On a warm November evening in 1995 I was sitting at a
Cafe in Tel Aviv enjoying drinks with a friend. A nearby TV in
a kiosk across the street blurted out the news. Israeli Prime
Minister Yitzhak Rabin had been shot. Rabin had just finished
addressing a Peace Rally about a mile away, when an assassin crept
up behind the war hero and fired shots at point blank range. Silence
fell all around us, people were in tears - shocked with frozen
stares. As I was on the bus heading home, the bus's radio announced
that Rabin was dead. The old women sitting in front of me and
the young soldier standing alongside began to sob. The last time
I encountered a dreadful situation as this was when President
John Kennedy was assassinated. I fell asleep listening to the
TV.
I was awoken at about 2 a.m. by Arnon Katz. Arnon was the general
manager of NetKing - the first Internet advertising and marketing
portal established in Israel. NetKing was a division of one Israel's
top five advertising agencies - Tamir, Cohen (Jacobson) Advertising.
"We have to do something", Arnon announced. I suggested a condolence
page. As deputy manager of NetKing, I knew that we had all of
the tools in place. We had a programmer, a CGI specialist, a graphic
artist and I would do the copy. Having degrees in psychology and
marketing also helped. I knew that at a time like this, people
have a need to "do something" - to find a means to express their
collective sorrow. And their was no better vehicle than the Net.
Within four hours we had a page up and I called CNN and Yahoo.
Back in 1995, if any sites were truly busy - these were the first.
They immediately took our page and placed it in the center of
the news. The Associated Press and Reuters were also quick to
pick up the story and passed it onto thousands of newspapers,
TV and radio stations worldwide. By the end of the day on November
5, we had a CGI illustrating flickering candles, a CGI with thousands
of condolence messages and another CGI with a photographic history
of the late Prime Minister.
On the morning of November 6th, a CNN crew came to our studio
in Tel Aviv and interviewed Katz. The Internet was coming alive
with something warm, humane and very touching. Never before had
people combined the computer and telephone lines to demonstrate
their feelings. The Net for the most part was a passive toy. You
could read the news on CNN, send e-mail - if someone had the Net
and maybe find something of academic interest on Yahoo. Agency.Com
was using stickers on plain white folders as brochures. These
were the pioneering days. Not knowing if the Net was to become
obsolete within a few weeks like the "pet rock" or the Spice Girls!
The Net was a novelty. And this site very well suited the Net,
a culture which had maintained a non-commercial existence.
The owners of NetKing wanted to cash in on the commercial side.
They were and are among the most professional advertising executives
in the world, but knew nothing of Internet culture. And what made
it even more difficult was that this was a Condolence site. As
I look back, I can understand that they had invested a lot of
money to set up this Internet unit and wanted to show that it
was at least paying for itself. Roni Cohen and David Tamir deserve
credit beyond articulation for their Internet foresight. But this
was not the time or place for neon lights - not yet.
As news of the Rabin site spread quickly from New York to Japan,
we had problems maintaining the server. We were strangers in a
strange land. We never anticipated so many hits per minute, per
hour. We worked 18 hour days to improve and maintain the site.
Proofing the messages took hours. From over a half million messages,
only two had to be removed for hate content. A mirror site was
set up in the States - just in case...
The team at NetKing, was only few weeks away from officially
launching a site which offered everything under the sun. None
of us ever imagined that Israel's first commercial portal would
rise out from obscurity on the heels of tragedy. Messages of sympathy
poured in from every continent for the Rabin family and the people
of Israel. The Israeli Foreign Ministry, which had just launched
their own site, quickly made the NetKing Condolence page - the
official Condolence site for the State of Israel. This was history.
For the first time on the Net, hundreds of thousands of monitors
had moved away from CNN and Yahoo to participate actively for
a public cause. Instead of reading, the Internet community was
writing and lighting candles.
The computer geeks and academics were quickly losing their sacred
territory to the world public. "Coming together" on the Net was
now possible for everyone. The retired gent in Manchester, England
and the 5th graders in Wisconsin, USA. The Internet had now closed
one chapter and jumped into a new one. From defense to academia
to a new, wired global village for which we were to become obsessed
with.
Recently when John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife and sister-in-law
died in the tragic plane crash I wanted to express my grief to
the Kennedy family. I had worked for Ted Kennedy's presidential
campaign in 1980, met and was very impressed with the Kennedy
family. Beyond that - the Kennedy Family serves as the Royal Family
for America - it was a loss for which all Americans felt deeply.
Realizing that their was no site created for condolences, I quickly
and reluctantly built a site with the aid of volunteers from Israel,
Europe and the States. I was never in the "condolence Internet
business" and didn't want to change professions. But I had no
choice.
What took a few minutes to get placed on CNN Interactive in
1995, took a few days in 1999. Our Kennedy Condolence site became
a major feature on CNN, AP and Yahoo, but with a difference. This
time the other sites which shared the "related link" category
were now selling T-shirts, books and cars!
You Can View the Yitzhak
Rabin Condolence Page at:
www.otn.com/netking/
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