With the weather turning wintery in Israel over the last few days – and more promised for this week – I wanted to tell you about a great service you may not know about. Dr. Barry Lynn’s Weather It Is is a weather forecasting service that gives a specific forecast for dozens of cities in Israel, usually much more accurate than the forecast you get on radio or TV.

I interviewed Dr. Lynn for the Jpost a few years ago, and he told me that the standard “one size fits all” weather forecast issued by the Israel Weather Service is the result of bad equipment, small budgets, and poor motivation (as in small salaries). The one perk the forecasters doget, it appears, is fame – the one on duty during prime radio hours gets to jabber with the hosts a little bit, but beyond that there’s little to attract talented meteorologists to a government job, he said.

By the way – weather forecasters do a lot more than just tell you whether you should take an umbrella when you leave the house. As I wrote then:

…improved and more accurate weather prediction could be a boon for many industries that need to wrestle the environmental elements in order to get work done. Take an electric company crew that needs to do major line work, for example. These guys get paid a huge hunk of change for field work, and if the company sends them out on a job, while they sit in the truck instead of working because a surprise electrical storm has made it too dangerous to work, the company – and, of course, its customers – end up footing that bill. An accurate weather prediction for the specific area in question is valuable information for the utility, says Dr. Lynn, and they’ll pay – as will oil and gas drillers, farmers, airports and a host of other industries and services.

When I spoke to Dr. Lynn, he mentioned that he was involved in forming some deals, and indeed he now has a general website where he advertises his services, and it appears he’s “weathering” the recssion. Meanwhile, he updates his Israel site on a regular basis. It’s interesting to see what the differences in weather are in various places in Israel during stormy times like these!

Not to take away anything from Microsoft on its big day – everyone seems to love Windows 7 – but $179 for an upgrade? I mean, you don’t have Vista, right? You’re going to be upgrading directly from XP, which means you’re going to have to pay the upgrade fee, if you want the upgrade.

From what I read, MS doesn’t expect that much upgrade business from upgraders anyway; the bulk of Win7 users will get their first taste of the OS when they buy new desktops and laptops, where the cost of the system will be absorbed into the price of the computer. Of course, Microsoft will still be getting its $179 (or whatever they are charging for the OEM version of Win7).

Why do software companies issue new versions of their programs – or operating systems? Well, there are incremental improvements, security upgrades, and compatibility with new hardware. But honestly, all that could be accomplished in the context of an existing OS, via patches (a concept MS is certainly familiar with). But then they wouldn’t be able to collect $179 from users, would they?

So we know why the OS distributor sends out upgrades. But if the system works on your computer, why would YOU want to upgrade? As good as Windows 7 is, the “upgrade 1.0” rule – as in, don’t be the first on your block to install something brand new – still applies. And even if you install something tried and true, it takes weeks – many months – to get things working the way you want. So, if Microsoft XP works, why not just stick with it?

Well, because MS won’t let you; eventually, you have to upgrade, because they are going to stop issuing updates and patches for the “old” OS. I still have a machine that runs Windows 2000 – and which I have no intention of upgrading – but other than security patches, MS has stopped issuing performance upgrades long ago. The same thing is going to happen with XP – despite the fact that if you took a poll, I am sure the majority of people would rather stick with what they know.

But what if you could upgrade XP indefinitely – if you could ensure that it was up to day in fighting viruses, and was able to support new hardware as it came out? Under those circumstances, you could probably save yourself $179 – and a lot of hassle, too!

Unfortunately, there’s little you can do to prevent MS from phasing out XP. But if you like the way XP works and you want to keep it’s “look and feel” – and you don’t mind investing twenty five bucks – you might be interested in the very XP-like operating system made by an Israeli company with the unlikely name of “Affordy” (as in, “here’s a version of ‘Windows’ you can afford!)

