The following guest post was contributed by Adam Fisher, partner at Bessemer Venture Partners. It originally appeared on his blog Savants in the Levant.

This is a post that has been in draft for almost a year based on hundreds of interactions I have had with start-ups and high tech execs in Israel and abroad. The issues are broad and provocative, and because a blog post risks being an oversimplification, I welcome my readers’ comments and critique. 

If there ever is to be a sequel to the book Start-up Nation, Israeli high tech must become as serious about product design, customer experience, and business models as it currently is about technology and R&D. Over the last decade, Israel has mastered an entrepreneurial/venture model, which involves sourcing entrepreneurs from military technology units, creating cutting edge technology products and ultimately selling a company, its IP and personnel to one of many foreign multinationals that have come to appreciate the Israeli brain trust. While this model of start-up creation has served us reliably, it is vulnerable to macroeconomic headwinds and is increasingly unsustainable in the face of technology commoditization that is rapidly approaching our shores in the form of competition from China, Korea and Taiwan. As it turns out, our over reliance on technology creates an endless demand for more technology talent, which prevents us from nurturing vital competencies in product, design and business. The resulting ‘tech crutch’ is a self-perpetuating cycle that threatens the future of Israeli high tech.

CLIMBING TO THE TOP OF THE HIGH TECH PYRAMID

This challenge of moving beyond technology is more important than ever if Israel is to enjoy its rightful share of the high tech economic pie. The underlying reason for this is that Israel is stuck pursuing a goal of technology creation rather than technology application, and this mindset affects entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and government policy makers alike.  As a result, we generally prefer to enable others to build amazing products, rather than to use the technology to build the products ourselves. We hesitate to touch the end customer and resign ourselves to being technology merchants, promiscuous with our technology smarts but timid with our business creativity. This is a problem, because increasingly the fattest margins and steepest barriers to entry belong to those who know how to apply technology to build a better business.

We too often overlook the fact that users of technology often enjoy a disproportionate share of value relative to the technology creators. This is because technology increases efficiency and reduces production and distribution costs, thereby enabling new business models to emerge, thrive and engage directly with their customers (think Netflix, Salesforce.com, Amazon and eBay, none of which were initially based on technological innovation). As the pace of technology commoditization hastens, the value of high tech is shifting even more to those companies that can apply technology to create or upend a huge market opportunity. These companies find a way to be as close as possible to their end customer, to maximize exposure and to extract the maximum economic value. This is a key reason so many venture investors favor companies that can leverage the Internet to reach consumers and businesses alike.

High tech in 2011 is about innovation, but not necessarily technology innovation. Unfortunately, too many Israeli companies seek shelter with their technical differentiation, and assume that distributors, OEMs and acquirers will recognize their unique offering and spare them the daunting task of building a business on their own. Of course, there are a handful of success stories where high tech companies have struck gold licensing their technology, winning the lottery OEM or signing lucrative and scalable revenue sharing deals, but these lucky few cannot be role models for the rest of us. And even though there will continue to be amazing technology companies emerging out of Israel, this is too small a base for an entire industry to rely on.

To reach the top of the pyramid Israel must now embrace product, marketing and business innovation, just like it has technology innovation. Such a shift does not require abandoning its technical roots, but rather using this technology strength to create higher order products, and mustering the talent and courage to bring them as close to the customer as possible. In some cases, the business innovation may even require providing technology products for free. Israeli start-ups can still use technology as a differentiator and competitive advantage, but long term shareholder value and competitive barriers-to-entry will ultimately be built on brand, loyal customers, and a profitable model. The shift in mindset starts with how we found, fund and grow start-ups. Israeli start-ups must identify a real business pain and solve it with a great product offering, rather than solving a technology pain with technology solutions. Our distance from many of these business pains makes developing deep industry understanding a challenge, but this distance also enables objective observation and analysis, which can itself fuel innovation.

