Like good Israelis, more than 70,000 of us found a way to put their hands on this desired device. We have freed the SIM from its jail and made it speak our language.  But that was not enough.
And then, one day, out of nowhere, we finally got our recognition. Apple in a brilliant, tricky move, signed all cellular carriers them all, like only Apple could.

Don’t be mistaken, from what seemed to be a huge opportunity for the cellular carriers to promote their brand, having a competitive edge over the others, they suddenly found themselves committed to sell a challenging number of devices with no actual preference over competition and worth, their entire business model is going to change – no more wall-gardens generating tons of money, much less control over users, demanding  partner and a lot of question marks about the future.

Selling one millions iPhones is a true challenge. This means, selling less Nokia, LG, Samsung and Sony-Ericson – some ideal partners for these carriers and a convenient source for incomes.

For Israeli carriers and users, the world is going to change. iPhone is available for everyone, endless number of applications and widgets, new services with many of them for free. Heaven for users, hell for the carriers and Apple keeps smiling all the way to the bank.

Right now the brilliant minds of the cellular carriers are working hard to build some kind of differentiation, attractive packages, unique SDKs and god knows what else – mission impossible . But at the end of the day, all three carriers know their work so we assume that no major shift of users between carriers will be caused by the iPhone.

Who is going to benefit? The user, of course, but not only. With more than three millions iPhones within three years, the Israeli market for iPhone application is expected to be around 100-200 millions NIS a year. Nice, isn’t it?

The market will be eager for hebrew application and local content, and as you know, most people over the world don’t speak our language. So, it is time for Israeli developers to cut their share in this amazing opportunity.

Developers will find themselves free to develop generic applications for the apple’s store or maybe choose to enjoy carriers’ benefits when developing a carrier-specific application. This is going to be fun. At last, iPhone and Mac developers who used to work in the shades, will finally get a recognition and become popular.

By creating significant amount of application, ignoring us in not an option. A strong community of Israeli developers will be able to put us on the map, opening a new world of Mac and iPhone development worldwide.

So wake up, and get ready to change the world. In the next few months, you are going to be embraced by the carriers, interactive agencies, software development companies and many others.
I am happy to take part in establishing the Israeli developers community for Mac and iPhone. The name of the organization is iLoop; and we are going to build a strong developers community to support you guys in making the change.


You can meet iLoop at the Garage Geeks’s place on August 6th.
http://www.garagegeeks.org/blog/?p=194

I can truly understand and support Apple’s policy of hardware’s “Wall garden”, it does make a difference, it works, it sings, it does it well.

What I don’t understand is Apple’s greediness, when it comes to web services. iWeb is a nice tool only  if it works with MobileMe. Try to work with a different host, you will find yourself publishing to a folder and replace the entire content each time you need to make a small change. Not mentioning running a blog.

iPod is great too, as long as you work with iTunes. try to transfer music without using a hack.

The list is long… great products, lousy business model. This is not the way to change the world, this is not the way to make a difference, this is the way to hell…

Yes, other manufacturers got the idea of investing a lot of money in industrial design and user interface. We must admit – HP, Sony, Nokia and Samsung are getting better, closing the gap. Yes, they are not there yet, but time and money will take them there.

I still love my Mac and my iPod touch and I stay loyal to them, but that why I am angry so much.

Let us all enjoy Apple’s world.

During my research, I was trying to find a common denominator  among all attractive video sites and to compare between their attractiveness and the potential to make money out of it.

For those of you who missed my session, please find my key notes:

1. In Y2000 – the merger between AOL and Time Warner symbolized the beginning of the “content meets technology” era. It was a disaster!

2. In terms of number of streams and unique users, I have found that the leaders are the portals: YouTube, Yahoo, Fox (mostly MetaCafe), and MSN but number of streams and Uniques do not necessarily mean profit.

3. Based on my YouTube research, I came to a conclusion than UGC is truly dead. My friend, Kfir Pravda (http://pravdam.com) wrote a nice blog about it. The monetizing ratio is low (4%-6%), cost of content delivery is huge and advertisers fear to relate their brands with “savages”.

Skipping all details and data regarding each one of the leading broadcasters and technologies, I came into conclusion that it LOOK LIKE:

(1) PRO Content is the KING. I mean all lovable TV series and movies, new and classics that most of them were produced by the TV top professional production houses.

(2) A video site must provide a Multi-Platform access. I am still shocked by the fact that some video sites do not support Safari and/or firefox not mentioning other mobile devices.

(3) Video content should be aloud to be embedded and shared.

(4) Internet is all about sharing and interacting. You should have a mini social network wrapping your content.

(5) Video site must have a Easy-Friendly Ads approach. Ads are OK but do not stretch the limits. Viewers are willing to accept the fact that free content must be sponsored somehow, but they do not tolerate an aggressive pop-ups, mid rolls and long pre-rolls.  The advertising issue will be discussed to death in my next articles.

I know, most of you who are reading this blog right now, trying to find a way to build a successful video site, probably asking themselves what should I do next? I do not have a Pro Content!

Well, that’s the problem. If you are not part of the video pro production community, you will probably fail to establish a profitable video site. Sorry.

One suggestible solution is to become a pro. Go study!