Affordy’s Titan LEV (Linux Extended Version) looks and feels a lot like Windows XP, runs Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, and many other Windows programs you’re familiar with, and can even run MS Office – but it’s not Windows. It’s a souped-up version of Ubuntu Linux, built specifically to make Linux palatable for Windows users. The difference between “real” XP and Affordy XP is that the Affordy people will be maintaining their OS, issuing upgrades and integrating programs into the OS, making it a “living thing,” unlike the case with Microsoft’s now-defunct OS.

The programs, by the way, are mostly open-source, but come pre-installed with the OS. The whole thing is “XP Compatible” – meaning, according to the company, that you can receive and edit a file from Windows or send a file to a Windows based PC, print onto a network printer connected to a Windows PC, and operate Windows and DOS programs.

According to Israel-based Affordy, the hassle of tracking down and figuring out how to install applications that work the way Windows users are accustomed to has been one of the major reasons why Linux hasn’t really taken off among consumers, among other reasons. “ Users who were used to a certain application could not find a suitable Linux replacement.  There are about 23,000 open source programs.  Finding and installing the right program takes time, expertise and experience,” the site says. You can even buy a laptop or desktop from these folks (including the super-cheap Coby netbook pictured below) with the Titan OS preinstalled – or just buy the OS on disc for about $25. Last I checked, that was $154 less than $179 – not a sum to be sneezed at in today’s economy!

Once again, Israel is left out in the cold. The 100 countries that Amazon will be selling its new international version of the Kindle to does not include Israel. If you’re willing to go to Cyprus, though, they’ll be happy to sell you one. But you still won’t get all the content of the American version.

The Kindle, of course, is Amazon’s nifty e-book reader that lets you buy and download books, magazines, newspapers etc. directly from the Amazon bookstore to your Kindle device. Beginning October 19, an Amazon statement says, the “Amazon Kindle is now for sale to customers in more than 100 countries…’We have millions of customers in countries all over the world who read English-language books,’ said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Founder and CEO.  ‘Kindle enables these customers to think of a book and download it wirelessly in less than 60 seconds.’”

Why not Israel? We’ll get to that a little later. First, though, I have to give props to Amazon as one of the few U.S. online stores willing to take Israeli credit cards. If you’ve ever tried to order anything using an Israeli card from any department store site, Wal-Mart, Buy.com, and a slew of others, you’ve felt the burning shame of rejection. Not at Amazon, though, which is open-minded enough to take the money you’re offering them for whatever it is they’re selling. They’ll even ship many (but certainly not all) items to Israel. But you can order anything with your Israeli credit card and ship to a U.S. address (if you don’t have one, try http://www.mustop.co.il/).

So you’d think that Israel, with its large community of English language speakers and readers, would be a natural for the Kindle. But not so fast; digital rights aren’t the same as “traditional” rights, as far as purchasers and suppliers are concerned. Just like you can’t buy music from the iTunes store if you’re doing it in Israel (you can’t even download the free music on the iTunes site!), you can’t buy MP3s from Amazon. But, you can order any CD you want and have it shipped here. Why? Because of fears of piracy, many music publishers fear selling outside the U.S., where DRM laws may be more lax.

That’s understandable. But the story with Kindle is somewhat different. Although e-books (and Kindle books) can be pirated, anyone downloading them directly to the device must be registered with Amazon, and the device must be registered as well. Of course, you can easily load stolen e-books (in .txt format) on a Kindle, but you could do that anyway, with a Kindle or any other e-book reader, or even on your computer. In other words, it’s not the Kindle sales model that is the problem here; that’s rock solid, and there would be no reason for publishers to fear piracy using the Kindle download model. Besides, most pirates aren’t going to bother to spend $300 for the Kindle anyway, when there are far cheaper alternatives for reading e-books (like on your cellphone).

So what’s the issue? I got a hint from a New York Times article on the story, where the author writes the following: “One challenge for publishers is navigating complex foreign rights issues: Books are often published by different companies and bear different prices in each country.” In other words, there are pre-existing agreements between distributors of books for publishers, and those distributors will want a piece of the action.

