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.

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

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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.

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.

Here’s a short video that hopefully can give you a better idea of what twitter is all about:

Click here to view the embedded video.

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:

1. Check out http://israel.alltop.com.
2. Come meet me on twitter: http://twitter.com/miriamschwab.

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!

Blogs

60bloggers – 60 Bloggers in 60 days – a really great mix of bloggers posting about why they love Israel. [Hat tip: Dan from ejewishphilanthropy. ]

The Persistence of Vision: Israel at 60 – WZO initiative that brings together five authors with different perspectives on the meaning of Jewish statehood. Sounds like Real World – Zionism season, stay tuned.. but make sure to put on your glasses or enlarge the font.

Websites

IsraelBirthday- post a personal birthday card to Israel

CelebratingIsrael – dedicate a pixel to Israel, but it’ll cost ya

60israel – the Jewish Agency’s contribution with cute icons and lots of resources

Projects, Print Media, Social Media, Music, Snacks

60israelis.com – Faces of Israel Project, a joint effort of the Consulate General of Israel in New York & Salute to Israel Parade to hang up enormous photo banners in NYC starting May 4th.

Ride with Israel@60 – I guess Israel’s bones are still in pretty good shape.

Facebook Groups – Israel Celebrates 60 (over 2,000 members), Innovation Israel, israelplug

Facebook Friend – Celebrating Israel (over 1,500 friends)

Israel 60 Free Downloads – featured on jewlicious and Shemspeed. Diwon and Y-Love remix Idan Raichel and Shotei Hanevua and it is well worth listening to. As the lyrics say, “get connected like Bezeq”.

Twitter – Israel60 – although I don’t know who it is and they haven’t updated at all.. so much for thinking israel60 could be a real person…

Chocolate-filled Bamba, rich with vitamins and iron (so says the label). Awesome. Osem. (Pity laughs acceptable). [hat tip: Israelity]

Conferences

Presidents Conference Shimon Peres’ baby that will feature too many big names to list here. I’ll give you a hint – every big name you can think of will be at this conference. Check out the program.

Videos

birthright’s Celebrate Israel’s 60th with a tour around Israel

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Events

Musical Gala at Radio City Celebrates Israel@60 – features all the big names – Matisyahu, Yael Naim, Idan Raichel, Rami Kleinstein, David Broza, and more.

60 hours celebrating Israel – Events in Greater Los Angeles

Israel @ 60 in Washington DC – events, resources and information about Israel @ 60 in Washington, D.C.

Israel at 60 Silicon Valley’s Israel Independence Day Celebration

Yom Ha’atzmaut Activities in Jerusalem – that seems appropriate enough. Check out Jerusalemite and Jerusalem Blueprint for all the info.

Recent headlines that should make you proud

2 Israeli startups featured at TechCrunch (the most popular tech website)

• AllRise – The service calls itself “The all new community courthouse.” Users can use the service to “sue” others (boss, wife, mayor, insurance company, the weather).
• MarketGuru – is an investor community that helps you create your ideal portfolio based on your investment philosophy and the risk level you’re willing to assume.

“BusinessWeek” names Israel among innovation hotspots – BusinessWeek put Israel among the top 10, as an innovation leader in technology and pharmaceuticals in its special report Europe’s innovation hotspots.

“Forbes” says Israel among most up-and-coming real estate markets Forbes says that Tel Aviv is where the next real estate investment boom will be.

Israel Economic Stats for the 60th Independence Day

And finally, buddy, thanks for making us laugh and keepin’ it real by refusing to get spell check… [pic from Danny]

If you have anything to add to this list, please leave a comment below.

…and here’s the logo for anyone who possibly missed it (which we covered a while back)

After much Googling and thinking I had imagined the trips, I finally came across some coverage of the Solomon Project‘s organized tour of Israel for left-wing and progressive bloggers and journalists (April 10 -16 2008). The all-star blogger list includes the likes of Daily Kos, MyDD and the Huffington Post(ranked #1 most powerful blog according to The Guardian). The idea is for writers to judge the situation in Israel first-hand and not rely on other journalists’ reports. I think it is an amazing, overdue, and much-needed initiative.

Ynet says some highlights of their trip include going to Sderot “by helicopter in an effort to convey the true meaning of a return to the borders of June 4th 1967. The guests are also scheduled to visit with the top negotiator for the Palestinian Authority, Saeb Erekat and may also meet Prime Minister Ehud Olmert or Foreign Affairs Minister Tzipi Livni.” JTA adds that they will meet with Israeli bloggers, journalists and Knesset officials.

And now, after reading every single post – or at least skimming – on TravelingGeeks.com, I can tell you about the other major blogger event happening in Israel April 10-17 2008. Stalker? Me? no… Dubbed Innovation Israel, this blogging expedition is the baby of the Consulate General of Israel to the Pacific Northwest and is led by Bedouin-Israeli Ishmael Khaldi.

This tour features some of the biggest names in the tech and social media blogging world including Robert Scoble of scobleizer.com, JD Lasica of Socialmedia.biz, and even the Craig of Craig’sList.

