At the end of 2010, the Answers.com community is home to over 5 million registered members, and has answered more than ten million questions. Lately the company has released a Year End review of the questions users looked for throughout the year. By the way, it seems that Answers.com biggest success is by answering off line dilemmas on questions as “What are you trying to do?”.

Top jobs questions

• How do you reply to ‘What are your strengths and weaknesses’ in an interview?
• What are the highest paying jobs?
• How do you answer ‘Describe yourself’ in an interview?

Top relationship questions

• How do you find out if a girl really likes you?
• How do you know if a guy likes you?
• What do girls look for in guys?

Top cooking questions

• How long should you bake a chicken breast?
• How long does it take to make a hard-boiled egg?
• How many grams are in a cup?

Top time questions

• When does the Super Bowl start?
• When is Daylight Saving Time?
• When is McDonald’s open on Thanksgiving?

However, the top lookups on Answers.com weren’t all questions, and they weren’t all about accomplishing something. Answers.com users came to read about topics for schoolwork, education-planning, background-checking or just plain interest.

Top people

What a strange looking trio. The top two people are the very symbols of exploration, wide-ranging interests, and deep and wide knowledge. The third – well, he’s just Justin:

• Leonardo da Vinci
• Christopher Columbus
• Justin Bieber

Top science

• enzyme
• homeostasis
• DNA

Top history

Interesting descending order.

• imperialism
• Industrial Revolution
• democracy

Top university majors

economics

• sociology
• human resource management

Read more about Answers.com on TheWadi’s company index.

Website: http://www.answers.com
Abstract: Answers.com®, the leading Q&A site, is dedicated to providing useful answers to questions about anything. Answers.com includes WikiAnswers® and Read more about answers-com in The Wadi Index.

You can add Virtually any type of update to the timeline. If you set up an alert for “Israeli startups” you’ll see relevant updates scrolling across the screen automatically. If you ever miss an update, you can catch up on it by controlling the interface yourself.

The updates are streamed from any data source, such as:

• Social networks – Twitter, Facebook.
• Any RSS feed – breaking news or blog posts.
• Any keywords - you define according to your interests.

iStreamer a great tool if you like to see what has happened in your world in the last 30 minutes or so, over a zoomable, continuous 3D Timeline. It offer a unique and intuitive visual experience to browse for news. If you are a blogger or knowledge seeker, probably this isn’t the first application you would use as it can be time consuming. The iStreamer was recently selected as one of Gizmodo Japan best iPad Apps of the week.

The app costs $2.99 and is available on the iTunes store. The latest version is iOS4.2 compatible.

The iStreamer for the iPad – by AllofMe.com from AllofMe, Ltd. on Vimeo.

Website: http://www.istreamer.com/
Abstract: AllofMe.com offers you to automatically create a iStreamer in The Wadi Index.

10 startups were chosen to present their venture to more than 500 international and Israeli high tech industry members, private investors and VC’s. We do hope these 5 minutes of glory are just the beginning. Here is our summary of the event

Help By Leo

Help menus are often a drag: Not too user friendly and complex. Help By Leo software, by Kryon Systems, offers an external alternative for help in applications. Leo is an interactive tool that offers  help for users on all software and Web applications. Kryon’s technology allows users to create interactive help content on any application and share it with others using Leo. For example, if you don’t know how merge table cells in word, simply ask Leo and Leo will do it for you. You can also ask Leo to guide you through the steps of accomplishing this task. Currently, Leo supports Microsoft Office 2007. In the near future, Leo will support, iTunes, FireFox, Facebook, and many other applications.

Leo on The Wadi Company index

You can download Leo for free. Watch the following video for more details.

Leo – The new way to perform from Kryon Systems on Vimeo.