STRENGTHENING OUR WEAKENESSES, NOT ACCEPTING THEM

We all recognize that Israel has both strengths and weaknesses in high tech, but for too long we have allowed ourselves, collectively and individually, to invest solely in our strengths, accepting our weaknesses as destined. High tech is a competitive sport, and just like athletes invest more energy in improving their weaknesses to remain competitive, so Israel must devote more attention to its weaknesses in product, design, marketing and business. The success stories that will come out of Israel over the next decade will be those companies that defy conventional wisdom about what can be done in Israel. Countries with great natural resources like oil need to develop capabilities in refining and distribution to reach their true potential as an energy powerhouse. It is no different with a natural resource like technology talent. Israel must avoid becoming an “oil state” in which only a small percentage of the population can participate, and where there is dependence on selling the natural resource to others who know how to extract value.

To address these challenges, we must stop thinking about our high tech industry strictly in terms of engineers and programmers. By emphasizing only the R&D side of high tech, we have in effect erected walls around the country’s only growth engine, which in turns only exacerbates the technical talent shortage we hear so much about. With the current model Israel may always face a shortage in technical talent, but it will face far more acute shortages in marketing, product and design talent. Therefore, we must encourage our engineers to explore and develop their latent creative and business skills. These multi-talented people are rare, but they certainly exist. We must also find ways to make high tech more inclusive and inviting for the less technically inclined and for those who didn’t have the privilege of serving in an army technology unit. In short, Israel’s natural resource is human talent, not just technical talent. 

On a start-up level, my recommendation to entrepreneurs is the following:

1)       Incorporate strong marketing, product and design skill sets at inception, including in the founding team. This cannot be an afterthought post development, and it really shouldn’t be outsourced either.

2)       Innovate on the business/product side as well as on the technology side. Recognize that you are building a business, not a product and certainly not a technology, and practice pitching this business idea with minimal mention of technology. Technology innovation is great, but it can create tunnel vision for the creator, and confusion for the employees and shareholders.

3)       Determine whether you could be going a step further in your product or business plan to ensure that you are getting the maximum value out of your innovation. Can you build a product based on this technology.? Can you build a service based on this product? Can you go directly to the customer using the web?

On a national level I have a few ideas for how to promote this change in thinking:

1)       Bring high tech business into Israel’s academic system, not by offering internships for developers, but by exposing students to the non-technical side of high tech, whether it is business in China (Eastern Studies), online marketing (psychology), user interface and experience (industrial design), successful business models (economics), etc. Conversely, Israeli universities need to create more multi-disciplinary tracks that combine computer science and design, or engineering and economics/business.

2)       Find ways and incentives to integrate the super creative talent in the Israeli advertising and media industry (which is already an export industry for Israel).

3)       Expand the narrow mandate of the Chief Scientist Office (CSO) beyond simply creating R&D jobs, to include strengthening Israel’s non-tech weaknesses. The CSO should provide tax incentives for multinationals, which establish marketing, customer support and other non-technical functions in Israel. Most importantly, the CSO should provide grants to start-ups for the launch of their product or service, not its development. 

Israeli high tech is in a transition, not a crisis. The proof is that many start-ups have already made this mental leap and are attempting to reframe Israeli high tech as masters of business and marketing, not only patents and architecture. Israeli high tech will be stronger in years to come as we hone the creative and business talents that so many in this country possess.  But, too often, we leave money on the table. Not because we sell companies too early, but because in many instances we don’t take or are unable to take the extra step to seize the larger business opportunity. There is a lot of work to do, but it all starts with recognizing that high tech is not just about tech, and that our technology strength must not become a crutch. 

If you haven’t heard about the new book, Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle get ready for a treat. This book is already making waves in the Israeli hi-tech community and well beyond, and promises to be an instant and lasting classic. An Amazon bestseller its first week out, Start-up Nation is perhaps the best insight yet into the phenomena that is the entrepreneurship-driven Israeli economy.

