Lischinksi and his team of Israeli scientists at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem have developed new software that, using a carefully tested and proven understanding of facial proportion, greatly improves the
attractiveness of your face without damaging your defining features or recognizability. Ever seen a picture of yourself that was a little too good? You’re still you, you just look a tiny bit better than the real-life you. That’s what this software does, and it does it reliably, or so they say.
Oh, the ethical implications! Is this deceptive? Is it self-indulgent? If there was an “optimize portrait” button on facebook, would a lot of people use it? The answer to all three questions is: probably.
How to be a pro-Israel activist online
Posted on September 23, 2008 | View Comments
Israel’s biggest bully, The president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, just visited the UN to speak at the General Assembly. How lovely. Thankfully, there are activists all over the web who are voicing their outrage and speaking their mind. For those of you still throwing staplers and keyboards at your screens, it might be time to roll up your sleeves and become an online Israel activist.
Honest Reporting and Stand with Us just put together a 24 page guide to Pro-Israel activism on the internet. The guide is especially helpful for beginners, who are trying to sort out how to read the mountains of Israel-related news on the web, and then decide what action to take – commenting, blogging, digging, stumbling, etc. You can read the activism guide PDF here. Also, check out israelplug’s How to get a pro-Israel article on the front page of digg.com
Hopefully they’ll be more resources like this, like a top 10 list of pro-Israel activists to follow on Twitter, Stumbleupon, Digg, etc. so people can connect and create teams with immediate impact.
Apparently advocacy efforts for the other team aren’t going so well, as Al-Qaida expreienced some glitches in their web presence – Al-Qaida’s Propaganda Sites, Smacked Down
How to get a pro-Israel article on the front page of digg.com
Posted on August 24, 2008 | View Comments
If you happen to be a geek like me who reads the digg.com homepage on a regular basis, you may notice a certain trend when it comes to anything about Israel that appears there: they’re all about how Israel is the root of all evil.
To get on to the digg homepage, lots of diggers have to “digg” an article as newsworthy within a short span of time. Most diggers find posts about how Israel is the root of all evil as digg-worthy, while anything that is either neutral or positive gets buried in the avalanche of articles being dugg at any one time.
Today an article got to the digg homepage that was Israel related, and the diggers even left really positive comments on the item! So what piece of gold managed to overcome the usual digg consensus and achieve such success? This:
Yup, crazy guys flying down Israel’s highways on two-wheeled thingies.
Since this video achieved the impossible, let’s analyze it to see how we can maybe apply these lessons to future pieces of content about Israel that we want to get to the digg homepage:
- Guys doing crazy things: digg is overwhelmingly used by males, and young males at that. They find things like this really cool, even if it comes from Israel. So the key to reaching digg’s homepage is to feature guys doing something that is fast and dangerous. If they are wearing some kind of body armor, all the better.
- Wheels: from when they are born, boys like wheels. If you can create a video that features wheels predominantly, you may have a chance at digg success since boys can’t resist a good wheel.
- Techno music: many of the commenters on the digg piece mentioned how awesome the techno music in the background is. So no matter what your video is about, make sure to put it to techno music.
- Hot chicks: I know this video doesn’t have any babes, but I figure that if these are the types of guys that like fast wheels and techno music, they’d also like sexy babes. So if you don’t have any guys and wheels, use hot chicks and you might fare pretty well. Israel’s Foreign Ministry already tried this, although I don’t know if anyone remembers that attempt anymore besides me.
Now if only we could figure out how to get Reddit to publish something positive about Israel…yeah right. When pigs fly.
NBN First International Jewish Bloggers Conference: exhausting
Posted on August 20, 2008 | View Comments
Maybe it’s because it was at the end of a very long day. Maybe it’s because Binyamin Netanyahu showed up and spoke for ages. But whatever the reason, I am exhausted from the NBN First International Jewish Bloggers Conference. Even the conference title is exhausting.
Backtracking a bit: today was the NBN bloggers conference. It consisted of a bunch of panels of bloggers, a talk by Bibi about historic rights etc., but not really about blogging, and food. Here are my overall thoughts of the event:
Dosim
A bunch of bloggers and twitterers complained prior to the event that the panelists were all religious and not representative of the diversity of Israeli society. No, I argued, the panels are diverse, and anyways, who’s to say what religious even means?