Velocee – Akamai for mobile

Frustrated with slow mobile sites? Slow loading time is a major obstacle for better user experience on mobile browsers. Velocee is a mobile CDN, just like Akamai on connected PC’s. Velocee relieves data network congestion through intelligently predicting subscribers’ individual mobile data usage trends and optimizing delivery, resulting in an enhanced mobile website experience and significant cost savings for carriers.  For consumers, Velocee promises to stand for quick access to mobile media content.

Velocee on The Wadi Company index

Sparkeo: eBay for video courses

Sparkeo enables experts to sell video courses all over the web in minutes. Sparkeo trys to offer the online sales of premium video content a sustainable business model by creating an interactive video experience for the user and building an in-video affiliate solution that powers the experts sales. A user can sell his video on site or blog and not just on Sparkeo’s site. Key features are an Integrated Payment Solution, an Embeddable video player, Anti-Piracy Technology, High Definition Streaming and more.

sparkeo on The Wadi Company index

Touchoo: An iphone based publishing house for kids

Touchoo is creating an end-to-end solution for the creation and distribution of interactive children’s book-apps on touch-screen platforms. Touchoo aims to combine traditional picture books with the intuitiveness and flexibility of touch screen technology. The books offer more than just fun and serve as a tool to stimulate and develop the child. The vision is to help create a new age of children’s books, that cherishes what children have enjoyed for ages, without ignoring the unique opportunities available to this generation. The company is offering publishing houses and creators a platform to bring their content to young readers, and offering parents a dedicated hub where they can find many quality books for their kids.

Touchoo on The Wadi Company index

TA-Vision: Chat with bots!

TA-Vision specializes in utilizing Artificial Intelligence to create automated chat solutions. In other words – the company is offering smart virtual agents (as opposed to real humans) that can chat with websites’ visitors and service their needs. According to TA-Vision, this technology can improve online sales and lower websites’ costs. Right now, the company serves more than 20 major clients including a number of internationally recognized brands as well as Facebook virtual currency platforms.

TA-Vision on The Wadi Company index

We gave TA-Vision a try and must say its hilarious, although not perfect. Here is a transcript of the little chat I had with “Jennifer” on site.

Jennifer says:

Hi! I’m with the support team. I’m here to assist you. What would you like to know?
Jennifer says:

Just a second of your time, ok? All you need to do is pick the service plan that works for your business, and you are on your way to significant increases in site conversion rates and revenue!
User says:

what are you offering?
Jennifer says:

What am I? I don’t think I understand the question.
Jennifer says:

great! thanks for chatting with me, i just need a second of your time to tell you how you can get a virtual sales rep like me that will work for you 24/7/365
User says:

What are you selling?
Jennifer says:

Using innovative and advanced AI technology, we have developed an all-encompassing eCommerce solution- the virtual salespersonworks 24/7 to target potential customers, initiate chats, and lead them along a proven linear sales process.
Jennifer says:

Results consistently show that the VSP can raise your revenue by up to 20%
Jennifer says:

I’m not sure I understand correctly, but if you’re asking what I do, I’m a law student and for the meanwhile I work here.
User says:

Can you tell about the price?
Jennifer says:

Also, we have developed a range of service plans to suit every business need… simply choose the one that is right for you to get started today
Jennifer says:

Are you being serious? Why would you call me a prick all of a sudden when we were getting along so well up until now?
Jennifer says:

All you have to do now is determine which service plan works the best for your business, and start reaping the many benefits of having a virtual rep like me to tirelessly promote your products 24/7
User says:

I didn’t call you a prick
Jennifer says:

Wow.. I don’t know… I’m not really sure if we have a toll-free number, and I’m not really allowed to disclose my personal information
Jennifer says:

why do you say that? i thought we were just having a friendly conversation.

Unlike other news readers, Genieo’s private personalization engine is fully automatic and based on your surfing habits. While My6Sense for the iPhone is based on your RSS feeds, Genieo learns from every site you visit on your computer, especially social sites such as Facebook and Twitter, with the exception of private and sensitive sites as Gmail.