Written by Dan Senor, senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Jerusalem Post columnist Saul Singer, the book asks and answers the question; How is it that a nation only 60 years old, 7 million people strong (smaller than New Jersey), literally surrounded by enemies, in a constant state of war since its founding and with no natural resources, has:

• Highest concentration of startups in the world
• Most VC investments per capita in the world
• More NASDAQ listed companies than any country besides the US, more than all of Europe, India, China and Japan combined
• Economy barely hit by global economic crisis

In short, how do we kick ass with such little feet? The book and its answers are particularly timely for a world struggling out of a global economic crisis. Most agree that there’s only one way out; Innovation, and Israel is its hotbed.

What Drives the Innovation?

Without stealing the thunder from this uniquely well written book, here are a few of the observations Dan and Saul present from detailed case studies and interviews with Israel’s top innovators:

• Israeli immigration and assimilation policies bring and support a highly motivated, diversified pool of talent into the country.
• Israel spends more as a percentage of our economy on R&D than any other country in the world and knows how to make that money relevant to startups.
• Israel actively cultivates a culture of entrepreneurship and leadership in the military. Teenagers are not only given the responsibility to make life-saving decisions, typically with little data, but to question authority regularly in doing so.
• The Israeli economy respects and knows how to integrate the unique talents and “chutzpah” developed by soldiers in the military.

The reason this book is so important is that it puts a spotlight on a side of Israel that most people never think about and surely don’t see on national news in the US. See Dan on NBC’s Squawk Box, Morning Joe and Meet the Press. If that doesn’t swell your chest up with pride, you’ve got a cold. Go get this book and spread the word.

“There is a great deal for America to learn from the very impressive Israeli entrepreneurial model – beginning with a culture of leadership and risk management. Start-Up Nation is a playbook for every CEO who wants to develop the next generation of corporate leaders.” – Tom Brokaw, NBC

Dan and Saul’s TechAviv World Tour

Want to meet the authors? So do we so we’ve invited them to speak at all of our TechAviv events worldwide (IL, CA, MA, NY) starting with New York on Nov 12th. Got a question or comment for Dan or Saul, leave them in the comments section or tweet them here and here.

Two years ago we set out to bring Israeli hi-tech startup founders and investors closer together and to harness our collective experience and contacts to help fellow Israeli hi-tech startups succeed worldwide. Today we’re over 1,600 members meeting monthly in Israel, Silicon Valley, New York and Boston. I have the privilege to meet and befriend some of our industry’s sharpest and most creative minds on both sides of the table. It’s truly an honor.

Facilitating TechAviv has also exposed me to many of the inherent flaws in the relationship between founders and venture capitalists. I’ve also experienced them first hand as a VC-backed entrepreneur, a board member and as an advisor to investors, but not on this scale. Here’s the bottom line; while we ideally need to be as tight as co-founders, our jobs and who we are as people are often radically different:

• Entrepreneurs, at least the successful ones I know, are driven by ideas and passion, have super-human stamina (never accepting “no”) and a love for problem solving. Their job is to create new value for customers. They’d like to be rich so that they can do whatever they’d like in life, but they’re already doing that now.
• Venture capitalists, at least the successful ones I know, are driven by money and discipline, have uniquely accurate insight (knowing when its not the usual “no”) and a love for deal making. Their job is to create great returns for their limited partners. They need to be rich because most of their friends are, and well, its good to be rich.

At different stages of a startup these differences, ideally meant to compliment each other, often cause great friction, fundamental misunderstandings and even total meltdown. Throw in a global recession and the new economics of starting-up web businesses and you’ve got yourself the makings of one fascinating and desperately-needed group therapy session.

It’s time to “invest” in our relationship. First step is communication. We need to get some things out on the table. Those taboo subjects between founders and VCs that we talk about behind the other’s back. Those questions we’ve always wanted to ask. What’s working, what’s broken and how can we make things better moving forward so that the Israeli hi-tech ecosystem as a whole succeeds. In a time when the business and economics of building and investing in hi-tech startups is changing so dramatically, its more important than ever that we get on the same page.

