The headline of this week’s Economist cover is “Israel’s wasted victory“. 40 years after the Six Days War, the magazine analyzes the history and gives his amazing, new and brilliant conclusion: Israel has wasted the victory. Can something be more obvious than that? Since Israel’s great victory on Egypt, Jordan and Syria, there is a peace agreement with 2 of them. But the main conflict, with the Palestinians, is under fire even in these moments.

During those 40 years, Israel had developed in every aspect. The country is definitely the region’s leader in terms of economy, technology and military. But in the eyes of the Israelis, or more important - the Israeli leadership, it is still a small country, with a lot of enemies around, like in the days before the war. Only if Israel will give up this perception, there is hope for real peace. Only if the leaders will understand that Israel is the strong part of this conflict, the part that has the power to give up without being weak, there is a hope for a new spirit in the middle east.

What’s really amazing is that even with this conflict, Israel had become a technology leader with a great economy. Just imagine what the future can hold if peace will finally come.

k.

kobi marenko

As of today’s Nielsen net-rating results, 55.2% of the searches are done by Google. Last week Google announced they are testing a new interface for showing the search results. In other words – they want to change the way we view the world. After all, every change in Google reflects on hundreds of million people in the world.

Last week we found out that Google is working on a new way to introduce commercials in Video. We learned that they don’t sell advertising in YouTube for new customers. Only those who already bought their media in the past, can buy from Google today. From what we’ve found out, it looks like the model won’t include pre-roll video advertisements.

The video advertising in the internet still haven’t taken off. The advertising world is waiting for the new Google model that will show us the way.

k.

If you are lost on your way to the web 2.0 companies world, have a look at this map:

The proportions are not really accurate, but it still gives you the basic concept of the world we are living in today. Just think that most of these companies didn’t even exist 3 years ago…

k.

I’ve Just got pictures from the Israeli innovation summit panel which I led last month. I must share my feelings with you: Israel is an amazing entrepreneur country. Yesterday morning I woke up early and went to buy some buns in the grocery store. Someone there tried to convince the owner of the store to distribute its cleaning materials, using new technology that makes them more efficient and cheaper than the branded ones. And I thought – what is the special ingredient in the Israeli atmosphere that makes everybody entrepreneur? I hope that the Olmert’s administration, as well as all the other politic issues, won’t hurt this special thing.

k.

As published this weekend, Microsoft is interested in buying Yahoo! for 50B$ and merge the companies’ internet business.

Yahoo! was the leading internet company of the world and Microsoft was the leading software company of the world. Now, Google is already the largest internet company of the world, and with the new free tools they have been launching in the last few months, they are also becoming the leading free software manufactures of the world. Not to mention buying Double Click, which makes them the largest online advertising agency in the world as well.

So what good will come out of this merging? Will two wrongs actually make a right? I can hardly see it happens. Both Yahoo! and Microsoft are tired, without entrepreneur spirit. Together, they will deal greatly with the merger, control and internal politics instead of focusing on the real thing they should deal with: how to fight Google.

k.