Boy was I wrong. After a very nice introduction by Esther Kustanowitz from Urban Kvetch, we were privy to a dvar Torah that would put a Rosh Yeshiva to shame. If it were not for my fine Jewish day school background, I’d seriously have had no idea what the guy was talking about. Since I did understand, I can tell you that his point was a pretty big downer on the topic of that panel: how to promote your blog. His point was that you can halachically promote your ideas…but not yourself…but you CAN promote yourself for parnassa (income)…and if you ARE going to promote yourself, put your blog URL in your email signature. Whew.
Or, as Rebecca put it, his point was “that the Smog said to put your URL in your email signature.” If you were there, you may understand who the Smog is.
@Hakerem, @israluv, please accept my apologies and submission to your wisdom. The event was definitely dosi and SO American.
No wireless – as usual
The conference had no wireless Internet, but this is actually typical, since almost every event I’ve been to over the past year did not have wireless Internet, no matter how hi-techy the topic was. So after a few futile attempts at connecting, I settled for Windows Live Writer. See, there’s still a place for desktop applications.
Bibi really should have prepared better for his context
While I think that Bibi came across as knowledgeable and book smart from his question and answer session, I have to agree with someone I was talking to who said that he missed an opportunity because he did not prepare. Here he was, talking to a passionate base of bloggers who write because they love Israel and Judaism. All he had to say was “Blogging is so important for getting the word out about what Israel is really about. You’re all doing a great job, keep it up, and vote for Bibi.” Instead he went on and on about things related and unrelated to blogging. It seemed like he wasn’t even sure what the conference topic was, and he had to check the poster to find out.
The winner – WebAds
The organization of a conference like this is a really nice idea, and the organizers deserve praise for their initiative. However, there is no doubt that the biggest winner of the evening was the main sponsor, WebAds. Thanks to the conference, WebAds had the attention of over 1000 perfect potential customers for their Jewish ad network: Jewish bloggers. Brilliant!
The best part – the shmoozing
The best part of the evening was when I realized I couldn’t sit for another minute, and I went outside. There I got to shmooze with some really fun people, including someone I’ve been in touch with a lot online but I had never met. There were a lot of people I wanted to talk to you but didn’t get to, but what can I do.
Summary of first panel
Here’s a summary of the first panel:
AFter Dvar Torah man was Jewlicious. He’s not into SEO, social media, etc. He says what works is passion, and believing in growing your community. You’re not just trying to take – you’re trying to share. He says interacting with other bloggers via their comments is also important. Real-world interaction is also important. They do birthright trips and Jewish festivals. Amazing.
Treppenwitz – I first discovered Treppenwitz a few years ago when I did a search for Yerushalmi Kugel. I don’t know why I was searching for that, but I’ve never looked back. He said you have to write, and then the traffic comes. Even more important – you have to be nice. And love doing it.
Next was the Bibi.
Bibi: “Jewlicious”?
Jewlicious: “Netanyahu”?
Bibi: Blogging is great – it requires time, or it requires ghostwriters. He doesn’t like ghostwriters – it doesn’t work for him. So he either writes, or talks, so he came to talk (i.e. blogging doesn’t work for him). He said to come on aliyah with Nefesh B’Nefesh. Jews need to be here: it’s our home, land, city – and it will remain our city (i.e. he’s for an eternally united Jerusalem, at least until he gets elected). Contribute to the Jewish future by contributing to the Jewish State. Nefesh B’Nefesh olim contribute to a more robust economy. Need to assure security and prosperity of the Jewish State. Reenergize the economic momentum, and make substantial changes in our educational system. He wishes all overseas bloggers “Next week in Jerusalem.”
A guy asked Bibi if the government is trying to fight the anti-Israeli sentiments online? No. He says he only understands the power of the web once he left office. He went to CERN etc. Israeli government needs a website that fights the “smears” online. We have one weapon: the truth. Jacob Richman Someone asked about improving Israeli democracy with direct elections to MKs. Bibi says the system is bad, we need a system that combines governance with representation. He says the country is too small and too similar to carve it up. That argument didn’t sit well with me because Toronto was carved even though kilometers of it was exactly the same. Bibi said that the problem is that representatives are more beholden to the party central list than to voters. He wanted a presidential system, but didn’t get it.
He said that support for Israel in the US has not gone up, but Palestinian support has gone down. Not true. I recently saw statistics that showed Americans are actually more apathetic: they couldn’t care less about us and figure it would serve us and the Palestinians right if we just blew each other up. He said we need conviction in our cause. Truth and justice are the same. To argue historical rights, you must study history and facts in order to dispel the lies.
