How times have changed....

This is an Editorial from the NY Times Dated January 20, 1879.

Thanks to my brother for sending it over and sorry for the poor print. It is a screen shot of a PDF.

Google and Yahoo and CPC Ads

Many companies buy CPC ads to drive traffic, hoping to reap the arbitrage on the conversion to sale or click. That strategy is a money maker when conversion to sale stays high. When it drops, companies can be left holding the bag or, more accurately, with Google or Yahoo holding their bags of dough.

Hence, I found it interesting that Shmuel Gniswisch (I once profiled him before), CEO of Ice.com, came public with a statement like that. Seeking Alpha (Full disclosure: Benchmark is invested in Seeking Alpha) is carrying the story here. It is worth a read and it is also friction marketing at its best.

Weathermen and Politicians

Much to my children's chagrin, I left Jerusalem early this morning (and they went to school) and made my way from the snow covered hills of Jerusalem to the very windy and rough coast and waters of Tel Aviv. Despite what the sensationalist Israeli papers reported, there was only about an inch of snow on the ground and it was very wet (Efrat and Kiryat Arba apparently got larger amounts). I found the rough seas in Tel Aviv calming after the traffic jams in Jerusalem the night before.

Sitting in my car in traffic-snarled Jerusalem last night, I heard the weatherman on the radio describe that the Snow Storm had arrived as they predicted and that it would continue snowing until about midnight since it was now cold enough that all precipitation would fall as snow.

Do me a favor. Early in the week, the weathermen said it might snow. Then on Tuesday they changed their mind and said it would not likely snow. On Wednesday morning they said it would rain and turn to snow but by early evening the snow would stop since the coldest part of the cold front would come in after the precipitation was finished. In fact, in snowed for 5-6 hours on and off.

As I looked at the rough seas this AM it got me thinking: Why can't anyone admit they were wrong. The weathermen here are no better than the politicians only that one just creates inconvenience and the others can cost lives and money. One of the key tenets of Judaism is the ability to say I was wrong and I am sorry. This is called Vidui in Hebrew. My grandmother of blessed memory used to say that "it does not cost anything to say I am sorry."

Wouldn't we be better off and engender more trust with both are politicians ) and our weatherman) if the people responsible for this summer's war would say we made some mistakes and here they are but we also accomplished some things? I think the people of Israel would appreciate the honesty and owning up to mistakes. It is ok to err. It is human.

(picture credit: www.scoop.co.il)

El Al and the Haredim

Scoop is reporting tonight that El Al and the Haredim have reached an agreement on El Al's shabbat violations (see my previous post). I can't figure out what the haredim achieved here other than felxing their muscles. I think this "agreement" is simply an elegant way for both parties, who need each other desperately, to climb down from the high roof they were on.

Why Olmert will make the wrong decision

Two boys in Sderot were seriously wounded tonight as the 37th Kassam rocket was fired from Gaza to Israel today during the "cease fire." Cease fires seem to mean here that Israel does not fire and the Palestinians claim that some renegade group like Islamic Jihad is firing the rockets but they are abiding by the cease fire. Defense Minster Amir Peretz and the army is pushing Olmert to take aim at the rocket launchers and groups that fire these rockets, namely islamic Jihad under the claim that they can stop the fire. This is baloney. Before the "cease fire" the army was unsucessful in stopping the rocket fire. Olmert's other choice is to do nothing and continue the policy of restraint since rocket fire is down 75% since the "cease fire" took effect.

Personally, I think both approaches would be a mistake and I am afraid he will choose one of them. Instead Olmert should retalaite against the Palestinian government. A duly elected government is responsible for the actions of its citizens. That makes the Hamas government and Abu Mazen responsible for the rocket launchers. Israel should suspend any gestures it made to the Palestinians in the last week and hit hard at the Hamas government members both diplomatically and militarily. If the Mexicans were lobbing rockets into Texas, the USA would rightly not target the groups of rocket launchers but would hold the government of Mexico responsible. We should do the same to the Palestinian government and stop passing responsibility off to renegade groups.

On Hannuka Vacation

Blog is going off the air for a week so I can take some time over Hannuka to spend with the six kids. Happy Hannuka! Lord knows we need some miracles :)

El Al, The Charedim and Jobs

Charedim, (otherwise referred to as Ultra-Orthodox Jews) have been putting the squeeze on El Al because the now privatized national airline flew on Shabbat (the Sabbath) after the recent labor union strike. While I think it is certainly valid for any group of people or consumers to boycott a product because it disagrees with the policies of its owner or what that product represents, I wonder whether the charedim have thought this through to the end.

To remove any doubt, I do not support El Al's decision to fly on shabbat. I think it was both insensitive and poor business decision given the purchasing power of Sabbath-observant Jews and Israelis and their loyalty to El Al. However, I wonder if the charedi boycott will, in the end, cause more damage to the cause than it is worth. Here are the reasons I think the charedim should think twice:

1. The boycott will have a seriously negative economic impact on El Al. This will cost many Jewish and Israeli employees their jobs and ability to earn a living.
2. Having an Israeli carrier in business is both important for the economy which is an export economy and the additional security of passengers who fly. Only El Al can provide a global service from Tel Aviv and only El Al can provide the additional security that the volatility of the Middle East needs.
3. I wonder if this aggressive approach brings more people closer to the shabbat or further distances them.

Somehow, I still hope that this is a lot of politics and will work itself out.

Critical Reading on Google, Especially if you buy CPC ads

In a post entitled Google's Silent Monopily on the corporate website of Centraldesktop, the CEO writes:

Google Cheats
Google holds the top advertisement (Adword) slot for the following key words:

intranet, spreadsheet, documents, calendar, word processor, email, video, instant messenger, blog, photo sharing, online groups, maps, start page, restaurants, dining, and books (somehow Amazon has managed to appear in the #1 ad slot for 'books').

