Well, that’s it.

We put an incredible amount of wait into it. And finally, mako is online. Was it worth the whole wait? I think so. (I’ve been hanging around Keshet only for seven months, but some people have been working on this thing for two years). It’s a well made site — bugs and stability issues aside — and while leaning heavily towards television related content and celebrity festivities, I think some of its content is the best the Hebrew web has to offer.

(Will this mean I’m back to writing here and in Quotendquote? I certainly hope so).

What have I been up to these past seven months? I’ve been hired to found and edit the Digital section in mako. Digital was to deal with personal electronics and the internet in a broad-audience way; I pulled it a little to the geek side, while still keeping some of it 12-o’clock-flash-y.  Somewhere in the middle of work the Men’s section needed a new editor, so I took that too. I don’t know which section I’m proud of more, but I am very proud of both, and of the wonderful people who worked with me, day and night and weekend, to make them look like they do now.

I’ll write about those sections, mainly Digital, a lot more in the coming months. I also want to share with you a few of the insights I gained while working with the technologists in Keshet — mainly, about how not to produce a site like this. But right now I’m tired, tired, tired. In the meanwhile, if you can read Hebrew, browse mako for a while. Have fun.

Soon we shall resume updating.

For now, the Gadgets section in Keshet’s old website resumes its operation, which means my tech news column (Hebrew) is back after a six-month hiatus and two job changes. Also in Gadgets: Gal Nedivi (Israel’s Zombit) with some cool gadgets (and GTA IV on a big-ass screen).

We are back from a forced hiatus; do expect non-daily, but still kinda-frequent updates from this moment on.

Well. It seems I am not just incerdibly pretty, but also a renowned net prophet. Story goes like this: it was February of 2007 and love was still fresh as I waded into the world of online journalism. My first piece for the Israeli nrg suggested fresh start-up ideas nobody thought of (caution: Hebrew): the News Yeller for the elderly, who also got the Electronic Grandson — a live-translation elderly to tech support guy service — and also the Porn Out Loud, which I said would bring the blind population closer to the warm embrace of the net:

Online, the blind are a severely disenfranchised minority. Not only you can’t send funny pics to your vision-impaired friends, not only they have nothing to do in YouTube, but just think of a porn-free internet! Brrrr.

So a year goes by and one day you wake up to find your weird dreams have taken shape. Here it is: Porn For the Blind. It’s a non-profit org dedicated to make life just a little bit filthier for those less fortunate. I tried to listen to the MP3 version of Eight Street Latinas, but succumbed to an uncontrollable fit of giggles. That’s the way it is: your dreams are meant for others.

I guess most of you know by now I left Calcalist, an ambitious new business journal backed by Israel’s largest newspaper, Yediot Ahronot. I thought about sharing the reasons with you — using a point-by-point illustration with before-and-after versions of an article, but I’m too polite for that.

But I will say that a last week this aspiring new publication printed an interview I made with Mark Frauenfelder. Mark is not only the founder of Boing Boing; he’s also the executive editor for the very cool MAKE Magazine, the epicenter of a subculture bent on making their own imprint on technology.

But alas: the printed version of the article was so severely mauled by its editors, so effectively watered down and cheapened as to appeal to none but the least interested – that it led me to a couple of conclusions. The first is that I’m ever more glad to have left. The second is that I do need a journalism blog, if only to post the original, the tame and untouched versions of those mutilated babies of mine, which they’ll continue to run in Calcalist in months to come. So (trumpets!) here it is, after the cut.

We’ll start with the original version of the Frauenfelder interview. I’ll have it – and all future articles, for copyright’s sake – translated soon, but I’m so offended by what’s published, and it bears so little relation to the original, that I’m taking this liberty once.

Among the many mistakes the editors made with this article, they forget to mention Eviatar Tron, who helped prepare this article. Thanks, Eviatar.

(If you want to be as offended like I am, drop a note and I’ll show the molested version).

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