JTF one of the most popular Jewish sites- Avi Chai foundation research

[Kahane-Was-Right BT]

Dr. Ari Kelman is an associate professor of American Studies at UC Davis.

He wrote the following research study funded by the AviChai Foundation to assess Jewish leadership on the internet.   The criteria for most popular websites were mostly based on site traffic and "links in" (links from other websites), but focused moreso on mutual links between sites as a criterion, rather than mere links in or links out. 

"We determined both popularity and demographics through an aggregate analysis of existing
rankings from four well‐known sources: SEOmoz.com, Compete.com, Google pagerank, and
Alexa.com."

http://avichai.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/The-Reality-of-the-Virtual_AYK.pdf

jtf.org is listed in APPENDIX A:
Top 99 Jewish Websites by Traffic

On page 71


If you go to page 21, you will see JTF.org in a green circle towards the top of the map.

I'm looking through the rest of the article to see if they will speak about JTF in depth at all.

In the meantime, we might be wise to interact with some of the more prominent sites in the map such as the jewishvirtuallibrary, myjewishlearning, Shamash, israelnewsagency.com etc.      Not sure how we will do so, but it is worth knowing that a lot of Jewish traffic goes to those sites.   This is spoken about on page 22-23.



Table 1 lists "betweenness centrality" and the ensuing discussion can also be useful to us.   Again, "myJewishlearning" figures prominently in this discussion and has a lot of leverage according to this criterion.

Again, betweenness centrality does not calculate how visitors actually move from site to
site, but rather it measures the relative value of each node within the network in terms of their
ability to let visitors move from site to site.

Regardless of where JTF appears in this ranking system, this quote is extremely important:

(The picture)...includes outlets and individuals who
have not, historically, been close to centers of Jewish communal power. It... emphasizes the importance of information in the ongoing conversations about Jewish
communities and Jewish life. It... features younger Jews who not only direct the
flow of information but generate it, as well.    Finally, it is an image that runs counter to the more
conventional image of “The Jewish Community” as represented primarily by establishment
organizations.  What emerges is a very densely connected network of websites, the most valuable of which, from the perspective of social network analysis, are not establishment communal organizations but rather sites that trade primarily in information.

Thus, there is a leadership vacuum here created by the internet itself that JTF has wisely stepped into, but perhaps we can engineer a more prominent role somehow.




More info about the author:  Ari Kelman is director of the Graduate Group in the Study of Religion, and a member of the Jewish Studies Program Committee, as well as a member of the executive committee of the Cultural Studies Program.

[Kahane-Was-Right BT]

Page 33 shows again the map from Figure 2, but this time it adds a type of clustering (non-mathematical) referred to by the author as "neighborhood networks."

Strictly speaking, these are not clusters, so instead, I will refer to them as “neighborhood networks,” a term that suggests some similarities between the sites but is not held to the same mathematical standard as
clustering.
Figure 4 presents the overall map again, highlighting clusters that will be discussed below. Reading the map for neighborhood networks, we find five relatively distinct clusters, highlighting the emergence of common links and thus, common interests.

We are shown as part of a neighborhood network quasi-cluster with many other sites including israelnationalnews.com, frumster.com, feldheim.com, templeinstitute.com, chabad.org, vosizneis, etc.

Interestingly, this network is listed as the "orthodox archipelago" even though our site is not necessarily targeted to only the orthodox Jewish audience, but we connect with and link to many sites that do, so that makes sense.

The upper cluster includes three sites that are actively engaged in a Zionist conversation,

Obviously one of them being ours.

I also notice that jtf.org is one of the larger "nodes" within this neighborhood network.

[muman613]

Excellent... I like to think that by cross-posting articles from IsraelnationalNews and Chabad we attract visitors who look for that kind of information.

[Kahane-Was-Right BT]

jtf.org is listed in APPENDIX A:
Top 99 Jewish Websites by Traffic 

On page 71



But not in Appendix B "Top 49 Jewish Websites with significant audiences between ages 21‐35
by Traffic"

[Chaim Ben Pesach]

בס''ד

Great find, KWRBT!