In Israel, the chief distributor of English language books is Steimatzky. A few years ago, you may recall,  a mini-scandal erupted when an importer began buying best-selling books in the U.S. at wholesale prices and shipping them to Israel – and was still able to sell the books at significantly lower prices than Steimatzky did. And Steimatzky screamed bloody murder, threatened to sue – and, pulling out its trump card, threatened to withhold sales from stores that bought books from this importer (an act that would be illegal in lots of places). All this, because they had more or less cornered the market on book imports, and weren’t willing to share. You can witness for yourself the power of Steimatzky’s near monopoly by taking a ride to the Bnei Brak Industrial Zone (near the Ayalon Mall), where you will see one of the biggest warehouses of any type in Israel – bearing the name Steimatzky. Is that the reason Amazon won’t/can’t sell the Kindle here? I can’t say, as I don’t have any inside info. But is Steimatzky likely to ask for a piece of the action? I wouldn’t be surprised.

One of the great things about a smartphone is the ability it gives you to connect to the wider world – through its data connection. And now, with relatively fast 3G internet networks, you can really hook into lots of great services. While the iPhone usually gets most of the glory, plain old Symbian or Windows devices can do most of us just fine.

For instance, I like having the option of hooking up internet phone calls on my cellphone using Skype. Skype has an application, called Skype Lite, which lets Java phone users dial into Skype via a regular cell phone call, with the call forwarded from the local connection to your Skype contact anywhere in the world. That’s a great way to save on international phone calls, but if you want to avoid the phone call charge itself, you can make a free Skype call using your smartphone, if you’re using a wifi connection. What if there’s no wifi? A smartphone lets you easily switch between the different connection options, such as WAP or 3G.

My Nokia 5800 phone is a Symbian device, and as of now Skype doesn’t have a native application for Symbians. So, I use an app called Nimbuzz, which very neatly lets you connect with your Skype account and call your contacts – as well as your the contacts in your phone book (I used Fring for awhile, but found Nimbuzz to be much neater in its approach).

Other notable apps that let you hook up with the rest of the world: Qik, a great app that lets you broadcast (via e-mail, Twitter and Facebook) whatever is happening around your phone live to the rest of the world; vTap, a video sharing site for mobiles; and Waze (http://www.waze.co.il or http://www.waze.com), which uses your phone’s GPS settings to determine where you are, and informs you of traffic problems or speed traps in your area.

As I wrote in the Jerusalem Post, you can connect to services like these via wifi, or 3G. But when using cellular internet, you are being charged by the kilobyte for all data you transfer on the network. For Orange customers, for example, the basic surfing package gives you almost unlimited surfing within the Orange site network, but once you try and connect to the rest of the world, you find that the 30 MB in data transfer you get with the basic NIS 21 package just isn’t enough.

Unfortunately, the concept of unlimited data connection is unknown in Israel, unlike in the rest of the world. On the other hand, the commensurate cost of the data connection is cheaper, because you get to choose from one of four data connection packages, so you can decide how much or how little you want to spend. Fortunately for me, I’m able to do a lot of my work in wifi-friendly environments, so I use my phone’s wifi connection to connect to most of the cool services I use. But having that 3G backup “insurance policy” is essential; for example, I was able to use soft modem Joikuspot to get my work done while helping my wife keep vigil recently at the hospital for a sick relative.

Having already received a warning that I was running out of allocated data time, I decided to upgrade from the 30 MB to the 150 MB package, which costs NIS 41 a month (to fund it, I dropped the GPS, which was NIS 21 a month, so my bill is essentially the same). The next package in the series, 5GB of data connection time, should put paid to any concerns I would have about going over the transfer limit; but that package is NIS 81 a month.

Since I don’t want to pay any more on my monthly bill than I already do, I didn’t upgrade to the 5GB plan – but if I could drop another NIS 40 in existing services that I don’t need as much, I would. Unfortunately, since most of my bill consists of set charges (for minutes and SMS usage), there’s almost nothing I can cut out without going to a different call package. But if I could shave off some of that cost – maybe take a package that doesn’t include 200 free SMS messages (I don’t use nearly that many), I could cut down the talk package and apply that money to the data package.