UPDATE: Results of the pre-meeting questionnaire appear below:

On September 2, 2009 from 3:00-6:00pm at the IDC Herzliya the TechAviv Founders Club will convene the first in a special series of smaller town hall style meetings between founders and investors to candidly discuss our working relationship and practical ways to optimize it. We’re now over 400 strong in Israel but will limit attendance to keep the conversation as intimate and candid as possible. Priority will be given to VC-backed startup founders that can speak from experience. 20 of Israel’s top VC have also been invited. TechAviv Israel members can RSVP here. If you’re a founder of or investor in Israeli hi-tech startups and based in Israel, you can apply for membership here (free).

Thanks Danny and Adi. The idea for this meeting was inspired by conversations I had recently with Danny Cohen and Adi Pundak-Mintz of Gemini Israel Funds. They’ve been think about ways to bring investors and entrepreneurs closer together and have been doing so regularly with their excellent round-table events at Gemini. I’m proud to have them as sponsors of TechAviv. These guys embody our spirit of paying things forward. I’ve known Danny for a while. He’s one of those rare VCs that tells it like it is and sincerely cares about entrepreneurs and Israel. He’s doing something right but will be the first to admit he’s gotten lots of stuff wrong dealing with entrepreneurs. Danny recently returned from a 3 year stint at Gemini’s Silicon Valley office and gave a talk on Israeli venture capital at TechAviv CA on March 30th, the day before his last in CA. Here’s the talk with some good data and topics for the meeting on Sept 2nd. Enjoy.

UPDATE: Pic from the event: (Thanks @OurielOhayon)

Happy Birthday Guys! Hopefully, next year you will graduate to eating some more solid foods.

MoMoTLV is the official Israeli chapter of Mobile Monday (MoMo). As Israel is a Wadi and home to many nomadic tribes, it is only natural for this chapter to be huge. Check them out on Facebook too.

I am impressed by PLYmedia. I usually try to write about younger, newer, hipper, sexier companies coming unto the scene, and discover new players in the game, but sometimes the old guard still has one or two tricks up their sleeve. 

There are three integral parts of any startup: technology, product, and monetization. Israeli companies are usually strong in the technology sector. They figure out some funky thing that does something, and then they set out to create a company around that technology. But many times the company that they create may not actually have any public appeal or commercial value. Just because you can create a widget that will allow you to know how many breaths you breathe a day does not mean that anyone in the public sector will want to use it. Perhaps, if tweaked, it would be of immense value for the medical profession, but many companies don’t make that jump. Companies, quite often, feel that if their technology is slightly better than an existing one, everyone will automagically jump ship to them. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it ain’t true. Just ask Sony about Betamax.

PLYmedia figured out how to overlay content over existing video. They made it easy to do, even post-post-post production, and on the fly. That is called technology.

PLYmedia then figured out an end-user version of their technology called BubblePLY that allows people to overlay words, pictures and other things over their online videos. People liked using it.

They saw that people used BubblePLY for subtitles, both in the original language and in translation, and they responded by partnering with companies who can help them provide professional subtitling services faster and cheaper than the competition. Thus was born SubPLY.

The company applied a similar permutation of the same technology to overlay ads and other pertinent information to companies. Meaning, if I am watching a television show, and a song starts playing, using a mashup with song recognition software, they are able to identify and display what the song is and provide a link to purchase the song.

Thus, PLYmedia achieved the holy trinity of success: Technology, Product, Monetization. By staying true to the technology, they are able to offer more products and develop more monetization models.

It is no shock that PLYmedia has won accolades and awards from many different sources, in addition to funding.

The young, new, hip and sexy companies should watch closely and learn.

