Cool facts about Israel

Watch this video - A great combination of Israel's best scenery put together with some of Israel's best hi-tech achievements in one slide show. I would call it amazing!

Spotback releases new tutorial

Spotback gives the new comers a three step flash based tutorial. Click the top right "get started" link on the Spotback homepage to see it. They're showing the newbies how to rate a story with their rating slider. How to add/remove categories in order to choose your preferred fields of interests, BOOM - notice how the "More stories" starts to blink in red. Yes, thats the third feature. Click it to see additional stories based on your rating history. Pretty simple stuff but nicely done. Read more about it on the Spotback blog.

Bugile - Social Bug Management

Bugile, the first Bug management social community is currently in closed beta. Another one of Alon Carmel's and the Beta Garden's projects like i4giveu.com, again is based on Wordpress the free blog tool and weblog platform. The service is truely in beta version, on some of the pages you will find errors but I guess these minor bugs will shortly be shared, managed and solved :)
I find this social community to be uniq and that can atract a certain tech niche with a small and devoted userbase. The same guys that report a bug via the standard site link will enjoy reporting and sharing them here.
After creating an account you'll receive a sub domain for your bugile weblog. The bugiler can manage his actions with the help of the bugile dashboard tabs displayed on the screen -Bugboard, New Bug, Bugs, Components, Discussions, Profile, Users, Settings, Public Portal. You can use the "New Bug" tab to submit bugs, determain their status and to manage them. The bugs can be tagged by component, version, OS , feature and also set the bug privacy. In addition you can subscribe to rss feed for any component.

Metacafe improves "My videos" feature

In my previous coverage of Metacafe I wrote about how the "My videos" feature is missing some functionality ability.

"...I think they're missing a sorting and searching ability for viewing your own videos (just think it would be nice to manage my submitted video's...you know so you can sort by item views, rating, comments)..."

They did it and very nicely! The new "My videos" feature has everything from sorting to searching. These improvements come as part of the Producer rewards program improvements. You can monitor your earnings and also the videos that were submitted to the Producer program. They also added a payment log.
The Producer program is made official - there's a registration form to submit videos to the program, no need to send e-mails anymore.

Karel Baloun calls Go2web20 - The web 2.0 landscape

Karel Baloun an early senior enginner at Facebook publishes "Inside Facebook". He reveals the inside of Facebook and in his introduction he calls Go2web20 by Orli Yakuel the web 2.0 landscape. Way to go Orli! Its my favorite web 2.0 directory and she constantly keeps adding more services on a daily basis.

From the Introduction:

"This passion and commitment, and so many other things about Facebook, are unique, even in Silicon Valley, so we decided you should know about them. Facebook has already changed so many lives, so many relationships; it has become an integral part of college life5. Facebook with release and widespread adoption of its developer API will cement its position as a key social networking service in the web 2.0 landscape."

SupportSpace

SupportSpace are looking for professional tech support engineers to join the beta program. The program is currently only open for US support professionals. Looks to me like SupportSpace are going to offer direct tech support from the real professionals hired by tech companies to the home consumers. This could be huge if they're planning on giving the techie's a chance to earn some extra cash by supporting their company's products and also supplying the home consumers with a 24/7 online support platform.
SupportSpace have just raised $4.25M from BRM Capital and Gemini Israel Funds. Two of the VC's write about it here and here.

Metacafe Producer Rewards program

Metacafe, one of the leading video services has been running the Producer reward program for a couple of weeks now and its big. People are submiting video's to the program and are even being qualified by the Metacafe staff that are reviewing the videos.
Metacafe has a great technology that stands out from the other video services, they dont have duplications, they have a great filtering and rating system and I love the simple user interface. I think they're missing a sorting and searching ability for viewing your own videos (just think it would be nice to manage my submitted video's...you know so you can sort by item views, rating, comments).

In order for a video to be enrolled into the program thay must authenticate that you hold the rights for the video so its not like people are going to make money over video ads they're going to need to prove ownership.
If you want to make some cash then video your pets, I'v been tracking the program and pets do the job and No, adult videos aren't approved.

Here's the payment plan -1000 veiws = $5

Here's a guy going crazy at work ...


Going

New! Yedda widgets on right sidebar

I added two of the three cool Yedda widgets to my blog. They both were released on September 15. The first is the FAQ widget which displays hot questions posted on Yedda and the second is the "Got a Question" widget which allows anyone to post a question straight to Yedda from this blog. Any of the questions posted from here will display a link back on Yedda to my blog. So go ask :)

I'v been watching and using Yedda for a while now since they've launched and it's very cool, usually the response time is quick (even on some untrivial questions...), there's a variety of people that are sharing their knowledge at Yedda and that's why I find Yedda to be a very helpful tool on the day to day.
They've been adding a bunch of other cool new features lately and even more important they put a lot into improvements that can be noticed clearly (loading text editor faster - important improvement!!) but most of all I like the attitude towards the feedback , they show consideration to what people say and think about Yedda. I guess thats the reason that keeps making it better.

Joe's Giveaway giving 1 million dollars

This guy Joe has a really nice game running here and very simple too. Inspired by Alex Tew owner of the Million Dollar Home Page Joe came up with a free game that lets everyone take a chance at winning 1 million dollars. His first site Mehalek (Giveaway in Hebrew) succeeded in creating a buzz around Israel so this time he's going world wide.
The whole idea of the game is a counter that's displayed on the home page and that needs to reach 100,000,000 points by accumulating all user clicks. Each user is allocated 5 clicks a day (first click is used when entering the site for the first time each day). The prize goes to the user that makes the counter reach the destination.
Joe says in his blog that he's planning on getting the money for the prize from sponsors and advertisers. He's got the time... :-) because for reaching 100,000,000 points he's going to need some more users to click his machine, at the moment there's 934 points.
I say that if he gets the right publicity and the word spreads it should work. On any case lets all give 4 clicks a day because the real race begins at around 99,999,000 points...
Oh ya, he's added a clan feature that lets you join forces with others and that way increase your chances of winning and of course splitting the prize if you win. Good luck!

Israeli 1090 is a Limbo clone

Israeli based Scepia a leading web development company has launched 1090, a lowest unique bidding auction. The idea is simple; the bidder with the lowest unique price wins the auction. Scepia claims that it's their initiative but actually it's been done before by Limbo (in the US) which was launched earlier this year.
For now 1090 auctions off one or two different tech devices per day like iPods, digital cameras etc.
The user places a bid for a specific item via SMS and is charged 3.5 shekels by his cellular operator. In return the bidder receives a message saying that the bid didn't win and that the winning bid is between x to y, this is where you try and stop yourself from bidding again. I have to admit its very tempting. The idea of course is to keep you bidding as much as possible, well you're actually limited to 100 bids per auction according to the FAQ on the site probably because of online gambling restrictions ...
After my three unsuccessful bids for an iPod I discovered annoyingly that they keep sending me alert messages to my phone notifying me about future auctions that are about to end.
1090 is a local Israeli clone of Limbo, a kind of a gimmick that will drag many believers to spend a lot of money.