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NBN First International Jewish Bloggers Conference: exhausting

Posted on August 20, 2008 • By Miriam Schwab
Category: Social media 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.

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