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Jewish 2.0 the Diffi Cult Road to Internet Innovation

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Jewish 2.0 the Diffi Cult Road to Internet Innovation Jewish 2.0 The Diffi cult Road to Internet Innovation Daniel Septimus When it comes to technological innovation, Jewish organizations can’t seem to win. They are criticized for their lack of adaptability and their sluggish integra- tion of new media strategies and tools. Yet when a Jewish organization builds a blog or starts a Twitter stream, they are often criticized for a lack of direction, for embracing technology for its own sake because it seems hip or novel. The digital native versus digital immigrant divide is often cited as a reason why the Jewish community is late to adopt technology. Most Jewish organizations— particularly the largest and most infl uential ones—are run by baby boomers, immigrants in “Internet Land.” Yet this may be too convenient an answer. The president and CEO of the American Red Cross, Gail McGovern, is 58, and her age did not stop her organi- zation from raising unprecedented dollars via text messaging in the wake of the Haiti earthquake. One might argue that Jewish communal leaders are just more conservative and traditionally minded. But perhaps this is appropriate given that we are a small community with many needs. Research & Development (R&D) could be a luxury when there are poor people to feed, Israeli institutions to support, and day school tuitions to subsidize. Of course, some Jewish organizations and start-ups have tried to leverage internet innovation to foster Jewish education and identity. It is worth refl ecting on some of these products—on their successes and challenges—to discover if there are lessons for us as a community going forward. WEB 2.0 The term “Web 2.0” is nearly six years old, coined at a 2004 conference con- vened by O’Reilly Media. The conference was meant to consider the state of the internet after the burst of the tech bubble, but the second stage of internet his- tory conjured up by “2.0” did not only refer to the economic climate. New models for internet success were emerging. As Tim O’Reilly wrote in a 2005 article, “The central principle behind the success of the giants born in the Web 1.0 era who have survived to lead the Web 2.0 era appears to be this, that they have embraced the power of the web to harness collective intelligence” (see www.oreilly.com). In other words, Web 2.0 eschews the top-down approach of expert curators and relies on the input (and passion) of amateurs. The classic Web 1.0 versus Web 2.0 dichotomy is, of course, Brittanica Online versus Wikipedia. By leverag- ing the knowledge of tens of millions of laypeople, Wikipedia has created an Daniel Septimus is CEO and Editor-in-Chief of MyJewishLearning.com and has been involved with the website since its launch in 2002. He recently helped launch MyJewishLearning’s new parenting website, Kveller.com. 194 Journal of Jewish Communal Service, Volume 86, Nos. 1/2, Winter/Spring 2011 JEWISH 2.0: THE DIFFICULT ROAD TO INTERNET INNOVATION encyclopedia with exponentially more content than Brittanica, while also being infi nitely more dynamic, refl ecting up-to-the-minute changes. Some studies have indicated that, despite its amateur origins, Wikipedia is rather close to Brittanica and the like in terms of veracity or quality, but to some extent this is irrelevant. Wikipedia is one of the top-ten most visited websites. High quality or not, it is the world’s primary source of mass information. Amazingly, while Wikipedia might be the fi rst website people think of when they consider the notion of “collective intelligence,” it may not even be the most important one. Google is synonymous with technological domi- nance, and its revolutionary search engine algorithm is also made possible by collective intelligence. Google’s PageRank system analyzes the number of links to a website from other websites and counts those links as a vote for its use- fulness and quality. Thus, Google leverages the hyperlinking that people do across the web to help produce a better functioning and more useful search engine. In addition to Wikipedia-type user-generated content, the other major 2.0 innovation is social media, particularly social networking programs like Facebook and MySpace and communication devices like Twitter and Four- square. The social nature of the web and the fact that everything (including what you ate for dinner) is potential web content are the logical conclusions of collec- tive intelligence. In a sense, the internet is actually the arena for collective cogni- tion, whether it is intelligent or not. THE JEWISH SPACE Numerous Jewish Web 2.0 projects have emerged in the last few years. Some have been initiated by relatively large, establishment not-for-profi ts like BBYO and American Jewish World Service, and some are more