In a recent post, Sarah Lacy posed the question of whether Israel has lost its mojo. It looks like AOL believes the mojo is still very much somewhere in the Holy Land, as evidenced by its tapping Avichay Nissenbaum as AOL’s first Country Manager for Israel.
Nissenbaum, considered by Israel’s startup community as “one of the good guys” is known for two startup successes:product lifecycle management company SmarTeam which was acquired by Dassault Systemes back in 1999, and most recently, Q&A site Yedda which was acquired by AOL in 2007.
In his new role as Country Manager Nissenbaum will focus on establishing tighter connections with the local hi-tech scene by promoting AOL’s developer network and the services that power such known brands as AIM, ICQ, Bebo, Winamp and Mapquest. His attention will also be placed on identifying local technologies and products of value to AOL for M&A consideration—AOL currently has over 200 employees in Israel across several companies it has acquired over the years, namely: ICQ, Relegance, Quigo and Yedda.
Israel never looses their MOJO…
What is this infatuation with Israel? Can we cover something a little bit more important….like China, who will be breathing down our necks over the next decade with increasing ferocity?
Penny wise, pound foolish.
PS this has nothing to do with race, so please don’t go there.
TC does multiple posts a day. They DO, OBVIOUSLY talk about China, and India, and other places that are related to TechCrunch’s core subject.
The infatuation with Israel comes from Israel’s infatuation with technology.
Does India Still Have its Mojo? Does China Still Have its Mojo? WTF is going on at TC? .. and WTF is AOL?
exactly, what the fuck is wrong with Tc? who woulda thunk man, israel?????????
Congrats to Avichay. Very Smart decision by AOL.
As the Q&A master at AOL I am sure he will find the right answers.
Oh noses! The AOL death knell kiss of eternal damnation.
Nice not knowing you!
I agree with everyone else!
India is more important than israel!
China is more important than israel!
Europe is more important than israel!
http://siteanal....com/?metric=uv
Man oh man, was that a “good buy”…we’re still eating yedda’s lunch and we never raised money.
Lots of Q&A sites (blurtit, answerbag, metafilter) are eating Yedda’s lunch…I guess this is AOL using the peter principle? If he failed at raising the roof with Q&A, give him a bigger job & more authority?
And yes…agreed with the other commenters. Most of my really good friends in the valley are from India (or their parents were) and our engineering team that ROCKS is entirely out of China.
So those two places, from what I’m hearing with my own eyes & seeing first hand have definitely not lost their mojo…doesn’t China have the biggest social network?
Truly, I’m missing something here with the infatuation over Israel…?
(Also, I sold two companies, one to a publicly traded company & one to a private company, back in 2004…but, that’s not “buzzworthy” now or then, so…not be a jerk, but is this even news?)
Mazal tov Avichay!
The question really is – Has TechCrunch lost its MOJO.
Ditto
Techcrunch needs to stop with the Israeli loving nonsense and just make IL.techcrunch.com already for those who like junk news.
So because one guy gets a job at AOL – which by the way sucks, it has the right to be on TC?
Bingo!
As everyone else has already noted, TC is not doing itself any favors by posting useless topics like these, and by giving us an overdose of Israel. China, India, Europe are many times more important than Israel for a blog like TC.
I think you got it wrong.
I don’t know how you measure importance with regard to TC.
TC is a blog about the tech and startup scene.
By most measures, Israel is 2nd only to Silicon Valley in the amount of tech ventures (that’s in absolute numbers) and is certainly #1by far in per capita terms for countries.
That being said, TC indeed covers companies in India, China and Europe.
You could have also said that TC is giving us an overdode of the US. Would have made just about as much sense.
I think it’s quite amusing when people get so upset over Israeli. The fact is that they are a tiny country that produces a lot of tech. I think that’s reason enough to be interested. I do agree with the whiners that the content of this story feels more like a favor to a friend, but as for Israel, write on. To ask whether India or China have lost their mojo would not even make sense. To all you shrill complainers, get a grip and complain about the real issue – not your personal one.
What are you on?
All we are saying this isn’t tech news. No one is hating on Israel, we are (Well I am) complaining about the amount of junk on TC about Israel.
Anyway no point going on about this – it didn’t TC posting about Twitter every minute.
Happy Passover!
What am I on? Why is the level of conversation on this wonderful site so infantile? I was responding to comments (read above). This community is belligerent. Stickin to reading. ciao.
MAZAL TOV!!!
Go Israel.. Goooo
This a very smart decision from AOL. There are few Israeli ppl with such experience as Avichai does and I’m positive he will do great job managing all AOL Israeli brands.
Mazal Tov !
Mazal Tov & Kol Ha’kavod, Avichay.
I’m sick of Israel. Can we please move on.
200 awesome employees + lots of money = who cares what country we’re talking about.
I’m sick of Israel. Can we please move on.
200 awesome employees + lots of money = who cares what country we’re talking about.