I usually try not to get emotionally involved when reviewing a company. It is not good journalism. However, at times, I cannot hold myself back.

I fell in love with Tracx at first sight. It was as if angels came down from heaven and coded an application that was just for me. I heard tiny violins playing at the time. I am not calling CTO Niv Singer an angel, in fact, he looks more godlike. But then again, like God, Niv was hiding behind a curtain at the time when VP of Business Development Asaf Shtekler presented Tracx at Orli Yalkuel’s Techonomy.

For those who don’t know, I am a sucker for a good statistic. I could write a paper on why Science beats Religion (in mentions on a certain network) almost any given day. But, moreover, I look at social media as a collection of one to one social interactions that occur amidst a world of many to many connections. Sitting with Niv and Asaf, sipping a cup of hot chocolate, and hearing Niv preach on and on about the meaning of “interaction” was literally a religious experience.

Much like in any organized religion, people in Niv’s mind are split up into different groups. Everyone has an equally important job, and everyone adds something critical; that without each one, society as a whole is at a loss.

After hearing the Oral Law as uttered by Niv, with various interjections by his profit, Asaf, it was time to check out the Written Word. And the word was Good. Besides for when, on March 19, Evil outranked Good by a lot.

Tracx is important for understanding the zeitgeist. The spirit of the times cannot always be qualified in words. Sometimes, it can only be understood form actions. By doing a little search on YouTube, you can probably see that a lot more people watch Britney Spears than Barack Obama. But Tracx will show you that people are more likely to comment on Britney and favorite Obama.

According to my belief, social media is about people coming together and finding commonalities with one another. Tracx employs the same algorithms and methods on the micro, personal level, as it does on the macro, community-wide level. I can see who enjoyed my content, or whose content I enjoyed most.

Like the Talmud, one could spend all day engrossed in Tracx, attempting to make heads or tails of the information, that looks trivial at first glance. Tracx is a sea of knowledge that you can spend all day swimming in, staring at marvelous discoveries in the depths.

Tracx is sublime.

Israeli history is peppered with stories of small forces overcoming seemingly insurmountable challenges. One of the most famous stories told and retold is that of the Davidka. In 1948, against the massive Arab Legion forces, David Leibowitch manufactured six homemade mortars that did not do any real damage, but just created a lot of noise. The various underground groups were able to move the device quickly and simply from location to location and create the illusion of a much greater force that really existed.

In short, strategy is much more important than size.

However, not all strategy in Israel comes out of the IDF. Anshel Pfeffer, co-founder of Mobilibrium, spent the last 15 years volunteering for the local emergency service in Jerusalem. There, he learned from firsthand experience the need for quickly mobilizing scarce resources in both time- and location-critical situations.

From that necessity was borne the concept of SNAP: Send Nearest Available Person. It sounds deceiving simple. However, in order to actualize the concept, the Mobilibrium team created patent-pending algorithms that create a mashup of location, personnel, and equipment data, with minimal overhead needed, and a thin-client that sits ambiently on the mobile devices of members of the team.

Originally designed for emergency responders, SNAP is now being used by Natali, the organization that won the bid to provide health services to students in schools across Israel. Using SNAP, Natali can maintain a smaller stronger base of employees who can respond in an optimized fashion to any school within 15 minutes of a call.

For instance, there is no need to send a paramedic when a child has a fever, a nurse will suffice. But if there is an epileptic incident, a team of two people may be required: both a paramedic and a nurse. SNAP automagically finds the closest individuals who fit the description and have the necessary equipment with them.

As a SaaS run on the cloud, any company with time sensitive needs will be able to smartly optimize its resources. It could be a 10 member plumbing company to the 200 member team working a concert, event or parade, to a newspaper which needs to ensure that every relevant global breaking event has coverage.

SNAP was designed with the users in mind. For instance, not everyone wants their employer to know where they are at every moment. Mine would question how many times a day one can go to a cafe. SNAP has a mode that blocks the user’s location from the system, instead only informing the dispatcher that someone is in the desired vicinity, without any specific location or name.

