Commtouch, one of the world's leading email spam fighters, has now officially launched their new corporate blog, Commtouch Cafe, which was built by none other than...illuminea (i.e. us)! Founded in 1991 in Israel and publicly traded on the NASDAQ (CTCH), Commtouch's technologies help companies avoid the rising costs of email spam by constantly monitoring, identifying and blocking new malware attacks. To accomplish this, the company analyzes the distribution patterns of billions of email messages per month. That's quite a job. The new blog, called Commtouch Cafe, ...

More and more professionals are starting their own blogs. There is a growing realization that blogging can help advance a person professionally, or market a business. It helps establish them as thought leaders, create relationships with people they wouldn't normally connect to, and increase search engine rankings for their corporate sites. But it's hard to know where to start. Here are some tips that can help you start off on the right foot, so that you can grow as a blogger and head in the direction of becoming a "really professional blogger" (RPB): Really professional bloggers have self-hosted blogs. A self-hosted blog is a blog that is hosted on a person's own hosting account, as opposed ...

WordCamp Israel is over. It was fun and interesting, and you can read my complete review of the event over here. But, there is no rest for the weary, so it's on to the next event: this Tuesday I'll be giving a free workshop on using blogs as a marketing tool. Here's more info: The Oct. 30 meeting of the Yokneam Forum of Technical Writers (Elephant) will feature a workshop on "Using Blogging as a Marketing Tool". Meetings of the Forum are free and open to the public (most are technical or marcom writers, but others are welcome). The standard ...

Last night I went to my first iDrink event. For those of you who are not familiar with iDrink, it's a party/event for Israelis in the Internet and web industries. The format usually includes presentations by startups and sponsors of the event, some free drinks, and a lot of socializing and networking. This was their seventh event, and there were tons of people there. At first, we couldn't even get into the bar, and people were literally spilling out the door. But that was ok, cuz even the door was a social place to be. We got inside in time to hear/see the end of a presentation by a startup called ...

Yes, we've revamped our website, and it's about time! If you're reading this in a feed reader, come on over and check it out. Our old site was divided into two parts: one part was a static site built on old-fashioned HTML, and the second part was the blog, sitting separately on WordPress. There were a few problems with that setup: Updating the static site was not fun, especially if we needed to update elements that were repeated across the site, like the navigation bar, or the footer. The blog should have been tied into the site for better search engine results. The blog was sitting on a really old version of WordPress. It was the old story of ...

WordCamp Israel is fast approaching, and I wanted to update you on what's going on. First of all, the registration closed a little over a week ago - capacity has been reached. I know there are a lot of disappointed people who really wanted to come, but hopefully it will either work out for them this year, or they'll manage to register in time for next year's conference. Second, I'm going to be moderating the panel on Blogging and Business. We have a really great panel, and I hope it will be enjoyable and informative. Here's a bit about our panelists: Me. My company, illuminea provides blog development and strategic consultation services to businesses....

It’s now official - Lorelle Van Fossen (yes, THE Lorelle) is going to be the keynote speaker at the upcoming WordCamp Israel blogging conference! When: Oct. 25, 9am to 4pm Where: Michlelet Afeka - Bney Efraim, Tel Aviv Tel: 1-800-37-37-10 Cost: Free! But you must register to reserve your place. Among the topics to be covered at the conference is blogging and business (I’m on that panel ), how to create an effective web presence with WordPress, and practical tips on installing WordPress and using Plugins. The conference now ...

A little over a week ago, I discovered "The Middle East Entrepreneur Training (MEET)," a US State Dept.-backed program geared towards strengthening leadership and entrepreneurial skills among residents of the Middle East...except Israeli Jews! I quickly contacted as many people as I could about this blatant discrimination, including reporting this on a mailing list for journalists and writers. This happened last Thursday, Sept. 21, and by Friday morning all of the related web pages had been taken down, and were changed to include Israeli Jews. But instead of blowing over, Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu ...

On July 30 I wrote a post asking whether we are reaching the saturation point for social media sites. The reason I wrote it is because it seemed to me that with the growing number of sites that exist that depend on ad revenue for profitability, there can't possibly be enough advertising dollars to go around. A day later a study was released by the University of Texas and Chitika that shows a different problem in the ad revenue business model: the top 1% of blogs are getting 20% of the revenue. In 2006, the top 15% drew in over 80% of the revenue. This means that the ...

Social media is hot. It's what VCs are investing in, and bright entrepreneurs are looking for investment in. It seems to me like there are three groups involved in this brave new world of media: The new New Media companies that are popping up every minute, each hoping to be the next MySpace or the latest hottie, Facebook. The people who use existing platforms to create and lead a community: the bloggers, the Ning community builders, the forum managers, etc. The audience: those who join the communities, forums, etc. and enjoy the ease with which they can publish online. Group 1 wants to make money. Group 2 also wants to make money, although there are ...