Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA)

Mondo Times editors    Boulder, Colorado USA

Posted at 11:00am on Saturday, August 29th, 2009

Cooperation and consolidation are needed on the "Jewish Web," Mark Pearlman argued at the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) on August 28, 2009:

"“The Internet will save you!” seems to be the refrain these days when it comes to the American Jewish media. But while many Jewish newspapers have grabbed for this lifeline, the process has been hectic and uncoordinated. We may be trying to save ourselves, but right now we’re floating around in private digital lifeboats, bailing water for dear life.

Where has this strategy gotten us? Where do we go from here?

To answer those questions, my company 4Wall, in conjunction with its Jewish initiative JInsider, recently released a report titled “The Jewish Internet Metric Study,” which takes a business-oriented, top-level look at the Jewish Web. With this “McKinsey-style” analysis, the community can fully understand the business issues, the competitive situation, and the hurdles and opportunities for sustainability on the Web. The report offers a basis for productive discussion on what individual or cooperative strategy might be considered.

The full report, which also includes analysis of Jewish educational and religious sites, and Jewish search terms, is available online at www.jinsiderblog.com/JIM.zip.

The problem for the American Jewish media is not quality of content -- it’s scale and coordination. Just compare traffic and engagement patterns between several major Jewish news Web sites in the United States (JTA, The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, The New York Jewish Week, Forward, Jewish Exponent and The Jewish Press) and the most popular English-language sites of Israeli newspapers (Ha’aretz and The Jerusalem Post)."

The full story:
http://jta.org/news/article/2009/08/28/1007518/op-ed-cooperation-and-consolidation-needed-on-jewish-web