New online news magazine

[sharonbn]

israelinsider is an independent, nonpartisan online publication that aims to provide an "inside perspective" on the latest news, analysis and commentary from and about Israel.

Rather than merely chronicling events as they happen, as most news sites do, israelinsider focuses on creating in-depth, multifaceted information packages on the burning issues of each day, combining insightful articles from multiple sources with high quality interactive maps, graphs, photos and streaming media.

israelinsider is published by Koret Communications Ltd., an Internet design and development company based in Tel Aviv, Israel.

(text taken from the "About us" section).

What is particularily interesting about this site is the list of columnists, which seems to span the entire prizm of the Israeli political map:

Uri Avnery - from the extreme left of the Israeli political map.
Moshe Feiglin - leader of "This is our country", an Israeli extreme right political group.
David Grossman - Israeli writer. belongs to the left-wing.
Nadia Matar - leader of "Women in green", an Israeli extreme right political group.
US Senator James Inhofe.


http://www.israelinsider.com/index.htm
Magazine is in English.

[NewsGuy]

sharonbn,

What's your connection to this publication?

[Vic]

It is the only professional English-language political internet project in Israel, I believe, but not exactly new. It has been around for some two years, if I'm not mistaken.

[sharonbn]

Originally posted by NewsGuy
sharonbn,

What's your connection to this publication?

no connection. I only found out about these guys yesterday.

[Mediocrates]

Another good one is Israel21C - mostly economics and technology

http://www.israel21c.org/bin/en.jsp?enPage=HomePage


Another very good one is ISAPS.org - mostly economic policy issues.

http://www.israeleconomy.org/

[NewsGuy]

Originally posted by sharonbn
no connection. I only found out about these guys yesterday.

I've seen the publication a few months ago, and I was asking out of curiosity:

They publish a fair amount of content and update the site often, which led me at the time to wonder that there was no apparent revenue model for the site.

In fact, they went "on air" right around the time of the downfall and consolidation of some Israeli portals like IOL into Walla, Tapuz scaling down, NetKing closing, Hadashot.com closing, Ynet announcing layoffs, Virtual Jerusalem on the brink of collapse (and then the buyout), and Nana scaling down.

So, when seeing IsraelInsider launch, it grabbed my attention.

[Vic]

Originally posted by NewsGuy

I've seen the publication a few months ago, and I was asking out of curiosity:

They publish a fair amount of content and update the site often, which led me at the time to wonder that there was no apparent revenue model for the site.

In fact, they went "on air" right around the time of the downfall and consolidation of some Israeli portals like IOL into Walla, Tapuz scaling down, NetKing closing, Hadashot.com closing, Ynet announcing layoffs, Virtual Jerusalem on the brink of collapse (and then the buyout), and Nana scaling down.

So, when seeing IsraelInsider launch, it grabbed my attention.

It is very simple from a technical point of view: no databases, forums etc., even the search engine could be better, so it probably doesn't cost much to maintain. An internet company can easily host a project of this size on one of its own servers for free. Once the site is designed and running all they have to do is to copy and paste the texts in precoded templates, a process not much more complicated than posting in this forum, provided the technical backbone functions, and put the results online. Or this is the way I'd do it. This would take a couple of hours a day - most of it a secretary's job.

The only remaining question is whether they pay royalties for original texts (and occasional translations?) writen by non-employees.

The trouble with most of such "portals" was that they tended to spend tons of money on "management consulting", "business plans", "tactical" and "strategic" "concepts" etc. I've worked with such projects myself and I think most of them would have been just as good at the tenth of the costs, or maybe even better.

[NewsGuy]

Yes, I agree that the technical infrastructure is fairly inexpensive as a business proposition.

But the cost is not only in compensating writers, but in the amount of time that reviewing, editing and posting a lot of content takes, as well as making multiple updates to the site per day.

To justify someone's time and effort for a daily news site like that, I would imagine that there would have to be, at some point, a revenue model, like site sponsorship or banner advertising. I see neither in IsraelInsider.

Maybe the whole site is designed simply to promote Koret Communications and drive traffic to their site. But it seems like a costly way to drive traffic.

I dunno... just speculating.

Anyway, more power to them. If they are publishing accurate facts about Israel, then they are doing a good thing, IMO.

[cerulean]

From
http://www.koret.com/feature_israel.htm

=========
Following its success in building and selling to AOL Time Warner Africana.com, a super-site for "the black world," Koret Communications launched israelinsider in February 2001 to represent and distribute up-to-date and in-depth news, views, and multimedia content about Israel. israelinsider is committed to communicating balanced and accurate information about Israel, relating to her conflicts, and celebrating the successes, innovations and contributions of her people.

israelinsider aims to avoid ideological pigeonholing and seeks to represent a broad spectrum of opinions about Israel, strictly separating news from views.

israelinsider is distinguished by its use of flash-based special popup modules - including maps, charts and timelines - to visually communicate quantitative, chronological and geographical data in a compelling and intuitive manner.