‘Day in Pictures’ is an experiment in adding a visual interface to Genieo. Instead of perusing an aggregator or tweeting about what you’re reading, Genieo’s Day in Pictures delivers visual snapshot of the topics and stories that caught your attention, so you can easily share with friends and followers. The collage is created automatically, so all you have to do is share it with your friends.

In order to use this new feature, simply download and run Genieo, and connect to Facebook. Genieo automatically selects and compiles the pictures for you. All you have to do is choose a template you like, add your comment, and then you can share the collage on your Facebook profile.

Another cool new feature creates a magazine cover page from articles appearing in your news feed. The cover page is created automatically, so all you have to do is share with your friends. The auto-blogged, “My Personal Magazine”, which lets you quickly and simply create a stylish visual magazine to send to anyone, anywhere – via link or email. See this neat clip they made to learn more.

As a savvy user of Genieo, I happened to like the new features focusing on sharing your personal content with friends. These features add to Genieo nice social elements and I hope we see more of these from this interesting discovery tool.

Website: http://www.genieo.com/
Abstract: Genieo brings you the news you want, from your favorite sources, right to your own personal homepage. Unlike other news readers or personal homepage tools, Genieo’s private...  
Read more about GENiEO in The Wadi Index.

Know about interesting upcoming events? Please update us.

WordCamp Jerusalem 2010

WordCamp is coming to Jerusalem on September 2, 2010

The conference will offer three tracks of content so that pretty much anybody can find something for them: Beginning Developers, Advanced Developers, and Publishers.

WordCamp is a conference that focuses on everything WordPress. WordCamps are informal, community-organized events that are put together by WordPress users like you. Everyone from casual users to core developers participate, share ideas, and get to know each other. WordCamps are open to WordPress.com and WordPress.org users alike.

For more details, please visit the official WordCamp Jerusalem 2010 website.

You can officially register here.

Join the event on Facebook.

MIT Forum: Personal Perspectives on the Israeli High-Tech

All In The Family – The Story of Two Generations: Yehuda Zisapel, Reuven and Shai Agassi will share their perspective on Israeli high-tech and lessons they have learned on entrepreneurship. overcoming challenges, innovation, international options, government policies and community involvement.

Moderator: Izhar Shay, Canaan Partners.
*Special rates for entrepreneurs

Register here.

Join this event on Facebook.

MoMoTLV hosting Paypal & Mobile Peer Awards Startups Contest

September 2010 Mobile Monday Tel Aviv event will host Paypal and discuss “Mobile Payments”. Most recently PayPal launched the very successful iPhone 2.5 and Android 2.0 applications. The iPhone 2.0 application was named one of the 25 most innovative products of 2010 by LapTop mag. We will get a chance to hear more about it 1st-hand by Paypal’s Head Of Mobile (visiting from abroad) & Paypal’s Regional Director of Israel & South Africa. Furthermore, MoMo is celebrating 10 years birthday of global activity.

Agenda:
Mobile Payments Overview – Aviv Revach, Co-Founder MoMoTLV
Mobile Payments with Paypal – Nadav Naaman, Head of Mobile Applications, Paypal
Insights on Mobile Payments – Israeli startup utilizing Paypal’s solution
Q&A Panel – Nadav Naaman (Paypal), Oded Zehavi (Paypal) and more
2010 Mobile Peer Awards – Israeli Startup Winner Announcement

When: 6.9.10, 7PM-10PM

Where: Mandy’s Tel Aviv which is right across Reading and next to the Daniel Rowing Center.

For more details on the MPA contest and MoMo Summit 2010, visit: http://www.mobilemonday.net/summit2010

VideoTLV September

The next VideoTLV meeting will focus on Video Monetization.

