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New tool uses Facebook to improve Israel's image
By Cnaan Liphshiz

The realization that young people are increasingly living life through their Facebook accounts recently gave birth to a new and potentially powerful tool in the fight for Israel's image. Observing this phenomenon, a group of 23 students from Jerusalem's Hebrew University came up with a small application which uses the Facebook "status line" to inform hundreds of thousands of users at any given moment about positive facts about Israel.

"We realized that social networks impact people around world, not only in Israel," says Botswana-born Maya Epstein, the 25-year-old coordinator for Israpedia, the team responsible for the computer application. "By changing the status line on Facebook you can inform thousands of people about all sorts of things about Israel, which is usually seen in the media only through the prism of the Middle East conflict."


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srapedia, the Facebook application, automatically replaces run-of-the-mill musings or common tidbits with what the group's staff considers interesting though little known facts about Israel, like the fact that it is the second biggest book publisher per capita in the world, or that it has over 200 wineries producing red, white and bubbly. So far, around 3,000 users downloaded the application, according to the idea's designers.

Epstein, who immigrated to Israel 11 years ago, spearheaded the project as campus coordinator for international Israel-advocacy group StandWithUs. The L.A.-based organization sponsored the project for the 23 students who came up with the idea in the framework of the organization's Jerusalem Fellows program.

"Users can always override the Israpedia status line and write their own thing," says New York-born Eyal Lapidot, 28, who also belongs to the Israpedia team. "If the new user-added line stays unchanged for two days, the Israpedia application will change it to an Israel fact," explains Lapidot, born to a mixed Israeli-American couple. The application can be downloaded from www.israpedia.info

The next step, according to Epstein, will be to take the Israpedia lines and automatically turn them into messages in Twitter, a growing social messaging platform limited to 140 characters.

This step and others will be discussed on Sunday on campus in Jerusalem at a conference organized by the Jerusalem Fellowship about web-based advocacy tools, or "improving Israel's image with little time and no money," as Epstein puts it.

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      1.   Smells like propaganda... 12:14  |  Had enough 24/07/09
      2.   Good luck with that. The majority of FB users support the Pals. 12:22  |  Josh 24/07/09
      3.   Israpedia needs some references 12:51  |  rg 24/07/09
      4.   Israpedia on Twitter 12:57  |  Avi 24/07/09
      5.   How to irritate people 13:10  |  Murray 24/07/09
      6.   No doubt a Palestinian version 13:45  |  Chris Linthwaite 24/07/09
      7.   Want to improve your image, then abide by international law. 13:49  |  jay 24/07/09
      8.   Students time better spent informing Knesset to dump Settlements 14:15  |  Ivar 24/07/09
      9.   yeah, that`ll work 16:11  |  edgar 24/07/09
      10.   Israel should show the world it wants peace...REAL PEACE 20:42  |  One 24/07/09
      11.   Oh please... 23:18  |  Pitty 24/07/09
      12.   International Law 01:30  |  Great White North 25/07/09
      13.   Turd Polishing 03:32  |  steve 25/07/09
      14.   Murray - finally we agree on one thing 03:37  |  Arie 25/07/09
      15.   Commonality on posts 03:44  |  Arie 25/07/09
      16.   You can`t polish a turd. 04:00  |  Sheridan Langsley 25/07/09
      17.   "Arie "convenient that you are a member of this Master Race 17:06  |  jim the mechanic 25/07/09
      18.   facebook 17:56  |  jag 25/07/09
      19.   That sounds familiar 21:41  |  Colin Wright 25/07/09
      20.   just a new tool of propaganda 22:26  |  ana 29/07/09
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