Impossible to miss it if you are in Tech. Twitter is the hottest web startup right now. Although it's been out there for nearly 3 years the Israeli media only started to seriously cover it about a couple of weeks ago. All at once. And you would expect this would follow a wave of local adoption. Wrong
Twitter is not catching up in Israel. There is at best a few thousands users on the micro blogging platform. And this is not surprising. Here are some of the best reasons i can think of
- Israel is still digesting Facebook: Facebook has taken off very seriously here. Way before it was translated to hebrew. Most people don't get the difference between Facebook and Twitter. Although there is one. And it is not simple to get and digest until you really use both services. On Twitter your are by default public and on Facebook private. This has a lot of impact on the interaction between users. But it is hard to realize before you use it.
- Facebook is turning out to become more and more like Twitter: Status update is becoming the central nerve of Facebook and user might see a double jobbing in keeping both services running on. So many ask "What the point?" Note also that the massive adoption of Facebook has taken off with a 2 years delay in Israel compare to the USA. So there is a time gap that is uncompressable and i am afraid that the adoption switch will take some more time to happen
- No first class celebrity on Twitter: Twitter has taken off in the US and UK when top celebs came on. I mean really came on (not through an agent or something). Obama, Brittney Spears, Demi Moore, Oprah Winfrey. Where are the Yehuda Halevi, Adi Ashkenazi, Keren Mor, Aviv Geffen, Ivri Lider [update: he's actually on Twitter and pretty active on @ivrilider ] and co...? Our Politicians tried poorly to use twitter during the campaign (not talking about fake accounts...). The only real politician interesting account is the one of the Israel Consulate..but it s not enough. Twitter is still a techie/geeky thing in israel
- No local businesses on Twitter: you can order pizzas on Twitter in the US, you can talk with sales agent of DELL on Twitter. I would love to see something like that in Israel
- Poor media presence on Twitter: Slowly newspapers and TV channels (themarker, globes, nana10...) are getting on Twitter. But the stream is not really interesting. It is an automated distribution of their own content. no real interaction with users. no real off-record content...Take a look in the US: CNN is really hot there, Many Radio stations (NPR for eg) enable you to track what is being broacasted by genre...
- Poor Twitter presence in traditionnal Media: Twitter will and must be integrated in traditionnal media channels. CNN produces a prime time show based on Twitter. I want to see a back channel for news, sport, live events....So far nothing happened here
- Poor community of developpers on Twitter: Twitter #1 asset is its API and massive community of developpers. There are tones of developpers in Israel. Very little have dedicated time and energy to twitter (maybe because they don t see the money around yet...unlike Facebook or the iPhone)
- No/Nearly no local apps for Twitter in Israel. My Friend Arik created @Moked (traffic report on Twitter) and @KinnerBot (reports level of the Kinneret) are some exception. QassamCount (also created by Arik, my partner in Topify) got some traction, but mainly because of Facebook
So as you see there is so much missing in Israel for Twitter to catch. It will take another year. Not less. Specially when you take into account that most users at first dump Twitter because they don't get it. And come back later when they know enough people who use it. This is what happened to me btw. [if you want a list of Israeli Twitter users, i recommend this one, and not because i am #1 there]
Someone asked me whether a hebrew translation would help. NO. tones of web apps have succeeded in Israel without a translation. Mainstream adoption is rarely about translation, it is about the right ecosystem, which is nt there. Yet
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