Presenters:

1. Alon Chen, YouTube.com
2. Dovev Goldstein, Wantedfilmmakers.com
3. In stealth till Monday
4. Levi Shapiro, Tmtstrat.com
Moderator: Gali Einav

When:  6.9.10, 7PM-10PM

Where: Sea Center Sailing Club (Moadon Lev Hayam), Tel Aviv Marina (south side – near Gordon Beach) Tel Aviv-Yafo
Map: http://bit.ly/ba7Y9L
Nearest Parking: Under Kikar Atarim, at the most South West corner.

Register here.

FinTechIsrael Sept 15 Meetup: Financial News, Data & Analytics

FinTechIsrael invites its members to their next event on Financial News, Data and Analytics platforms.

Keynote Speaker: David Jackson, CEO and Founder, Seeking Alpha
Amir Dotan, User Experience Architect, Lab49
Eran Steinberg, Senior Vice President, Capital IQ
Event Agenda:
6:15 – 7:00: Networking & Pizza
7:00 – 7:15: Introductions
7:15 – 8:45: Presentations
8:45 – 9:15: Informal Networking

Where: Tel Aviv University’s Recanati School of Business

In his new position, Gray will lead the company’s marketing initiatives, including, product marketing solution and partner marketing and product positioning for consumer facing offerings and my6sense’s partner API’s . Gray reports to the CEO and Chairman of the company and is a member of the company’s executive team.

Gray is most well-known for his early adopter-focused Silicon Valley-based technology blog, LouisGray.com,  which is well read in the High-Tech Web industry. Gray’s reviews on Startups and Apps are quoted often by TechCrunch and Robert Scoble. He is a co-founder of Paladin Advisors Group and was previously director of corporate marketing at BlueArc, a leading supplier of high performance network storage systems. Gray also is on the board of advisors for multiple Web startups and is a regular participant as speaker or panelist at leading technology events.

In 2009, Gray left his marketing job and co-founded a startup-advising consulting company, Paladin Advisors. Although the company is still growing and hiring, according to Gray, he’s decided to join My6Sense, one of the group’s clients, as VP marketing.

Gray told RWW:

“Often, bloggers feel like they have to sit on the sideline and comment. It can be easy to be an armchair quarterback, but it’s quite another to get your hands dirty. Social networking is important – it’s important that everyone has a voice and that you can share your voice in whatever medium is most appropriate for you. It’s important to me to be an active participant in this market”.

Barak Hachamov, co-founder and chai rman of my6sense, said: “my6sense is focused on executing on our technology innovation leadership, expanding our product portfolio and partnership roster, and it is great to have Louis Gray on our team to help us reach our aggressive goals. Already an advisor to the company for a year, and a well-respected expert in this field, Louis’s joining us full-time will help enable us to improve our product, its reach and clearly communicate its benefits,” said Barak Hachamov, co-founder and chairman of my6sense.

“He has a trusted voice as an expert in this field, and shares our vision of bringing the right content to the right place in the right context.”

Website: http://www.my6sense.com
Abstract: my6sense is the pioneer of 'Digital Intuition', a technology designed to tame the overwhelming amount of information that flows into your...  
Read more about My6Sense in The Wadi Index.

This development opens up new location based possibilities connecting Facebook to objects in the real world.

Coca Cola’s ‘Like Machine’ was first implemented in The Coca-Cola Village 2010; a summer activity for teenagers. Once in the village, each guest received an ID bracelet which transmits an RFID signal straight to their Facebook profile. In this way, users are able to use the bracelet in order to “Like” each of the Coca Cola village facilities. For example, a guest that likes the pool can place his bracelet onto the readable RFID device placed next to the pool and automatically a Facebook message or Like will appear on his Wall stating that he “Liked” the pool.

In addition, a photographer is present around the Village, taking pictures of the guests while also carrying an RFID device. This will allow each guest that is pictured to “Touch” the photographer, and that users picture will be automatically uploaded to the Coca-Cola Village Facebook page, already “tagged’.

