Canadian-Iranian blogger
Hossein Derakhshan
is in Israel this week exploring Israeli-Iranian relations, which is
interesting and important, but I want to write here about (1) how I
heard about it and (2) how Derakhshan hooked up with a group of Tel
Avivians for an informal meeting.
First, I should have gotten on the story from reading the English-language
mainstream media in Israel,
Haaretz
and the
Jerusalem Post, both of which covered his visit.
But I didn't. My path was more 21st century, and points to the problems of mainstream media
these days: You don't really need them. I was reading
Romenesko (the e-mail version), and he had a
link to
Mark Glaser's new PBS-sponsored blog,
Mediashift.
The link was not to anything directly about Derakhshan, but to Glaser's
interview with citizen-journalism pioneer
Dan Gillmor (I still haven't gotten to
reading that one). Glaser had a link to Derakhshan's blog in his list
of five top media trends/items on his radar. Derakhshan's blog
(terrific reading, by the way) offered a link to Israeli blogger
Lisa Goldman, who accompanied him on some visits.
She detailed how a PR guy for the new Israeli social networking site
ilcu.com (which has delusions of going American)
saw Derakhshan's
recent piece in the
New York Times, and invited him to sign up for the service, which links together people
through events and parties they plan to attend. Forty ilcu members (and
the service is a few months old) signed up for the event, and 60
attended.
Beyond the positive message of the Iranian Muslim seeking out
understanding in Israel (good enough, really), there is the clear Web
2.0 nature of these connections. The moral: OK, the
NY Times still is
important -- an appearance there can be a catalyst to a lot of things.
But did the
Haaretz and
Jerusalem Post stories mean anything? They drew many
talkbacks (more on that in a later post), but the action came out of
the ilcu connection.