So here’s what I’m planning to do: I’d like to call Orange and figure out what the absolute cheapest package they offer is, and figure out whether signing up for that, along with the 5 GB data package (or even the 20 GB package, for NIS 80), comes out cheaper. My wife, for example, pays a basic charge of NIS 8.57 per month, and then by the minute (about 60 agurot). Which sounds expensive, and would be if I used it to talk the 200 plus minutes a month I usually use my cellphone. But – what if I were to make all my calls using Nimbuzz/Skype? I’d still have to pay SkypeOut minutes if I call non-Skype customers, but maybe that would be cheaper than paying for the cell phone minutes.

And even if it cost the same (I suspect it would), I would have the greater flexibility of being able to use the data package anyway I wanted, which is much more efficient than having services I don’t really need or want (extra SMS messages, which Orange is always giving away for free anyway – their latest promo was 1,000 free messages in honor of Ramadan!). With 5GB (or 20GB!) of data connection, I wouldn’t even have to use Skype; I could contact everyone directly on Facebook, Messenger, or e-mail, with actual talking over Skype taking place only when necessary (how many times do we just need to convey information, as opposed to getting into a conversation, when calling colleagues, customers, etc.? That’s why SMS messages are so popular!). If nothing else, this would be a cool topic to write about. I figure I could get three columns out of it!

Remember the startup contest, Exit’09? The one where the winner gets – would you believe it – a package worth $250,000? Well, we have a winner!

If you will recall (and if you don’t, the original article is here), Exit’09 was a contest to decide what Israel’s most promising startup was. Applicants submitted ideas, videos, and details to the judges, who decided whether or not they qualified for the contest; those that did survived by getting people to vote for them, with the top winners each week advancing to the finals. Eventually, there were only two companies left, and they participated in a “Big Brother” style internet broadcast, with web viewers able to watch them put together their final presentations, which the judges would then decide between, declaring one a winner.

And the winner? While you’d expect the people (and the judges’) choice to be a really sophisticated new web service, or groundbreaking piece of software, the idea that got the prize belongs to Penina First, a young lady from the town of Givat Ze’ev, who wants to organize an SMS alert system for odd job seekers and the people who need them to run errands.

Penina foresees a site called Day-Job (doesn’t seem to be in existence yet), where people looking for someone to do a short task – say, babysitting, filling in for an absent waiter or secretary, someone to do some housework, etc. – can search out a worker and hire them. Candidates who are members of the service get an SMS, and the first one to respond gets the job.

First says that the system is perfect for students, soldiers, etc., who can’t commit to a regular work schedule, but want to earn some extra money. Her sympathies are with the workers (she’s clearly “been there”), so all fees are collected from the employers – who are asked to pay a modest sum of seven shekels, collected by reverse SMS when they close the deal to hire someone.

It’s really an ingeniously simple idea – so much so you would have thought it already existed. But it doesn’t! Even more – the idea is genuinely Israeli. I read somewhere that Tel Aviv is one of the best cities for temping and odd jobs. Meaning that First’s idea is bound to be a winner. Good choice, Exit’09 judges!

In my Jpost article today, I talked about the alternatives to Israeli phone ex-monopoly Bezeq. While only Bezeq can still offer traditional PSTN phone service, a host of challengers have arisen to provide consumers with broadband-based home phone services, usually on a POP (pay one price, like at Great Adventure) basis. Until customers can connect to the internet at more than the current 8mb/s (most people here have 5mb/s or less), I wrote that transferring for your home phone service to the internet – which for various reasons is dicey enough in Israel (the infrastructure sometimes hems and haws) – might not be such a good idea, at least until Bezeq’s NGN fast data transfer infrastructure (reputed to provide up to 50mb/s capabilities) reaches your neighborhood. And the truth is, Bezeq’s prices and service aren’t all that terrible.

Now. Now they’re not so terrible. As one reader commented on the Jpost site, Bezeq’s prices and service aren’t so terrible now because the company has five competitors breathing down its neck, who are actually having an impact on its customer base. For me, with a network of five or six home computers that are always on and active, downloading, processing, or presenting and playing this or that, adding internet-based home phone service would be just another strain on the system (I’ve been down that road anyway, with both Skype – which usually behaves, but sometimes doesn’t – and a dedicated softphone, complete with VoIP box). But for  any folks who aren’t heavy web surfers, saving 50 or 100 shekels a month on their phone bills by switching away from Bezeq. Many are doing so. It makes lots of sense – and can be a very satisfying experience.

That’s because everybody has their “Bezeq story.” You can’t really blame them for the crappy service in the “old days,” before 1984, when the culprit was the government-controlled Ministry of Communications. But you can blame them for the crappy service after 1984, when the Ministry spun-off Bezeq into a separate – but still government-controlled – enterprise.

Even just a few years ago, on the eve of its becoming a private company, Bezeq was still mired in its old ways. Example: You have been able to pay your Bezeq bill by credit card anytime, day or night, over an automated system for nearly a decade. You call their service number (199), press some buttons, and input your credit card number using your keypad. The process is pretty efficient – now. Until about a year and a half or so ago, however, it was much easier to call during business hours and get a real person; that virtual cashier would go on and on for eons, making you repeat input, checking and rechecking things.

Perhaps they planned the system like that for uptight Israelis who expect to be given a hard time by the people they pay for services, but what should have been an easy input-based bill paying exercise turned out to require your full attention for as long as ten minutes! Note that this situation prevailed even during a substantial period when Bezeq was a private company. They’ve cleaned up the input manager now, and it now takes about three minutes to go through the process of changing things.

But that’s not my Bezeq story – instead, this is it: About seven years ago (2002) I was getting ready to leave with my wife and kids for a family trip to U.S. relatives. The flight was to leave quite early, I remember, and we were up long before dawn making last minute preparations. Then it hit me – I forgot to pay the phone bill, which was already overdue by a couple of days! But where was the bill? Already edging on towards late and trying to take care of a plethora of last minute details, I search and searched, but couldn’t find the bill.

When you call Bezeq from your home phone, the computer identifies your phone number and account  – and that feature was active in the 2002 version of the Bezeq online payment system. So no problem, right? You don’t really need a bill; call the automatic payment system, let it identify your account  via your phone number, let it tell you how much you owe, and pay.

That’s the way you would expect it to work – but not at Bezeq circa 2002. While the system could identify who you were, it couldn’t tell you how much you owed! You had to have the bill in front of you in order to input the full – exact, down to the agora – you were supposed to pay. What if you didn’t have the bill, or wanted to pay in advance? Could you, before, say, going out of town and having lost your bill, input a clearly inflated sum like NIS 500 (instead of the NIS 200 the bill usually was), and let them hold it for you on account?

You could try – as I did – and be told that the payment had been recorded in the system. And you would go on your merry way, confident that Mamale Bell was watching out for you. And you wouldn’t even realize you had a problem until you sauntered back home three weeks later and picked up the phone – and heard nothing!

Why nothing? Because Bezeq had cut off your service. And why had they cut off your service? Because you didn’t pay your bill. But Ms. Bezeq lady, you beg, I lost the bill and input much MORE than I owed, so you would get your money! It’s just not fair! To which the Bezeq lady would reply, in more or less words, “tough.” To get your service back, you had to pay your bill PLUS a cutoff fee, EVEN THOUGH your payment was seemingly accepted at the time of payment by the system!

And you, left holding the bag, seethe with rage. And you tell the Bezeq lady, “All right for you. But one day the government is going to allow competition, and on the first day they do, I am dumping you for anyone else that can offer home phone service, even if they charge more money than you!”

So much for dreams of sweet revenge. Nowadays, it would seem that the revolution is over, that Bezeq has joined the family of humanity and positive human relations. But people like us remember – and our day will come yet!

I’ve fallen behind on my blogging schedule of late. I was in the U.S. for most of August, and you know how that is – hanging out with the kids, running around to the stores, etc. Visiting the family is wonderful, but it’s no vacation!

I was all set to get back into the swing of things, when the almost unbelievable happened – my wife’s sister, Abigail Radoszkowicz, passed away, at the age of 53. Abigail was the editor of the Op-Ed page of the Jerusalem Post, which wrote a lengthy and emotional obituary for her. I’ve made a web page with the obit, plus letters and e-mail messages that the writers Abigail worked with sent to the Jpost in response to the tragedy. People who visited my wife as she sat shiva said they couldn’t recall ever reading an obit with such emotion and sadness. She was clearly loved by her colleagues – and yet, she was always sure she was going to be “the next one” to be fired!

She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer only in the middle of July – barely six weeks before she died. It was a very aggressive cancer, that spread to the liver and kidneys, until her body basically broke down on the Thursday (Sept. 3) that she passed away. She died very late Thursday night, and her husband, trying to arrange for a funeral for the next day, was told that there was no room in Jerusalem’s main cemetery, Har Hamenuchot – so she was sent to Har Hazeitim (Mt. of Olives), usually reserved for only the most righteous. While to look at her you wouldn’t think she was one of the “hidden tzaddikim,” apparently G-d knew better – and He arranged for her to be buried in a place worthy of her.

There’s lots I can say about Abigail – as a journalist, a sister in law, and a family member (the latter two are not necessarily the same, as most of us know). She was an intellectual who didn’t flaunt her knowledge, a cultured person who didn’t look down at the “masses,” and a religious (almost Chareidi) mother who encouraged her kids to explore the world. Abigail got me my start in the Jpost many years ago, where she got me an interview with the head of the ads department – from where I moved into systems administration, and finally writing. It’s only now, after the week of the shiva, that the loss is sinking in.

To read the obit (if you missed it in the Jpost), and the letters to the editor, please click on http://abigail.cyberjew.net/

As an almost certified paranoiac, I haven’t been posting for that last three and a half weeks – the exact amount of time I was away with the family in the U.S. I didn’t want to write anything that would give away the fact that I was out of town (and that the house was for the most part empty) like this guy did, giving crooks a green light for their home invasion. You could probably find out my address, if you googled hard enough! Note to all potential thieves: We’re home now, so don’t bother coming around!

What did I bring back from the States, you ask? Plenty: Lots of “stuff,” but even more stories, not all of them happy. Most people who live in Israel and go to the U.S. buy stuff, because it’s often cheaper there, and they have more of a variety. For example: I picked up a nice flat screen TV for the bedroom, only $285 at Wal-mart (which I should have returned, because I saw it a week later at Costco for $225!). We got a bunch of other stuff too, lots of it from the Dollar Store (and Kohl’s, which had some great sales!)

But the stories – those weren’t as much fun as the shopping. Many of the stories had to do with trying to get some help with products and services, and getting pushed around by phone correspondents who were clearly from someplace outside the U.S., who could do nothing more than read a script (usually in very poorly accented English, I might add). I alluded to one of these situations in a JPost article; I was trying to get Verizon, the service provider for my parents’ DSL internet connection, to fix a connection issue.

For a week I was bounced around the world, speaking to phone attendants in India and Mexico, for the most part, who had no answers for me, and no interest in getting my problem solved. As I wrote, these people, from a third world background, have more serious survival issues to deal with than fixing my connection in time to allow me to attend my videoconferencing meetings. And of course, with each subsequent phone call, my tone got louder and louder. You could just picture the phone attendant pulling out her “angry customer script,” reading back the responses she was supposed to give when the customer starts yelling (I bet that script gets a lot of use!). Finally, I managed to get through to someone in the American call center, and the problem was resolved a day and a half later.

Verizon was far from the only runaround I was subjected to – I had “incidents” with several cell phone service providers, and even the customer service in some stores wasn’t up to par. I could even swear that 7-11 was using an inferior grade of coffee – it just wasn’t that good! Not to mention the much higher prices everywhere. Eleven bucks to cross a stupid bridge (the Verrazano)? Fuhgeddaboutit!

As I wrote in the Post, Hebrew has apparently saved Israel from the scourge of outsourcing. It’s unlikely that workers in India or other outsourcing centers are going to bother to learn Hebrew in order to serve the local market, so we’re unlikely to be subjected to the scourges resulting from dealing with uncaring foreigners half a world away. Instead, we’re subjected to the scourges of dealing with uncaring Israelis a half kilometer away! But it’s not the same; you have a common cultural basis which you can pull out of your pocket when you deal with a local person (we’ve all had some experience in this, like the secretary who takes pity on you because she knows you’re getting the kids ready for Shabbat).

Ironically, as a reader reminded me, Israel has a significant outsourcing operation as well; although much less active here now, New Jersey-based IDT runs dozens of call centers here in Israel. But the Israeli call centers are far different than the Indian ones, because here the centers recruit from among American immigrants – so when a caller reaches an Israeli center, they really are talking to someone with whom they can identify, and who can identify with them. Based on my frustrating experiences with call center people over the past few weeks, that identification apparently counts for a lot more than we realize.

If you ever wondered where new internet ideas come from – they come from places like the minds of the people who entered the Exit ‘09 contest. The contest, sponsored by a slew of Israeli companies (chief among them Israeli development house Sergata) is open to anyone with a good idea – and if the idea is good enough to get into the contest, they could win a “startup package” worth $250,000 (including $100,000 in cash)! Even better – the format of the contest is a sort of “reality TV” show, where fans of startup ideas can vote for their favorites, with a panel of judges (top people from Google Israel, IBM, The Marker, and others) picking the winner.

Most of the 26 contestants put up a video on the Exit ‘09 site describing their idea or technology. I wrote about the contest in a Jerusalem Post article (which you can see here), but here I wanted to say something about the videos (ie, the ideas) – which got me thinking about the whole business of “innovation.”

There were a couple of really original ideas – one entrepreneur wants to put up a site where people who wear hearing aids can adjust them using a website, another plans a “pet interface” site for dogs and cats who are at home all day alone (they can communicate with their masters, or even with other pets!). Another site would provide a “virtual shrink” for counseling and coaching.

But many of the other ideas seemed to be very similar to already existing web sites and services. So, if the contest was based on “innovation” – having a really good, different idea – many of the contenders wouldn’t have qualified to be in the contest, based on what I could see.

But modern “innovation” – the kind that makes you hundreds of millions on the internet – isn’t necessarily just about having a unique idea. It can be about having a unique twist on an existing idea. It’s about the packaging, the marketing, the way you convince people to use it – the way YOU see it being used. You can take an existing idea and tweak it, turning it into something big – much bigger than the original idea you were tweaking. That’s really all you need!

Believe it or not, one of the biggest “breakthrough ideas” of the internet era – distributing music over a network – is actually a century old! The Tel-Musici Company of Wilmington, Delaware, was, according to this article, streaming music directly to users’ homes in 1909 – via the telephone! Customers would call Tel-Musici and order a selection, and for three cents (seven cents for lengthy operas), the company would stream music to the customer’s phonograph, via a special transmitter connecting the phone and the phonograph that “intensifies and enlarges the volume of sound of all phonographic records but eliminates the metallic, rasping and grating features which have heretofore constituted an objectionable feature of phonographic concerts.”

I couldn’t find any references on whether Napster inventor Shawn Fanning was aware of Tel-Musici, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he was. And there are lots of other examples of successful programs that conquered the market from less well-marketed previous offerings.

In other words, to succeed in the internet business, you don’t necessarily even need an original idea! And one thing I get from watching the videos on the Exit ‘09 site is that you don’t necessarily need much technical knowledge either (many of the presenters say straight out that they don’t have a technical background). And in fact, the premise of Exit ‘09 is that the winning idea gets lots of help from the dozen or so companies offering programming, marketing, and branding help. All that gets outsourced to the service providers. In other words, the only thing you have to bring to the table is the “tweak” – the little twist that will put even an already existing idea into a new light. Exit ‘09 proves it (and a number of friends of mine who began successful startups prove it too).

Wow! It that’s all it takes, what’s stopping us from raking in the bucks?!?

I’m always on the outlook for cheap cellphones, considering how much I (and my wife and three teenagers who have lost a coule over the years) depend on them. But I got tired of getting ripped off by Orange, Pelephone, et al, not so much for the service, but for the old phones they try to pawn off on us, selling them for twice the price they retail for when new! As I wrote a couple of years ago, all you had to do was compare the web stores for the Israeli phone companies where they list the prices for their devices, and compare them to the prices you can buy them for unlocked on Amazon.

I even proved that it could pay for Israelis to order the phone; even after you pay the customs and the sales tax and shipping, the “full price” devices the Israeli companies are selling can be had from sites like Amazon for a third of the price! And when it comes to the “kosher” phones they market to the Chareid public, the Israeli cellphone companies outdo themselves; for their “mehadrin” lines, they take TEN year old analog phones (probably purchased for 2 cents on the dollar!) and sell them for even MORE than they charge for the latest 3G phones!

So, I took a conscious decision a couple of years ago – never again would I buy a phone from Orange (with whom I currently have my account). Instead, I order unlocked tri- or quad-band GSM phones from Amazon, to be brought back either by me or by friends. Comparing the prices, it made sense.

And, I was about to do the same thing this year, too. Finding myself in need of a cellphone, I checked out my favorite department on Amazon, and found that they were selling the wonderful Nokia 5800 MusicExpress for $299 – a bargain, considering its capabilities. Nokia fans had been touting this model as an “iPhone killer” (a title that now seems to have transferred to the N97), because it has a touch screen, plus all sorts of extra features even the iPhone 3G doesn’t have (video recording, expandable storage, and as many Symbian apps as the iPhone has for its platform).

Somehow, though, this week I found myself in an Orange store – where I saw their latest ads for the latest “deals” they were offering. Like a dog that’s been whipped one too many times, I of course looked the other way – but the salesperson was available and I had to wait around for something anyway. One of the deals showed a tiered pricing system on some devices – like, if you speak a certain number of minutes a month, you pay less for the device. Maybe there was a deal to be had. Who knew?

So I asked. I explained to the salesperson what my strategy was, and how I was going to save a ton of money buying a top of the line, relatively new phone directly and unlocked. He checked his computer and told me, “well, you speak about 200 minutes a month and pay X amount per month on that phone. So you’re a good candidate for a deal.” Yeah, but how good?

“How about this: I’ll give you the Nokia for 499, and a package for 18 months that will give you 200 minutes, 200 SMS messages,  3G internet (the device has wifi too), and I’ll even throw in two months of GPS free.” 499!?! But I told him I was paying 299.

It took me a couple of seconds (yes, I can be “slow”), but then it hit me. This is Israel! And he’s offering me a $299 phone for NIS 499 (in six interest-free payments) – which is about $140 at current exchange rates! Not to mention the 35% I am now saving on my actual phone use! And, to top it off, he threw four Orange painter caps into the bag with the phone (and we all know that we die for the cute “freebies” the cellphone companies give out!).

I’ve been checking the phone out, and it seems to work. I’ve also been searching all over for a “refurbished” sticker and I can’t find one. I mean, there must be a catch! Why would Orange be selling this phone so cheap (of course, they should really be giving these things away, like companies in the rest of the world do). The only issue I could find is that phones manufactured before February 2009 may have an issue with the earpiece getting loose. I haven’t been able to determine the manufacture date of this unit (logic would say that these discounted phones are leftover stock that had problems, but equal logic would say that it’s unlikely Orange or any retailer would have had such a large stock of phones left over from more than six months ago). However, if this is one of the problem phones, I’ve got a one year manufacturer’s warranty, so I’m covered there. Still scratching my head, though – what’s come over Orange to make them so “generous?”

(P.S.: This happy occurence does not make me more optimistic about the pricing structure for the iPhone when it finally comes out in Israel. I explain why here).