Here is the full list of bloggers on the trip:

• Brad Reddersen
• Cathy Brooks
• Craig Newmark
• Deborah Schultz
• JD Lasica
• Jeff Saperstein
• Renee Blodgett
• Robert Scoble
• Susan Mernit

Their itinerary was packed with the hottest (geekiest to some) events and conferences that the techie community in Israel has to offer. The tour kicked off with Kinnernet on April 10-12, an informal weekend gathering of “250 net and technology – addicts , nerds ,geeks , thought leaders, and other creative people” to discuss “Software development, internet culture, site building, blogs, forums, social networks, chat rooms, instant messages, P2P, search engines, web services, Wi-Fi, open source, Email, Infrastructure services, Cellular services, Computer games, Interactive T.V, VOIP, technological trends, Gadgets, Security and more”.

As if that weren’t enough to chew on, the group then went to The Marker Comvention April 13-14.

They finally got to step away from their computers(gasp) and talk to each other at social events sponsored by GarageGeeks, iDrink, and Ayelet Noff.

They also visited startup companies and met with many entrepreneurs. Here are some insights from the bloggers themselves:

JD Lasica April 15th, 2008 [upon visiting Zoran, a silicon digital multimedia chip manufacturer]

Most mouthwatering demo: a USB key you can carry around and plug your into the back of a digital TV to watch a high-quality hi-def movie. It should be available to consumers by next year. Or, in a few years, you may be watching downloaded hi-def movies from Neflix or iTunes using Zoran-like technology.

Continue Reading at Day 2 of blogger posse in Israel

Renee Blodgett April 14th, 2008 [upon visiting Rambam Trauma Care in Haifa]

Rambam is also doing a lot of work cardiac tissue engineering. Rambam and Technicon are both working on combining cardiac stem cells and polymer to generate artificial cardiac contracting sheet.

This center deserves more recognition than it has received worldwide – perhaps not enough people know. The Rambam Healthcare Center an amazing example of co-existence in Israel and how life ‘could be.’

Continue Reading at Rambam’s Trauma Care in Peace Time & WAR Time

Craig Newmark April 15, 2008 [upon visiting Ashkelon]
I didn’t quite get how close it is to Gaza. While waiting for security to clear we hear a siren, and the guards rush us to a wall. The siren alerted them to a rocket attack which probably landed far south of us. They ushered us up against a wall, which presumably protects against shrapnel from one side.

(first time I’ve ever needed to write “shrapnel.”)

For your own rocket attacks, I recommend the Qassam.

Continue reading at My first rocket attack, and I eat algae

To follow the bloggers’ adventure, go to TravelingGeeks.com, or view their flickr photos.

Conclusion: Being that Israel sponsored these events, you would think they would want all the publicity that they could get. These tours are mind-blowing because they symbolize that Israel finally gets it. Finally understands how important it is to invite the most powerful, influential writers to Israel to see Israel in all its glory and yet many, if not most,Israel-based English bloggers didn’t even know about it until now, when it is pretty much over.

Chaval (a shame). I’m sure tons of bloggers would’ve loved to meet these superstars or even just gaze at them through a glass window. I mean, Craig from Craig’s List is here. How often does that happen?

One last geeky note: I may have learned more about startups and cool ideas that Israeli companies are working on from following their journey than I may have from my 3+ years living in Israel.

[photo credit: JD Salica's photos at flickr]

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.

The Web vs. Israel 

One of the most frustrating things about this battle is the fact that the State of Israel hasn’t exactly taken up a position on the web. They have made lukewarm efforts here and there, but nothing substantial. This makes sense, since the people running our State aren’t exactly embracers of transparency, which is what the new web is all about.

So I was pleased to read that our glorious leaders have actually started to upload videos on YouTube, which is an enormous Middle Eastern battleground all unto itself. In an article titled “Israel’s new weapon against terror: videos on YouTube,” The Marker has reported that the government has posted three videos about the recent terror attack on the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva in Jerusalem. As the paper points out

this is an unusual case where a State representative has used the Internet in an unofficial manner as part of Israel’s PR efforts. Until now, Israel has only officially responded through spokespersons on television and radio.

The videos were uploaded by a user named AtiyaRachel, who joined YouTube at the beginning of March. I used my tremendous sleuthing powers and decoded this user name to uncover her real identity: Rachel Atiya. I don’t know how The Marker discovered that she works for the government, since there is nothing on the web to indicate that, but Rachel is pretty active in social media, with profiles on facebook, digg and flickr. In all of these profiles, Rachel is busy trying to get the message out that terrorism is, well, bad.

Still a long way to go

Israel still has a long way to go in the social media battlefield. When will the Ministry of Foreign Affairs set up a department dedicated to creating an effective web presence? In the meantime, we’re still losing. Guess who owns the domain name “israels60thbirthday.com”? Not Israel, and not one of Israel’s friends, or even acquaintances (I purposely didn’t link to the site so as not to give them any “link juice” which can increase their position in Google). Even small businesses know that they should buy up all domain names related to their business and products.

State of Israel – I would be happy to come in and give you guys a lecture on using the web and social media. Just give me a call!

Here are the three videos + one that I threw in to show the contrast between the blood of the students and the candies in Gaza. Warning: the videos are very bloody and are hard to watch.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Footnote: I highly recommend Andre Oboler’s study titled “Online Antisemitism 2.0. ‘Social Antisemitism’ on the ‘Social Web‘” for a thorough analysis of how social media is impacting the spread of antisemitism on the web.