Internet Society of Israel 10th Annual Event – Notes

The ISOC 10th annual event is winding down right now at the David InterContinental Hotel in Tel Aviv . This was my first time at this event, but I had a smoke outside with this lady from MSN and apparently the turnout was great. It seemed like a good turnout.

2006 Israel Internet Society 10th Annual Event
I thought the show was well organized and a great venue for the industry. I only attended day 1 (yesterday) and met some very interesting people. Definitely got a sense that the Internet buzz in Israel is back. Yes, it is back and it’s a little older and wiser. Hopefully we all are. The term of choice is Web 2.0 and all it means is that the we are looking at a more mature technological/business environment with multi format (text,video,mobile) shared content capabilities and better management tools. The infrastructure has improved, high bandwidth is spreading and the technologies are more readily available. The nice thing about the Internet is that even when you are way ahead of your time, way ahead is only 12 months away.

Anyway, back to the show. It started with an opening session presented by Dr. Amir Etzioni, President of the ISOC, who told us about the 77,317 new Co.IL registrations in Israel in 2005 (there were 65,000 in 2004) and the activities planned for 2006 (nice use of the kids in the presentation BTW). This was followed by a very interesting opening lecture by Professor Haim Harari (Former Weitzman Institute President) titled “Education, Science and Technology – the good and the bad”.

I also met two of the people behind the DIMES Project and they deserved their own post. You can read about their project here.

Dr. Frank Smadja is VP Engineering for Raw Sugar. He gave a good lecture on their new interactive search directory platform and community. Raw Sugar is still in Beta and is an interesting site. It allows the tagging of web pages and delivers a human edited dynamic search directory and community. It’s sort of a cross between Flickr and del.icio.us and you can also integrate their directory into your blog or website. Definitely worth a look.

I enjoyed attending a panel with some of the leading Venture Capital funds in Israel. Participating were Michael Eisenberg from Benchmark Capital, Yaron Folk from Genesis Partners, Avi Zeevi from Carmel Ventures, Shmuel (Shmil) Levi from Sequoia Capital, Rona Segev-Gal from Pitango and the host Dr. Shuki Gleitman, managing partner at Platinum Venture Capital.

Each had a power point presentation and the presentations were good they are all good speakers. I got the feeling that for the most part they were almost apologizing for not making any investments in Internet ventures. Michael Eisenberg’s presentation stood out and was symbolic of the difference, it was a rapid fire presentation that covered the best and worst of the Internet boom, Internet 2.0 and the understanding of the new breed of opportunities now available in this generation of Internet companies.

Although they all discussed the new Internet, Web 2.0, there is still a barrier there and a difficulty in recognizing the new generation of Internet investments. As someone living online I was impressed by the investments made by Benchmark Capital and Sequoia Capital in the new Internet.

CafePress.com is a good example. This is a company that capitalizes on the ease of content publishing in the new Internet. Ideally suited for bloggers and small site owners it allows people to offer merchandise they create, building their online identity and expressing their creativity. It also answers a common question by the blogging community – how do I make money from my blog? CafePress doesn’t offer any technological advancements. There are little, actually, no barriers to entry. And yet they received investment from Sequoia Capital. These are the type of 2.0 investments that need to happen more often in Israel.

What I found was that the mindset is still old Internet. The search for the next new technological development is understandable, but it should not limit the vision and recognition that there is a new playing field. The Internet is about developing unique opportunities and building sustainable (and yes first to market) business. The new generation of Internet business will require quicker, smaller investments and VCs that fail to adjust their thinking will miss out on some great opportunities. I think its time the figures and formulas for success were looked at and some new standards were put in place to measure and evaluate the new generation of Internet companies. It’s time for VC 2.0.

The cost of development is lower true and the open source movement helps to develop at significantly lower costs. Still, to make their break what these new ventures need is smart investment partners that can help develop business connections and strategic relationships and invest in them. As someone told me after the panel, these are not venture capital funds anymore but risk aversion funds. Remember, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Wishing you all a fruitful, interactive, content rich Internet year.

Share and Enjoy: