Israel WordCamp 2014
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| WordCamp Israel 2014 (5/27/2014) a view from the back, small room (c) Ami Vider 2014 |
For the first time in a few years WordCamp Israel came back to Tel Aviv. The excitement of "Hebrew WordPress" and "Israelis are blogging" has faded. What blogging was ten years ago in the US, was hot here seven to five years ago. The new development is fresh energy of individuals keeping Israel on the WordPress map. From all the talks, the one by Woo Themes representative Joel Bronkowski telling the story of success with WooCommerce (a free plug-in) was the best one. Other talks on large sites, examples of work, and security issues and solutions also kept the crowd excited. The one new development in the open source and technology community in Israel is: GOOGLE! Not the company products in Hebrew or the work done by start-ups both in support and as part of the big American company, but the actual Google "Campus" a location which hosts local technology events (sometimes for free).
WordPress and blogging seems to be taking a little longer to become as standard (staple) publishing platform in Hebrew. At least this is the perception one gets from hearing the growth of the platform in other markets (mostly in English, but also in Europe and Africa). There are a few differences between the global English publication market and the local Hebrew one. One of the most prominent difference is how Hebrew is written and read. It is not a language which is shared by many cultures around the globe. While modern Hebrew is fairly simple to learn, very few have interest in the writing beyond the local readers. In addition, most literature and current event writing in English and many prominent languages (Spanish, French, Russian, German, and even Japanese) is translated quickly to Hebrew. Israelis are also well read in English. Many also speak or at least read an additional language: Russian, Arabic, and French, being the most popular. All these, simply make Hebrew useful in certain areas, and these seem to be well supported by competing internet applications: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google (applications and GMail), and just about every other popular publication like newspapers and government portals. Finally, WordPress is turning out to be highly dependent on plugins and themes. This is where the action really seem to be these days. But the right-to-left writing and limited (i.e. specially designed and not always free) fonts, are not always supported across the board. This makes Hebrew only sites a bit more difficult to get started quickly. In the multilingual cases, themes and fonts are even more difficult to manage. A small Israeli managed company, On The Go Systems, is making this job a little easier with WPML plugin. Eyal Kaufman, the company's CEO also presented their product. The only catch here, is the price. This plugin is not free.
My experience with the Israeli WordPress community has been wonderful. Although I generally work in English, my experience has been mixed with multilingual sites. In general, Israelis are quick to understand and use WordPress. While hosting locally is useful for businesses which mostly write for Israeli audience, many choose to use a hosting service with locations in other places (i.e. US or Europe).
WordPress and blogging seems to be taking a little longer to become as standard (staple) publishing platform in Hebrew. At least this is the perception one gets from hearing the growth of the platform in other markets (mostly in English, but also in Europe and Africa). There are a few differences between the global English publication market and the local Hebrew one. One of the most prominent difference is how Hebrew is written and read. It is not a language which is shared by many cultures around the globe. While modern Hebrew is fairly simple to learn, very few have interest in the writing beyond the local readers. In addition, most literature and current event writing in English and many prominent languages (Spanish, French, Russian, German, and even Japanese) is translated quickly to Hebrew. Israelis are also well read in English. Many also speak or at least read an additional language: Russian, Arabic, and French, being the most popular. All these, simply make Hebrew useful in certain areas, and these seem to be well supported by competing internet applications: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google (applications and GMail), and just about every other popular publication like newspapers and government portals. Finally, WordPress is turning out to be highly dependent on plugins and themes. This is where the action really seem to be these days. But the right-to-left writing and limited (i.e. specially designed and not always free) fonts, are not always supported across the board. This makes Hebrew only sites a bit more difficult to get started quickly. In the multilingual cases, themes and fonts are even more difficult to manage. A small Israeli managed company, On The Go Systems, is making this job a little easier with WPML plugin. Eyal Kaufman, the company's CEO also presented their product. The only catch here, is the price. This plugin is not free.
My experience with the Israeli WordPress community has been wonderful. Although I generally work in English, my experience has been mixed with multilingual sites. In general, Israelis are quick to understand and use WordPress. While hosting locally is useful for businesses which mostly write for Israeli audience, many choose to use a hosting service with locations in other places (i.e. US or Europe).
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