grassroots efforts. To chart out the space, I briefl y note here a few projects and then examine their contexts. The internet is The Open Source Haggadah: Launched in 2002, this represents, perhaps, the actually the arena earliest entry into the fi eld. According to its website (www.opensourcehaggadah. for collective com), “the Open Source Haggadah allows users to assemble a personalized hagga- cognition, whether dah from texts and images that come from a diverse and inclusive array of Jewish it is intelligent or not. sources, including—most importantly—user generated content.” This site was de- veloped by Daniel Sieradski and James Moore, but is no longer being actively maintained. A similar project, Haggadot.com, is currently in development. b-linked: Launched in 2005 by BBYO to be an online community and social networking platform for Jewish teens Jewtube: A Jewish video-sharing website launched in 2006 Koolanoo: A for-profi t Jewish social network launched in 2006. “Users get pro- fi le space in which they can upload photos, talk about their likes and life stories, and make themselves known. There’s a marketplace and a dating section. You’ve got video chat, IM and on site messaging. There are also blogs and event listings. Users can partake in forums and contribute to the message boards” (see www. killerstartups.com). Journal of Jewish Communal Service, Volume 86, Nos. 1/2, Winter/Spring 2011 195 JEWISH 2.0: THE DIFFICULT ROAD TO INTERNET INNOVATION JsoN: Launched in early 2007 by the Jewish Coalition for Service to be an online community and social networking platform for alumni of Jewish service learning programs On1Foot: Launched by American Jewish World Service in 2009, “On1Foot is an online database of Jewish social justice texts designed to support and promote the teaching of social justice in the Jewish community. This educational resource allows users to search and browse hundreds of biblical, rabbinic and contempo- rary Jewish texts about social justice, upload new texts and create custom source sheets using the texts and suggested discussion questions” (see www.on1foot. org/about). The Tagged Tanakh: Launched by the Jewish Publication Society in 2010, “Tagged Tanakh is a collaborative platform that joins vetted content and user- generated commentary around the Jewish Bible. The words of the Torah create the foundation of this dynamic database. These words can be cross-referenced, annotated, and connected-tagged-to other forms of media, including videos, maps or games” (see www.taggedtanakh.org). Build a Prayer: Launched in BETA by BBYO in 2010, “Build a Prayer provides an online community space where…you can create and customize a Shabbat service in a fun and interactive way that is relevant to you and your community; and then share that service with your community” (see www.buildaprayer.org). THE SOCIAL NETWORKS Impressively, for an 85-year-old organization, BBYO has been the most aggres- sive player in the Jewish Web 2.0 fi eld. Most Jewish Web 2.0 projects lag behind their secular equivalents, but the launch of b-linked presaged the coming prominence of social networking. In addition to standard social networking features, b-linked has a complex events registration and promotion system, which processes more than $8,000,000 an- nually in event fees and donations. Yet the social networking part of b-linked ended up with a major competi- tor it did not expect: Facebook. When b-linked was launched in 2005, Facebook membership was limited to college students. Thus, b-linked really was responding to a gap in the market, as there was no social networking site that dominated the teen market. But less than a year later, Facebook opened itself up to anyone older than 13. Members were able to set up Fan and Group pages to communicate with each other, and they did. A special social networking platform for teens became less necessary, because they could now use Facebook (which had the advantage of hosting their non-Jewish friends as well). Of course, b-linked was not the only social network blindsided by Face- book’s expansion. For-profi t behemoths like Friendster and MySpace suffered too. But there is a difference between the use of philanthropic funds and business investments. While BBYO needs to be respected for its incredible ability to change and be forward thinking, the b-linked/Facebook case study raises ques- tions about when Jewish not-for-profi ts should be investing heavily in technology infrastructure. 196 Journal of Jewish Communal Service, Volume 86, Nos. 1/2, Winter/Spring 2011 JEWISH 2.0: THE DIFFICULT ROAD TO INTERNET INNOVATION Nor was b-linked the only exclusively Jewish social network that suffered from Facebook’s emergence as the leader in the fi eld. In early 2007, the Jewish Coalition for Service launched JSoN, a social networking site for alumni of Jewish service learning programs.
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