Major portals and aggregators have identified israelinsider as a reliable news source, selecting and prominently placing its articles. Yahoo has short-listed israelinsider as one of its top three Israeli news sources. The number of site visitors has more than doubled each month since the site launched.

Partners in the israelinsider network include AIPAC, the Jewish Agency, and Israel21c, the latter a non-profit organization for Israel led by NASDAQ senior executives.
=======

A nice site, at any rate.

[Vic]

The more interesting question is why there are so few really well-made Israel-related projects on the web, as well as sites on Jewish issues in general. Just look at the way the Palestinians, with occassional Israeli cooperation, use the internet - and weep with envy:

http://www.palestinechronicle.com
http://www.ramallahonline.com
http://www.electronicintifada.net
http://www.amin.org (this one supported by Soros: http://www.soros.org/internet/regio...ent_arabic.html)
http://www.mediamonitors.net
http://jerusalem.indymedia.org (yes, there is a leftist Israeli counterpart, http://www.indymedia.org.il , but it publishes few original reports, which makes it less attractive)
http://www.alternativenews.org
http://www.jmcc.org

To be continued virtually ad infinitum.

Can anyone here give me the reason for it?

[Mediocrates]

Originally posted by Vic
The more interesting question is why there are so few really well-made Israel-related projects on the web, as well as sites on Jewish issues in general. Just look at the way the Palestinians, with occassional Israeli cooperation, use the internet - and weep with envy:

http://www.palestinechronicle.com
http://www.ramallahonline.com
http://www.electronicintifada.net
http://www.amin.org (this one supported by Soros, if I remember correctly)
http://www.mediamonitors.net
http://jerusalem.indymedia.org (yes, there is a leftist Israeli counterpart, http://www.indymedia.org.il , but it publishes few original reports, which makes it less attractive)
http://www.alternativenews.org
http://www.jmcc.org

To be continued virtually ad infinitum.

Can anyone here give me the reason for it?

"We only agree with one another when there is no other choice" - Shimon Peres.

Because we spend to much time entertaining other peoples opinions and defending our own in lieu of getting out the same simple simplistic message. To the PLO and all of its minions the message is clear

occupation
occupation
occupation

Everything is thrown on that alter.

But, we, in our infinite wisdom dare to convince, seduce, cajole, argue, debate. Which of course is an utter ****ing waste of time. So here's what you do. Pick one key linchpin of an issue and hammer it ceaselessly. It's about murder plain and simple (or someone far more elegant than I can articulate something better). You are right they are wrong. Anyone who doesn't see that is the enemy of your issue. Anyone, here included, the takeos of the world (and there are others here certainly) are the enemies of your message. It might be an interesting intellectual exercise to endlessly debate with someone who's belief will NEVER change. That's great. So? Stay on point and hammer it home rellentlessly, ruthlessly. Anything that is not with your is against your issue. Put up a plan, a proposal an idea a goal, something and hit it over and over and over. None of the PLO/Peace sites ever debate their own views or the efficacy of those views. There's no value add to the cause in that.


Can I Get A Witness ??? (We will recognize them by the snakes they dance with)

[Vic]

Originally posted by sharonbn
What is particularily interesting about this site is the list of columnists, which seems to span the entire prizm of the Israeli political map:

Uri Avnery - from the extreme left of the Israeli political map.
Moshe Feiglin - leader of "This is our country", an Israeli extreme right political group.
David Grossman - Israeli writer. belongs to the left-wing.
Nadia Matar - leader of "Women in green", an Israeli extreme right political group.
US Senator James Inhofe.

There isn't much of a "middle", is there?

[NewsGuy]

Originally posted by Vic
http://jerusalem.indymedia.org (yes, there is a leftist Israeli counterpart, http://www.indymedia.org.il , but it publishes few original reports, which makes it less attractive)

But at least that site compliments us (which excuses some of their other Leftist points of view :

http://www.indymedia.org.il/imc/isra...ast/27513.html

[Vic]

Originally posted by cerulean
Partners in the israelinsider network include AIPAC, the Jewish Agency, and Israel21c, the latter a non-profit organization for Israel led by NASDAQ senior executives.

With such support I wonder why they don't do more, such as original reporting, translations from the Hebrew press etc. It seems almost excessive for the site as it is now.

Originally posted by Mediocrates
But, we, in our infinite wisdom dare to convince, seduce, cajole, argue, debate.[...] So here's what you do. Pick one key linchpin of an issue and hammer it ceaselessly.

I don't know much about the inner workings of the organizations mentioned above, but is it possible that they cannot decide on a clear message?

[cerulean]

Originally posted by Vic

With such support I wonder why they don't do more, such as original reporting, translations from the Hebrew press etc. It seems almost excessive for the site as it is now.

IsraelInsider is now seeking donations. A banner ad on the site leads to this page:

http://web.israelinsider.com/bin/en....up_changes.jsp

I'm not sure what this implies for their business model.