October 26, 2007 5:47 AM
Facebook and Israel
No, there haven't been any deals or ideas yet about Facebook opening an office or investing in Israel. But my experience at the WordCamp Israel blog conference yesterday and the announcement of Microsoft's 1.6% buy-in into the social network, makes this a perfect opportunity to discuss how Facebook is still impacting the technology industry in Israel.
First, at one point during a panel discussion at the WordCamp Israel conference in Tel Aviv yesterday, a panelist asked the audience how many people are on Facebook. Nearly everyone in the room raised their hand. Then as a joke, since nearly a quarter of attendees were using laptops at the conference, the panelist asked how many of them were on Facebook even at that moment. At least 10 people raised their hands. Out of about 200 conference-goers, at least 5% couldn't be away from it during the length of the conference. Basically, since Facebook opened the network to everyone, it seems that Israelis have been very quick to adopt it (there are over 100,000 members in the Israel network) and come to rely on it.
Second, not surprisingly, this compulsive reliance on Facebook, has lead to it becoming a staple networking tool for Israel's high-tech and marketing professionals. Different groups such as Professional Women Meet, Digital Eve Israel and Entrepreneur Breakfast have started using the site to let group members know when upcoming events are while general groups on technology in Israel (the co.il.s) and international groups (such as Enterprise Web 2.0, Web Strategy Group and Marketing 2.0) are providing additional ways of finding out popular trends in marketing and technology in Israel and throughout the world and to network with members of those groups.
With Israelis affinity to Facebook and Israel being a hub for creative Web 2.0 ideas, maybe Microsoft's R&D center in Israel will get to play a role in the collaboration between the two companies.
Leave a comment