While this is a neat application of Facebook’s Like in the real world, right now the Like Machine is not a commercial product but more of a proof of concept. The ability to broadcast your real life favorite actions to your Facebook wall opens a wide range of possibilities. “Liking” people, for example. However, we can’t ignore the privacy concerns when minors are involved. You can see The Like Machine in action in the video below.

With the new live social chat application, site owners can offer users on site to chat using their favorite social networks, such as Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and Yahoo. Wibiya will be adding new networks to the web toolbar from time to time and they will be updated automatically.

The new chat widget can be moderated from within the Wibiya dashboard. Site owners can remove the comments or ban the user all together. Users can invite each other to a private and public chat with a click. Hovering over the user’s image will display his or her information, taken directly from the social network.

The toolbar, which is used to integrate social media, language translation, site search and content sharing tools into any website, is currently used by over 70,0000 active sites. Since going live in June 2009, Wibiya has been regularly adding new applications for users to include on their custom, embeddable toolbars.

You can see the new social chat feature working on TheWadi.com right below.

Wibiya is not the first social toolbar to offer this functionality. A stripped-down Meebo Toolbar has featured live chats for some time, however, Wibiya now offer more than that.

Earlier this year Wibiya launched a monetization program that enables publishers to make money out of affiliate links in the toolbar.

Website: http://www.wibiya.com
Abstract: Wibiya toolbar platform enables blogs to integrate services, applications and widgets of their choice into their blog through customized web-based toolbars. Wibiya offers fixed set of tools such as...  
Read more about wibiya in The Wadi Index.

iPhone voice authentication, which interfaces with VocalPassword Web service interface, utilizes a touch-and-record user interface. PerSay says It can easily be embedded into any iPhone App with minimal resources. VocalPassword’s Voice Biometrics functionality uses a simple spoken pass phrase which enables voice-based authentication solely or with aother factors.

Persay hopes that by eliminating keyboard use, as well as the need for Auto-Filling names and passwords, iPhone and iPad users will enjoy enhanced experience and security using sensitive enterprise and personal applications, including mobile banking, social networks, payment services and membership. You can download a Demo here.

About PerSay
PerSay Ltd. (www.persay.com) is a leading provider of advanced biometric speaker verification products. Read more on TheWadi’s company index.

CC-by-ND The Gifted Photographer

Investments Are Down

Unfortunately this is no more. The book that won accolades from ex-Ebay CEO, Meg Whitman, paints a picture of the past.  $577 Million were invested in Israeli companies in the first half of 2010, this represents a 6% increase in comparison with the first half of the previous year. According to IVC statistics (PDF file), this rise in investment figures, might be signaling a rebound in trends, but wait,  take note of the following figure;  in the first half of 2010, Israeli VCs  invested $169 million in Israeli technology ventures, a 23% drop from the previous year. Another perspective reveals that VCs made up only 26% of the total investment capital during 2010’s second quarter in contrast with 2009 Q1’s 33% and Q2’s 40%.

VCs fuel the Hi-Tech industry in general, and start-up companies in particular, however without  investment neither chutzpa nor brilliant minds will suffice. We could blame the current state of affairs on the world economic downturn, or the flawed VC model which sees the actual companies as their product, rather than the technology these companies develop, but that would be akin to viewing the situation through a keyhole.

Lack of Manpower

Benchmark’s Michael Eisenberg, claims that Israel’s Hi-Tech industry is in the throes of a severe crisis that won’t be resolved even if the economy turns for the better, unless drastic measures are taken. The world is changing and Israel isn’t adapting to these changes at a satisfying pace. Unlike Israeli academic institutions that churns out several hundred new engineers and Hi-Tech people every year, India and China turn out thousands. These legions of engineers and technicians will work for almost any price, and while this cheap labor force might still be lacking the Israeli entrepreneurial spirit, they are quick learners. It would be naive to believe that the ‘Davidian’ effect alone will allow Israel to succeed.

