This year’s TWS conference will take place on October 18th in Tel Aviv. As one of Israel’s biggest Internet and mobile events, TWS 2010, organized by Yaron Orenstein from the co.ils, provides a great opportunity to compete nationally and attain significant international coverage. The event, touted as “Israel’s Official Dot Com.petition”, will be covered by world-leading blogs like TechCrunch.

Apply to be part of TWS 2010 and your Israeli startup could have the opportunity to present itself to more than 500 hi-tech industry members, private investors and venture capitalists. If your company has developed a web or mobile service and is prepared to present your venture to the public,  TWS is a  great platform for you to gain worldwide exposure. Well-known and respected jury members will choose 10 of the most promising and innovative applicants, and these winners will each present a 5-minute presentation and demo booth to the public.

I myself am one of the TWS judges, as well as a number of professionals from around the world, representing such organizations as Yahoo!, ICQ, MetaCafe, AOL, Google and many more. Even if already funded, your startup is eligible to participate so long as you provide an Internet or mobile-based service that is interesting, unique and relevant. Some other successful startups who have gained exposure at previous TWS events include Wix, Mominis, Kaltura, Dapper, Worklight, Kidoz, Clicktale, Reimage, Shidonni, WikiAnswers and Watchdox.

The application period ends at midnight on Wednesday, September 22, 2010. Enter your startup into the competition by clicking here.

Attending this one-day event is one of the most efficient ways to learn about the latest web and mobile trends, as well as network with venture capitalists, private investors, marketers, business strategists and entrepreneurs who are driving the next-generation web.

Want to attend? All readers of Blonde 2.0 can receive a 15% discount by using the coupon code “Blonde20”.

See you there!

In today’s world where we have an option of which search engine to use, we find ourselves perplexed regarding the question: Is Google the best that search can be? Even for those of us who consider ourselves to be Web savvy, finding the right search term can often be tricky. And once we get the search results, we must screen through an abundance of information in order to find one or two truly desired results.

To understand a little more about the world of search, let’s go through our time machine, and check back on how search started.

Excite was one of the most recognized brands on the net when the “dotcom portals” boomed in the 1990’s. Excite was founded as Architext in 1994 by six Stanford undergrad students who had the clever idea of using statistical analysis of word relationships to make searching more efficient. After years of signing exclusive distribution agreements with companies like Netscape, Microsoft and Apple, Excite went public in 1996. In 2003, Excite Italia (the operator of Excite Europe) took control of the Excite portals in most of Europe, and was later acquired by Ask Jeeves (now Ask.com). In October 2007, the GoAdv Group – a pan-European media company, announced the completion of its acquisition of the Excite Europe group of companies while IAC Search and Media acquired Excite in the US. Today, Excite offers a variety of services, including search, web-based email, instant messaging, stock quotes and customizable user homepage – with content that is collated from over 100 different sources.

Going back a few years in time, a small search engine named Google was started by a couple of Stanford University students in January 1996, who hypothesized that a search engine that analyzed the relationships between websites would produce better ranking of results than existing techniques, which ranked results according to the number of times the search term appeared on a page. The domain google.com was registered in September 1997,and the company was incorporated as Google Inc. in September 1998. Since 2001, Google has acquired several companies, mainly focusing on small start-ups. In 2006, Google bought the online video site, YouTube. The entry of Google marked a major milestone in the history of search engines, as it used a “page ranking” system on the basis of number of links to a particular site.  Google’s search engine became so popular that it led to origin of the term “Googling,” which means to search for information using Google.

In June 2009, Bing – formerly Live Search, Windows Live Search and MSN Search – became Microsoft’s current web search engine development. Advertised as a “decision engine,” Bing has a catchy “Stop Searching. Start Deciding” slogan made that allows its users to feel in control of their searches. Bing categorizes searches allowing for improved image and video searches along with preview searches, and its “decision engine” associates information on the Web to help its users make better decisions about things like travel reservations, shopping online, your health and more. In August 2009, only two months after Bing became public online, it gained 9.3 percent of the United States Internet search market causing Google to become somewhat worried about its market share.

Jumping forward to present time, Meaningo, a recent a startup company specializing in Natural Language Processing (NLP) search applications. In simpler terms, Meaning is a semantic search engine, guiding users to find the exact products they are looking for in a more refined and efficient manner. Finding the right search term can be a time-consuming process, as many search results have little relevance with their goal findings. Meaningo was designed to increase the effectiveness of online searching, so users searching the Web can successfully find what they’re looking for without much name refining in the search engine.

Meaningo was specifically designed in hopes of overcoming common impediments Web users are faced with when searching for information online. Meaningo provides its users with an easier way of defining, refining and controlling the quality of the search while providing very accurate results even for complex inquiries. Watch my video below where I interview Meaningo’s Founder & CEO, Dr. Zach Solan, and find out the true meaning of Meaningo.

(Disclosure: SimilarWeb is a Blonde2.0 client)

SimilarWeb the Firefox add-on that enables users to discover related websites similar to ones they are currently visiting has now made it simpler than ever to find similar content that relates to the user’s interests. The three new features include Similar Articles, Recent Buzz, and Mini-Mode, which allow the user to further research and organize finding websites and articles that appeal to their interest.
The Similar Articles feature allows users reading an article online, to instantly receive related articles without having to leave the page they are browsing. It’s extremely useful for finding different views about your topic as well in-depth information when doing research.
The Recent Buzz feature brings users the latest buzz on twitter that relates to the topic they’re reading about. When browsing a website or article the user can receive the twitter community’s reaction about that topic.
The third new feature mini-mode will move the sidebar to a minimized designated tab on the left side of the screen.  When users want to view similar sites, they simply click on the minimized tab and to expands it back to a normal size tab.
With the launching of these three new features, SimilarWeb has been able bring users all types of similar content relevant to their interests. SimilarWeb may actually substantially decrease users’ dependence on search engines in the future.

Hope you enjoy ‘em!

Applications will be accepted until midnight, Wednesday June 24, 2009. On Tuesday, June 30, 2009, 10 finalists will be chosen then later presented their award at the David Inter-Continental Hotel, Tel Aviv on July 13, 2009 during the event.

To find out more details, visit the TWS2009 website.

Good luck to you all!