Once Bibi left, Israel Matzav was on. He started his blogging career with email lists – first for jokes and then about “the Matzav,” i.e. intifada. His blog is almost all politics. He built traffic by linking to the big blogs. He said he manages it because he sleeps four hours a night.
Update: Yehuda Berlinger wrote a very insightful post about the conference, and why it was essentially a failure. He also posted some pictures.
Jacob Richman posted pictures here and on facebook.
israelplug now featured on alltop.com, and the Israeli hockey jersey
Posted on June 17, 2008 | View Comments
Today as on every day, I conducted my usual social media time wasting activities before getting down to work. One of my daily activities is to check what’s going on in the twitterverse (i.e. the world of twitter). Many of you have probably heard of twitter, but have no clue what it is. Fear not, you are not alone. Twitter is a place where people “microblog,” which means that you can post there, but your posts cannot be longer than 140 characters. You can follow people, and then you see what they’re saying, and people can follow you. Sounds like a waste of time? It can be, depending on how you use it, but I think this story will show you how it can be useful.
Here’s a short video that hopefully can give you a better idea of what twitter is all about:
Anyways, included in the 125 people that I follow on twitter is Guy Kawasaki, who writes the excellent How to Change the World blog, and founded and manages Alltop.com, a very useful site that collects content from around the web on various topics. (He also does tons of other stuff including venture capital, authoring books, etc.)
ANYWAY, I logged in to twitter and saw that Guy had just created a new Alltop page for Israel. I wrote to him on twitter and asked him if he could add israelplug…and he did! So now we are featured on the Israel Alltop page. Assuming that a lot of people visit the Alltop site, that means good traffic and links for israelplug. Hurray!
On another topic, but an important one for hockey fans, Guy also mentioned that he played hockey with an Israeli, and even has an Israeli hockey jersey! Well, who ever heard of an Israeli hockey jersey, so I asked him to see a picture of it. Here it is:
And now, since every thing must have a lesson or a purpose, here are some action items for you readers:
- Check out http://israel.alltop.com.
- Come meet me on twitter: http://twitter.com/miriamschwab.
Celebrating Israel’s 60th with Videos, Websites, Blogs, Birthday Cards, Conferences, Snacks, and more
Posted on May 5, 2008 | View Comments
Dear Israel,
I know we have neglected you a bit on our site in the past few months, but this birthday has put our priorities back in focus. As I get alerts and updates on all of the celebrations in your honor, I get that warm fuzzy feeling about how special it is to live here (despite the wacked out taxi drivers and funny hours at the post office).
As a mini-present (and it’s the thought that counts, right? we’re done with the buying each other things stage I hope), I’ve compiled a list of as many websites, videos, blogs, conferences, snacks (?!), etc. that I could possibly find that are dedicated in entirety to you, your innovations, your accomplishments, and your commitment to being an open home to the Jewish people. (cheesy enough? stole it from another Hallmark card I saw in the Israel birthday card store)
Thanks for making us proud and Happy b-day from israelplug! Read more»
Superstar Bloggers in Israel – the best PR Israel could ever get
Posted on April 15, 2008 | View Comments
There are at least 13 bloggers in Israel right this minute that are unbelievably influential and major celebrities to those with Internet Addiction Disorder. Unfortunately, It wasn’t easy finding info about these tours but thankfully someone dropped a few hints my way. This is a shame, considering these visits should be promoted like a… fill in your own analogy. Rebecca the gumshoe to the rescue. Read more»
It seems Israel’s starting to get social media with new videos on YouTube!
Posted on March 27, 2008 | View Comments
As many of us are aware, a large portion of the battle for Israel’s right to exist and be secure plays out in the media. Until a few years ago, the main battle field was on TV: CNN, Sky, and our biggest fans: BBC; and in the papers: New York Times, Washington Post, and our biggest fans: The Guardian. (Oh, those Brits. I know we’re fabulous, but they really should try to tone down their love for us.)
Now, the battle takes place on the web. Thousands of blogs are pro Israel, tens of thousands think Israel is the cause of the all of the world’s ills, and the fight goes on. Social media has added to the fun, with facebook becoming a shooting range for those who think people who live in Judea and Samaria (also known as the West Bank) are Israelis, while facebook insisted they were Palestinians. Yet Israel’s official stance in these arenas has been silent. Until now. Read more»
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