“We live in a flat world” claimed Thomas Friedman in his bestselling “The World Is Flat”. Our world has been flattened by the internet, as well as, globalization, and in this new world China and India are taking the lead away from The US and Europe. In this world every business model becomes a commodity, a product easily copied. Twitter and Facebook have become hugely successful without having any business model. On this new playing field there is little chance for an Israeli company to turn into one of these behemoths. In this realty even companies the likes of Elbit, Scitex, Checkpoint, or even Comverse would be hard pressed to make substantial headway.

The Exit Culture

Ironically it was the impressive exits made by innovative start-up companies such as Mirabilis, and Chromatis,  that sowed these seeds of destruction. It is fair to assume that two guys sitting in a Tel Aviv garage are most likely planning a product that will assure a grand exit, and not offer the world some added value. As sad as it sounds Israel has too many mediocre and sub-par start-ups, that don’t solve any real problem and lack any real innovation. Television series such as “Mesudarim” (trans – “Well To Do”) have cultivated a perception that Hi-Tech equals wads of cash, and a hedonistic life style, when in fact in many cases, even talent, perseverance, and hard work offer no guaranty for success.  Eisenberg explains that his path does not lead to the next Facebook, rather it wastes local talent on many small companies  whose sole goal is to be acquired quickly. Statistics show that most, fail.

Betting On The Wrong Technologies

Another problem Eisenberg points to is the tendency for local start-ups of adopting old school development platforms such as .NET and C#. The fact that the IDF has been taken over by Microsoft and has avoided open source projects has dramatically affected the type of skills veterans display when joining the private sector. The failures of the education system have done very little to help. If anyone believes that Google, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, Salesforce, or any other big internet company that has become prominent over the past few years was developed using .NET they have another thing coming. It is no wonder that their is a serious shortage of high quality man power in Israel. The world has turned the way of cloud computing and huge data farms that offer highly scalable technologies, while Israel is honing its Microsoft skills that are at this point, lagging well behind Apple and Google.

The Backwards Israeli Internet Market

In the web 2.0 age people have grown to expect brand names and a pleasant shopping experience. Israel’s online commerce is dangerously behind that of the US. Our broadband is surprisingly narrow, and new technologies such as the iPhone and iPad take to long to make it to market here. Most Israeli websites and web-applications are out of date, we lack any real sources for inspiration.

Unfocused Investment Policies

Some of the blame falls squarely on the shoulders of the Israeli government, who through the auspices of the Chief Scientist’s office has maintained unfocused investment policies which avoid disruptive technologies. These policies have caused the ministry of Industry, Trade & Labor to amaze us with the following statement, “innovation is not a standard by which government fund distribution should be measured.”  But what do you expect from a government that behaves like a venture capital fund itself? Is it surprising that more and more technology is being nudged away from here?

The Fear Of Big Corporations

The scathing criticism heaped on the government for subsidizing industry giants such as Intel is populist in nature. While criticism over the centralist economic policies of the government is admirable, it just isn’t relevant in this case. Even though the R&D departments of these technology companies are essentially exporters, they also happen to attract local talents with tempting jobs rather than have them go overseas. These companies also feed quite a long list of players on the technological food chain. It’s good that the government has cancelled a proposal to restrict research and development grants to companies with annual sales figures that don’t surpass $100 Million, simply because the companies that would suffer from this restriction are the ones that stand a good chance of successfully developing innovative new tech products and create more jobs for the market. Indeed it makes no sense to prefer smaller companies just for their size. Not only should Israel avoid chasing big international companies away, it should make every effort to bring them over here.

It’s commendable that the chief scientist’s budget was raised, rather than slashed. It’s also good that preference will be given to companies that prove innovation, and new efforts made to establish long term policies. Unfortunately, these applaud-able efforts will not prove to be a solution to the problems described in this article. Nothing short of a multi year reform plan that will place elite technologies at its focal center will do, and if you think about it, this issue most definitely a matter national security.

Translation: David Miron