What is TheMarker Café? What can you do there? Who is it for? How can it benefit us? Here is a short guide to TheMarker Café, a Hebrew-language social network launched this week.
Who is the Café for?

The system is designed for professionals, the people who engage in the subjects that TheMarker covers: money and finance people, hi-tech, lawyers, investors, accountants, managers, economists, marketing and communications, tradespeople, consumer affairs, and everybody with an interest in any of the above.

What is the Café?

The system offers tools that enable professionals to build a personal page, present themselves, communicate online with colleagues, customers and suppliers, and hold subjects on the topics that interest them. In Internet jargon, it's a social network.

How do I access it? Do I have to register?

You don't have to register just to tour the system. Click on the Café button on TheMarker Hebrew website at www.themarker.com and take the tour. Any "tourist" can read the blogs, and visit most of the communities. To participate in forums or contact another member, you'll have to register.

Who are the people I see in the pictures?

Members of the Café who registered. Clicking on the image will bring you to the person's page.

How do I join?

First of all, to make it clear: it's all free. To register and join TheMarker Café network of professionals, you have to be able to read and write Hebrew. Follow the instructions on the Café website.

Who are my friends in the Café?

The main idea of the Café is to create social networks based on a common personal or professional interest. Once registered, you can ask any member of the Cafe to join your circle of friends. If he agrees, he will join your list of friends and the system will send you notices about content he creates.

Can I blog?

Any Café member can blog. The Café is essentially a personalized form of Internet, offering systems for you to create and edit text. (You can write in English.)

Blogs are a personal op-ed. TheMarker occasionally chooses blogs and columns for its front webpage. Bonus: Every new blogger receives a group Internet address for the blog.

What is a community?
 
A community is a group of pages in the system that focuses on a specific subject, for example, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, Teva, Internet, marketing. Anybody can open a community on any subject, after receiving the permission of the system. Each community is managed by a specific person. You can join communities, participate in discussions, or open a discussion of your own.

The Café changes so quickly. How do I keep track of all these blogs, people and communities that interest me?

You can simply do a quick round each time: the system remembers your communities and friends, and sends emails with updates, if you wish it.

Ready for the tour? Click here.