From what I saw, the user experience on all sides is simple and elegant. The set-up is painless. And the potential cost-saving is high.

But I doubt that the plumbers in Des Moines or the Deadheads in St. Paul will really care about the Davidka.

It seems our friends over at TechCrunch are having a “who can get the most comments” competition because their posts keep getting more provocative by the day. Today’s winner, Sarah Lacy with her post: Now that China Is the New Israel…What’s Israel? As of this post, she’s tallied up over 100 great and as usual racist comments. I’ll bet she’ll break 200 with this doozy. That said, there’s an important conversation to be had here.

In the post Sarah writes:

By 2004, an executive from Silicon Valley Bank was quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle after leading a contingent of VCs back to the Holy Land saying Israel was poised to explode again. He crowed that the crash and violence aside, Israel was getting more venture money than anywhere other than Silicon Valley and Boston and it was only ramping up.

But it turned out, he was wrong. Money continued to invest along the same $1.2 billion-to-$1.4 billion a year range, and returns fell off a cliff. Israeli companies have raised just over $10 billion since the beginning 2001, but acquisitions and IPOs have returned just over $860 million over that almost eight-and-a-half-year period. 

And continues … 

Ten years after the peak of the last bubble, it’s clear that when foreign investment fell in Israel from about $4 billion a year to $1 billion a year, the country wasn’t just weathering a recession. Somewhere along the way, the entrepreneur scene here lost its mojo.

So I don’t say this to trash Israel, but facts are facts. In sheer numbers, Israel’s place on the global scale of investing has been dwarfed by China, and matched by the United Kingdom. And after three days of talking to dozens of entrepreneurs and investors in Tel Aviv, this seems like a country wandering in the desert, looking for a new tech movement to own and dominate.

Was a booming Israel just a relic of the 1990s boom like Webvan and the Pets.com sock puppet? I don’t believe so. But I’m in Tel Aviv for the next two weeks looking for the company and the tech movement that will prove me right. If you find it, drop me a note.

Here’s my note Sarah:

Sarah,

It’s a shame you jumped to post this misguided conclusion before spending your two weeks in Israel, but thanks for igniting the important conversation. The companies you need to meet are here and I’m happy to introduce you to any of the 300 founders you see in our startups tab. The tech movement you’re completely missing is the new generation of new media/web/mobile startups that are bursting onto the global scene from Israel. Yes, we’ve been historically strong in deep technology, but the kids graduating from the elite programming units of the IDF are building killer Internet-powered startups, not semiconductors. The seeds being planted now … Boxee, Kaltura, Outbrain, fring, Face.com, plaYce, Gigya, Innovid, Dapper to name a few are ushering in a new era of Israeli hi-tech — light companies focused relentlessly on user experience, not technology.

I’m a little confused, as perhaps you are, about your stance on the matter. Why would you ask if we’re a relic of the 90’s if you don’t believe so? As for your stats on M&A/IPO returns, why didn’t you mention their source? Please do. BTW, they’re wrong. Happy to send official data if interested.

Most importantly, have a great time in Tel Aviv.

UPDATE: Since many of you have asked, here is official data from the Israeli Venture Capital (IVC) Research Center:

From 2000 to 2008, the 8 year period Sarah is refering to, Israeli hi-tech companies have returned over $40B in M&A transactions alone, far outpacing any country besides the US. I can post the IPO data as well, but its really not the point here. Sarah’s data is wrong, and that happens in the blogosphere (not usually by 40X) but her qualitative point about us “losing our mojo” based on conversations with Israeli’s in her trip to Israel should be considered. Its the perspective of one person in the first days of visiting our country. Fair enough. It’s unfortunate that pre-judged perspective took the stage on the most widely read tech blog in the universe backed by false data. It created a lot of confusion. As for mojo Sarah, spend an evening with the founders at any of the monthly TechAviv meetups worldwide and maybe you’ll consider a second TC post. Inperfect and challenged by a global economic meltdown we are. Mojo we most certainly do not lack.