For spreadsheet, blog and video, in addition to squatting the premium ad position, Google Products also dominate three of the first four search results.

In such cases, Google Product Links and Ads can account for up to 25% of your viewable screen resolution - 30-40% for lower screen resolutions - almost guarantying that users will click on a Google Product over any other search results, sponsored links or text ads.

What this tells me is if you are trying to advertise a product that is competitive to Google, then you'll never be able to receive the Top Ad Position, no matter how much money you bid and spend.

See this short retort on Google Blogoscoped.

This has major implications of how one should handle ad bidding on Google for spots in which Google promotes itself. Interestingly, Yahoo does not do this...yet.

I also recommend this string of articles on Publishing 2.0 by Scott Karp.

BEWARE THE DIGITAL GENERATION BS DETECTOR
BRANDS AS MEDIA
CONTENT BUSINESSES DON'T SCALE ANYMORE (I TOTALLY AGREE)
SOCIAL MEDIA IS A MARKETPLACE FOR TRAFFIC

Olmert's Zig Zag

I am confused. When the war with Hizbollah started this summer, Olmert said "we will not stop until we have returned our kidnapped soliders home." The Kidnapping of the two Israeli soldiers was the cassus belli. Yesterday Olmert said, we cannot risk lives to return two kidnapped soldiers who are certainly gravely injured and may not be alive.

What am I missing?

Calling All Israelis With Management Experience In Silicon Valley - Come Home!

The start up world in Israel is blossoming. The venture capital business is maturing here and I feel that entrepreneurs are poised to build world-beating companies. Whereas, historically, Israeli start ups have sold out relatively early to larger acquirers abroad, the land is now fertile to turn some of our start ups into great long term businesses.

Israeli start ups are threatened by one major limitation, a lack of management talent. This is a quantitative point and not a qualitative one. There have been simply too few large Israeli companies that can serve as management schools for individuals who can build large companies from the ground up and the small number of great managers here are gainfully employed. For example, I am looking for many months for a CEO for one of my internet consumer services companies and across our portfolio we are looking for management talent at all levels with international experience. There is a grave shortage.

Much like when Israel was getting started it relied on imported Jewish talent to train its Air Force and we recently brought in Stanley Fischer to head up the Bank of Israel, we need to do the same in technology and consumer internet services. There are so many Israelis and Jewish Americans in key management positions at great Silicon Valley companies like Yahoo, Microsoft, Oracle and other less well-known companies. We need to apply those great talents to Israeli companies now so that we can grow the next generation of great global technology companies. We can debate at another time whether these companies should be run from Israel or from the US but what is clear is that Israelis with US management experience are best suited to bridge any cultural divides and to help grow these companies.

So, to all of our Israeli brethren (or American Jews) in senior management positions in Silicon Valley I say, "Life is great over here. Capital Gains tax is lower than in the US; There is no inheritance tax; So send a resume. Come on back and help us build the next generation of global companies here in Israel."

Amazing US Government Experience at US Embassy in Tel Aviv

This post is not made up. I went to renew my passport today for the first time in 10 years. It was an unblievable experience. It took me 17 minutes from the time I got on the security line until I exited the embassy. This included security check, xray, filling out forms, submitting them and paying. And the personell at the Embassy were incredibly nice and helpful.

I contrast this with the miserable experience I have every time I get my kids passports at the US consulate in Jerusalem. That is a miserable experience where the consulate personell are rude, you wait on endless lines and are cramped into a tiny waiting room.

It is nice to see that interacting with your government bureacracy can be a very pleasant experience...at least in Tel Aviv.

Bibi Blogger

The Howard Dean internet-in-politics revolution has come to Israel and not a moment too soon. Likud Leader Bibi Netanyahu launched his own blog today to talk directly to the citizens. I find this especially gratifying for three reasons:
1. Citizens in Israel feel disconnected from their politicians who are protected by party politics and apparatuses from the citizens they are supposed to represent. This is a great way for Netanyahu to connect directly to people and for people to give direct unadulterated feedback to Bibi. It is a first level of accountability.
2. As many of you know Michael Weiss and I launched Scoop because we felt that the Israeli press was an agenda ridden filterer of the news in Israel. We wanted to create a platform for all Israelis to get what is really important on the table. Nobody in Israeli politics has suffered more from those media agendas than Bibi. Leveraging the internet to directly connect with the public is yet another step in that disintermediation of the media that the body politic needs so desperately.
3. Bibi has again showed himself to be a forward thinker. As Minister of Finance he launched sweeping reforms that in my opinion saved the economy. Olmert and Hirschson are basking in Bibi's glory now but Netanyahu set the wheels in motion. Reaching out via the internet is yet another forward looking vision that most of Israel's old line politicians will struggle with. It is a brilliant stroke.

Allow me to be forward and encourage Bibi to keep writing. Writing a blog is very demanding (Trust me) but interacting with people in this medium is critically important. Reach out to the public and use more digital tools like forums, video, meetups and others. The Citizens of Israel are hungry for this. Most cynical journalists in this country will look down on this as some gimmick. Somehow, I have the feeling that this is a watershed event in Israeli politics and will do more to bring about electoral and policy reform in Israel than any of the hollow proposals echoing around the Knesset walls.

Kudos to Bibi for this initiative.

Tefillin as Accupuncture

These two articles were too good to pass up.

Super Charge Your Wrap
Tefillin: An Ancient Accupuncture Point Perscription for Mental Clarity

I am not sure what to make of these but thought I should pass it on. Thanks to Mort for pointing me to it!