Google Israel was officially launched on 2.20.06, and the company's management promises that "surprises are in store" for Israeli Internet users. http://www.Google.co.il, the company's Hebrew website launched in 2002, is already one of the most popular Hebrew language websites in the world. However, most of the services provided by Google, beyond the most basic searching capabilities, are not offered in Hebrew. This includes services such as Gmail, Blogger, Google Talk and Google Video. Moreover, the content of many of these Google services has not been adapted for use in Israel: the Froogle shopping service, Google Maps and Google Local do not have any relevant Israeli content.
"Our goal is to localize as many Google services as possible to Hebrew," says Meir Brand, Google's newly appointed Israeli branch manager. Brand did not get more specific than that. Dennis Woodside, Google's EMEA manager, stated that Google services will be localized into Hebrew within 18 months.
Google has about 40 international offices outside the United States. According to Brand, Google decided to open the Israeli branch due to the high percentage of Internet usage in the local population and due to the fact that Israelis are perceived as savvy users of new technology.
In the Israeli search engine and Internet advertising markets, the competition is considering how the entrance of the search engine giant will impact the industry. Internet advertising in Israel is perceived as a business with huge growth potential: although Internet penetration into Israeli households has passed the 50% mark, Internet advertising only accounted for 5% of the total advertising market in 2005. Google figures that by localizing the Adsense and Adwords platforms to provide enhanced support for Israeli advertisers, they can grab a large chunk of this growing and lucrative business.
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