Four months ago today we launched this blog for the global TechAviv community of Israeli hi-tech entrepreneurs and investors. Since then the site has grown to over 8K unique monthly readers in over 50 countries. These founders are pushing ahead despite the strong headwinds of a daunting recession and we’re privileged to be along for the ride. I’m proud that we can help other great tech blogs (see blog roll) share their inspiring stories and lessons and we’ll continue to do so along with our monthly founders meetups in IL, CA, NY and MA. Thank you for being a part of it. Onward and upward.

There are certain things that I pray for before going to sleep. Boxee was one of them. But I do not pray for yet another search engine. I’m good like that. However, if you are going to try to get me to covert from just Googling everything, you are going to need to try hard.

Additionally, I have noticed a rise in helpful in-text provided links and information. For instance, if you go to the New York Times (my paper of choice) you can click on anyone’s name and be linked to a whole bevy of information about them. Well, if they are important enough.

Dear New York Times,

Everyone is important to someone.

Best Regards,

Ezra

I know what they are going to answer.

Dear Ezra,

We love having you as a reader. You make our job of tracking reader trends really fun.
You are able to click on any word in our articles, and get relevant information, definitions and more.

Sincerely,

The New York Times

They are right. I can click on Kabul, and learn everything about it in the dictionary, encyclopedia, geography, and what the weather is there. But when I click on Kadima, they’ve got nothing. Nada. Perhaps, I should blame Answers.com for that. But it’s not their fault. There is no encyclopedic entry for Kadima. It’s apparently not old enough yet, and hasn’t made any world changing decisions. Additionally, I also would love to know what friends I have in either Kabul or Kadima.

Which is where headup comes into play. It was launched by TechAviv IL member Tal Keinan and is the first example of the engine that his company Semantinet created. Yes, I know that you avid readers of TechAviv will gleefully point out that this was covered before. But, as headup is now in public beta, we figured that this was cheaper than sending a cake.

headup is a firefox add-on that lets you click on words and then see where the semantic web takes you.

The semantic web, for those who don’t know, is where No Doubt meets Vampire Weekend. If you are still scratching you head, I’ll explain. The semantic web links together things that make sense together. You search for flour, and a notice for eggs come on your online shopping list, because there are millions of recipes that call for both flour and eggs together. The semantic web understands what you are searching for by context, and returns contextually relevant information. Just like if I search for the word “tweet”, I am probably not searching for the 1971-born American R&B singer. Or to the onomatopoeia emitted by small birds.

But headup takes this one step further. It incorporates all this information with all your existing social ties. Meaning, if you click on Pink, in addition to it giving you relevant information about the singer (as there were two other bands named on this page), it will also list which of my friends like her music, have blogged about her music, or attended her concerts.

You can get the headup on anyone famous or not. So reading the New York Times or TechAviv will be a lot simpler from now on.

In it’s next version, which will be out in two weeks, headup will be also analyzing Twitter accounts. This is extremely helpful to someone like me. This enables me to be able to find out with a single click to learn about a twitterer, without having to go to Google, and without closing the page or opening a new tab. In one click, you can access video interviews with the intended individual.

There are many companies, especially in Israel, trying to jump onto the semantic web bandwagon, which has been coined Web 3.0. One reason why I like headup is because I am a user. Sure, they have a cool technology, but now, they are trying to increase the user experience and usability.

This is from the first wave of many similar semantic products to come. The engine isn’t perfect, but they are constantly working on making it better. That’s why it’s in Beta. Google wasn’t built in a day, either.

I think that this may make life a tad easier.

Oh, and they don’t store any personal information on their servers. So think Google, just slightly more helpful and slightly less possibility for corporate evil.