Dinner in Tel Aviv with Techcrunch

Here’s a group picture from the Techcrunch dinner in Tel Aviv. From the right, Michel Arrington (look he’s got Maxthon on a U3 key around the neck!). I’m the happy guy between Michael and Ouriel.

Related posts: China: Strength in Advertising Suggests A Stable Year Ahead, Yide Partners With Maxthon To Launch Browser, Ice Age 2 Viral Campaign, Why I Love Podcasts, The Art of Creating A Community, Digging Maxthon, IE7, Firefox and Opera, Me in New Media Age, Maxthon Users Put Yourself On The Map, Call For Action! Create Your Own Maxthon Video!, Maxthon Make The Illuminati Seem Like Exhibitionists, Today I Become the Offical Anyfilms Blogger For Samsung Mobile, TooDou – Video & Podcast Sharing From China, Douban – A Chinese Book, Music and Movie Recommendation Thing, Celebrating One Year As A Blogger, Cartoons, Dane’s & Word of Mouth

Guy Kawasaki from “Let the good times roll”, by provides us with some valuable advice about the art of creating a community. Having been involved in quite a few “community building companies”, I think that Maxthon by far exceeds them all. The thriving, ever growing and passionate Maxthon community is build by users and with users around one common interest, namely creating the best possible browsing experience out there. Just to get a feel of the Maxthon community read Ron White’s article in Network Computing to get a feel..

Maxthon has several sites initiated and build by community members themselves from plug-in-sites, skins-sites, help-sites, to blogs sites and Wikis‘ and much more. The art of creating a community is, to constantly nurture it, let is develop by itself as an ever changing organic being. However, just as every beautiful garden needs the caring touch of a gardener – so a community needs the caring hand of its community builder.

Like Guy rightfully points out – it is very important to stimulate the discourse and not try to play down critical voices from within the community on stuff you’re doing. There will always be people who don’t approve of what your are doing etc, but ignoring critical voices from you community, is like not listening to one of your family members. Hey, they are part of the family, and many times the reason for why your company reached where it reached – you listen to your family don’t you?

Related posts: Digging Maxthon, IE7, Firefox and Opera, Me in New Media Age, Maxthon Users Put Yourself On The Map, Today I Become the Offical Anyfilms Blogger For Samsung Mobile, TooDou – Video & Podcast Sharing From China, Douban – A Chinese Book, Music and Movie Recommendation Thing, How To Fold A T-Shirt, Celebrating One Year As A Blogger, Cartoons, Dane’s & Word of Mouth

Technorati Tags: Guy Kawasaki, Community, Maxthon, Let the good times roll

It seems like Scoble have nothing better to do over at Microsoft today than inventing a new word (brrreeeport), then tag it and see what happens. BTW, the brrreeeport sounds extremely familiar to a certain bodily sound that Adam Curry happens to let loose in the Daily Source Code on a regular basis like a 30 second spot…sponsored by (oh you know by whoom..). The worst thing is that even I find myself writing a post on it..Is this the sad true state of the blogosphere today, or is it just what makes people tick’?

Looking at the more serious side of it (if there is any..) when I was running a blog campaign for Samsung Mobile’s Anyfilms.net some time ago, I noticed that Google Blog Search by far out numbered Technorati and the others in tracking the posts. Technorati turned out to be really disappointing as a reliable tracking tool (which was a pity since I really like their service). The big surprise however, was MSN Search tracking far more blogs with the tag “anyfilms” than the others (after Google of course).

Technorati Tags: Brrreeeport, Technorati, Google, MSN Search, Scoble, Microsoft, Tags, Search, Tracking, Blogs, Blogging, Adam Curry, Daily Source Code, Samsung Mobile, Samsung, Mobile, Anyfilms, Video, Film, Movies

I have now passed my first year as a blogger and it has been an amazing year. This blog was born out of many requests that I got from working with various media agencies and start-ups on questions like: do you have any research on viral marketing? do you know of any company providing …? what media strategy do you suggest that we use on…? have your heard of..? We are looking to hire a talented person that..? What do you think of this business plan? Can you help us find investment for this new start-up? and many more. Instead of emailing ideas etc whenever it came up, I thought I just start a blog to share some of my experiences and know-how with my circle of contacts. However, I never dreamt of that it would turn into a business..

Here are some of the major take aways from my first year as a blogger.

1. Build a fantastic business network & made new friends
2. Helped companies in generating new business
3. Launched Samsung Mobiles “Anyfilms.Net” blog campaign through my cooperation with Hyper Happen.
4. Helped some talented people getting new jobs
5. Adviced media agencies on blog strategies, viral marketing and what makes people tick’
6. Connected people
7. Inspired others to blog too
8. Launched my company Mash Up Media – (MUM)
9. Connected start-ups with Venture Capitalists & vice versa
10. Made some money too

To sum up: I have learned a lot, got in touch with so many new and interesting people, helped other people with promoting their businesses and skills. If there is one thing I can say is that blogging is good for you and your business whatever you might be doing, just remember the famous line “Anything that you say, can and will be used against you…” so think twice before you post. BTW, stay tuned later over the next couple of days for a new blogging announcement.

Technorati Tags: Maxthon, Internet, Media, Blogs, We Media, Citizen Media, Citizen Journalism, Advertising, Anyfilms, Samsung Mobile, Business Developent, Blogvertising, Online Media, Hyper Happen, Networking, Mashups, Mashup Media

Paying for software is not something that comes easily unless it is so good that you are willing to cash-up (in this case $99). However, I just purchased a proffesional license for Anconia RocketPost, the best blog editor around I have have used BlogJet, Ecto, Qumana and RocketPost surpasses them all. I also find it very impressing that RocketPost is a one man show, that make me feel more motivated to pay the $99 to support the good work.

See short video to get a quick overview.

I have been invited to attend DLD06 – Digital Lifestyle Day organized by Hubert Burda Media and Yossi Vardi in Munich, January 23-24. If you are attending or in Munich at this time and would like to meet up to discuss Maxthon or just hang out, please let me know. Maxthon can now provide companies and organizations with a customized branded browser with special services integrated into it such as RSS feeds, Podcast, pre-installed channels, plug-ins and much more. We are also soon releasing Maxthon 2.0, a major upgrad that also comes with a built in blog editor and many other goodies.

Related posts: Israeli VC’s & The Search for the Internet Success, Maxthon At CES,

Just came back from “O” – Cirque du Soleil at Bellagio. An absolutely amazing show with acrobatic stunts, synchronized swimming and dance. Never seen anything like it. The whole stage was made up by a giant pool. If you of some reason visit Vegas. Make sure you see it. You won’t regret it. Here’s a video link.