Posts Tagged 'facebook'



The list: Israeli companies on twitter

Since Ashton and CNN battled out over who’ll reach 1m followers first, Twitter has been gaining ground in Israel. And although the micro-blogging service is still no match to facebook in terms of # of users, the awareness is definitely growing, globally and locally alike.

According to twittercounter there are about 2324 Israeli twitter users, my guess is a bit higher, closer to 3,500-4,000, as opposed to over 600,000 facebook users – some even say 750,000. Twitter is still relatively un-known in Israel, and we’re waiting for it to make its leap, but already I’m seeing more and more businesses entering this space, opening accounts on twitter. The reason is simple: it’s easy to manage and update, and doesn’t require too much of your time. The question is what value (or ROI) you expect from such activities, and the answers here vary, a lot.

In an effort to make some order in all the cluter, I’ve created a list over at newsgeek, of Israeli companies on twitter: media and communication, government and retail, hi-tech and VCs, leasure and sport, food and beverages and others. The list is dynamic, and 3 hours after the initial posting I had some 15 comments (and 20-30 new followers) of new accounts that needed to be inserted into the list. My goal is to create a place where people can find the company and contact person, that would enable them to start a conversation faster, meeting the demand of the ever-changing-business-world (aka – Innovation). The only 2 rules are:
a) an updated account (less than 20 days since your last twit) and
b) full bio available for contact and details.

Although the entire post is in Hebrew, by hovering over the names you can get the feeling of ‘who’s who’ in the Israeli E2.0 arena. I’m sure the list will continue to grow (by at least 1 more) in the future.

Link:
The List: Israeli Companies on Twitter (Hebrew)

My Nokia E71 Story

Over the past 2 weeks I’ve been experiencing some problems with our new Nokia E71 device. It appears that the snooze option at the alarm clock is ‘unreliable when phone is switched off‘. We learned that the hard way, twice, by not waking up in time in the morning. The only thing I wanted to verify is whether the problem is model-related (all the E71’s in the world) or device-related (mine only). There’s a simple way to sort it out – by giving me a new device.

As a social media evangelist, I’ve decided to put the tools and services I know to the test, as I’ve done in the past. My cellular provider, Cellcom, received low score for not monitoring this space, failing to reply to my updates and twits. After 3 separate visits to the lab, trying to figure out what the problem is, a friend suggested I’ll ring Amos Shapira, Cellcom CEO, who in an effort to imporve customer service opened up a dedicated line for customers with a complaint. Recently they started showing some improvement, as my friend Hillel outlines.

As for me, during my 3rd visit to the lab on Tuesday, I was contacted by one of Cellcom account manager, as my number is a business account. When she heard I’m at the lab, she rang the lab manager, and 20min later I had a new Nokia E71 (that I’ve asked for from the beginning) in my hand. The next day a Cellcom rep called me back, following the voicemail I left at Amos’s phone, asking if the problem was solved with the new E71 and if there’s another device I might consider.

So, although it took 3 trips to the lab and numerous calls to the customer service, I finally got my request. I hoped Cellcom would have reached me earlier, as I was pretty annoyed during my previous visits to the lab, and my updates proved it, but hey, you can’t have it all.

BTW – the problem still happens. If you set the alarm clock and shut off your phone for several hours (like at night), the snooze won’t work. Changing sim cards hasn’t solved it, but I will try setting the alarm without any sim card (same as the lab technician did in my 2nd visit – and obviously the snooze worked fine) and let you know the result.

And here’s the proof for Nokia developers: set the clock for 07:30 and shut the phone off. Come 07:30 the alarm rang, I hit ‘snooze’ and the phone should have ranged again at 07:35. It didn’t. When I turned the phone on (manually, not the alarm) you can see the time is 08:04, but the phone thinks it’s 07:35, which means ‘snooze time’. A work around is leaving the phone on but putting it at ‘flight mode’, which shuts down all connections (cell/wifi/gps). If you hear of a possible solution, give me a heads up.

Twitter got me Alfa Romeo’s MiTo

This is a simple story of a car enthusiast (me) who just happens to be a social media evangelist and (some say) a prominent twitter user.

Some 10 days ago while walking Ramat Aviv Mall I saw the beautiful Alfa Romeo MiTo. The car, which was announced mid 2008, is a real principessa, and one can see the resemblance to her ‘parents’, the 8C Competizione.

Being true to my belief that social media is just as powerful as traditional media, I posted a twit (facebook too) saying I’m willing to do a lot for a test drive in the new MiTo. Quite frankly, I didn’t expect an answer, yet alone a test drive, but the good people over at Alfa Romeo Israel, led by Nir Ben-Shlomo, Alfa Romeo Brand Manager, proved me wrong. I picked up my MiTo this Tuesday afternoon for a 16 hour drive (!), the first ever test drive to be performed by an independent blogger.

Over the past months I’ve read several posts and articles dissing social media and its impact on consumers and businesses. This example here illustrates the power of this medium, and we’re only at a fraction of its full potential.

My full review of this magnificent machine will be posted here soon, as well as on newsgeek, my other blog, but I thought you guys deserve some sneak-pics – just for being my readers.. 😉
Oh, one last thing, for the local auto dealers: I’m available for future test drives – drop me a line here dvirreznik at gmail dot com or via twitter and we’ll work out the details.

My (other) day blog – in Ivrit

Over the past month or so I’ve been getting awesome support and feedback from the community, looking for my next challenge in the business world – thank you friends!

As of today I’m still un-employed, but with couple of strong leads. Being home allowed me to take some time and figure out what I want to do next, and it also gave me more time to stay connected, blogging, twitting and sharing with people who’s opinion I value. One of the things I set to do is increase my visibility and creditability in Israel, post-IBM days, and as I learned at IBM, Hebrew can go a long way… 😉

As of yesterday I joined the writers team of Newsgeek.co.ilYaniv Feldman and Niv Calderon, and my first post was aired today: ‘The mission: staying updated‘. As a blogger for newsgeek I’ll be covering social media, software, gadgets and cellular – and any other topic that has value to our readers (and I have something smart to say about). Juggling 2 blogs at the same time is a new task for me, and some of my posts at newsgeek.co.il might originate from here, but with a local twist of course. I’m not in the business of duplicating/translating content.
Do hope you’ll find my articles interesting – share, rss and comment as you see fit.

RSS is (still) alive

After a busy week I sat down catching up with my RSS feeds, when these posts popped up, both talking about the ‘death of RSS‘ and the ‘re-birth of twitter as the new RSS‘. While I agree to some extent with both Orli Yakuel and Steve Gillmor that twitter definitely changed the way we consume and search for content, I disagree with their bottom-lines.
RSS is still in the game, and its ‘TOD‘ announcement was premature.

Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed – whatever they grew from, they morphed into a realtime CMS for the emerging media. Twitter, not RSS, became the early warning system for new content. (Steve Gillmor)

And Orli:

Bottom line, you can’t have a live conversation from within your RSS reader. Today, with Twitter, you see links posted by your friends and can immediately create a discussion around it. The web was never as accessible as it is today. (Orli Yakeul)

Twitter has definitely changed the way we communicate with each other, much like cellphones or SMS did several years ago. A simple service, that is considered less-formal (but used for business daily), with a cool GUI and multiple integration points – has hooked us all, and got us thinking in 140 chars sentences.

RSS is still alive because:

  • Not missing the action. Since leaving IBM, we have only 1 laptop at home (will change soon), my fiancee’s – I use it when she doesn’t. One of the things that bug me about twitter, is information overload. True, I choose who to follow, I create groups and searches in tweetdeck, but still, how many of you scroll down the column to see ‘the past’? I’m guessing very few. Twitter is about now, right now. If you missed it, it’s old news, not interesting.
  • Various integration points. Same with twitter, RSS is accessible from a variety of applications: messaging (even IM), browsers, dedicated software, mobile and more.
  • RSS will die when blogs will. RSS was born for blogs and news sites, and makes it easier to track stories and articles, in a slight delay. I first came to know Orli, Kfir, Lior, Ahuvah, Gal and the gang from their blog – which were (and still are) written elegantly, clear and to the point, with their own professional angle on things. The 3 tabs I always have open in FF are GReader, Facebook and Gmail.

Twitter will kill RSS in the future because:

  • Micro-blogging will eventually rule. Don’t know if at 140 chars or more, but I definitely see a change in the read/write culture – people are talking in updates, even children. Try having a conversation with a teenager (<18)>
  • Topics and not sites. If I had to choose one important change twitter introduced – it’s the fact we’re starting to track topics and not sites (like RSS). Obviously you can create a RSS for twitter search, but there’s nothing like the source. The hashtags (#) have made it easier for us to start a topic (tlvmarathon) and track a story (swineflu).
  • Conversation. This is the heart of web 2.0, in any slide and presentation ever written about this term. We are no longer consuming content, we are conversing about content. And while GReader lets you ‘share on facebook’, ‘add to del.icio.us‘ and others, it does not compare to the instant discussion twitter enables us to do.

That’s my opinion. You’re welcome to comment with yours.

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Mobile & Media Consultant. I help startup companies launch products to the consumer market. Reach out: dvir.reznik [at] gmail.com
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This is my personal blog. The postings here do not represent the thoughts, intentions, plans or strategies of my past employers or of my clients. It is solely my opinion.