Does everyone realize that JTF is on the same list with Jewish establishment organizations worth hundreds of millions of dollars? We are also on the same list with the leading Jewish media organizations. When you consider our very meager budget of tens of thousands of dollars, this is miraculous.

We expect to grow far more, G-d willing, as we begin our anti-Obama and pro-Huckabee campaign, as we work with Pastor Manning, as we begin uploading new English videos again, as Shlomo comes to work for us full-time, and as we begin a new and intensive campaign of promotion on zootube (youtube).

[Irish Zionist]

Finally we are on the winning side. 

[Dan]

Fantastic!

[Kahane-Was-Right BT]

בס''ד

Great find, KWRBT!

Does everyone realize that JTF is on the same list with Jewish establishment organizations worth hundreds of millions of dollars? We are also on the same list with the leading Jewish media organizations. When you consider our very meager budget of tens of thousands of dollars, this is miraculous.

We expect to grow far more, G-d willing, as we begin our anti-Obama and pro-Huckabee campaign, as we work with Pastor Manning, as we begin uploading new English videos again, as Shlomo comes to work for us full-time, and as we begin a new and intensive campaign of promotion on zootube (youtube).

I'm really excited about our working with Pastor Manning, when I heard you mention it on ask JTF I smiled ear to ear.   I'm looking forward to JTF making more impact in the near future.

It certainly is a great thing that we can compete with these big organizations even on a limited budget.  This study proves that this is possible with the right know-how and a dedicated leadership, even if it's a small base.

[eb22]

Kahane-Was-Right BT,    thanks for providing this information.

After seeing this article,    I went to the Alexa.Com site and compared JTF with some other Jewish related organizations.     All things considering,   especially the monetary factor,    I'm pleasantly surprised at JTF's ranking.   

[Ulli]

Interesting.

[serbian army]

This is unbelievable.  I know for sure that Chaim has influence on Serb-Jewish relationships: abandon visas, Serb leader in Bosnia visits to Israel, Jewish veterans visiting city of Banja Luka and many more examples.. Great work JTFers...

[christians4jews]

pastor manning is a legend....

[Kahane-Was-Right BT]

Kahane-Was-Right BT,    thanks for providing this information.

After seeing this article,    I went to the Alexa.Com site and compared JTF with some other Jewish related organizations.     All things considering,   especially the monetary factor,    I'm pleasantly surprised at JTF's ranking.   

Yeah, I just looked at alexa and JTF is ranked something like the top 3,100 sites in Israeli traffic ranking. 
For US, we are somewhere in the 500,000's but compared to these other most popular Jewish sites you can see we are not far from them.   For example, there is one Jewish blog I visit fairly frequently, which I thought got huge traffic and I assumed was very popular, and I come to find it's ranked somewhere in the 3,000,000's!   That's nowhere close to JTF.

[eb22]

Kahane-Was-Right BT,    thanks for providing this information.

After seeing this article,    I went to the Alexa.Com site and compared JTF with some other Jewish related organizations.     All things considering,   especially the monetary factor,    I'm pleasantly surprised at JTF's ranking.   

Yeah, I just looked at alexa and JTF is ranked something like the top 3,100 sites in Israeli traffic ranking. 
For US, we are somewhere in the 500,000's but compared to these other most popular Jewish sites you can see we are not far from them.   For example, there is one Jewish blog I visit fairly frequently, which I thought got huge traffic and I assumed was very popular, and I come to find it's ranked somewhere in the 3,000,000's!   That's nowhere close to JTF.

Several hours ago,    I went to the Compete.Com site and it basically confirmed my findings on Alexa.Com


Interestingly,    there's a pro-Israel Jewish run site that came up in a discussion with several people the other evening.   This site tries to point out the truth about ultra leftist J Street.    I presumed the site had higher traffic than JTF.      That's not the case,   as it ranks around 2,500,000 on Alexa's site.     Also,   this other organization has a VERY small presence on ZooTube.    Where as JTF has a mega presence on ZooTube.   

[Kahane-Was-Right BT]

Kahane-Was-Right BT,    thanks for providing this information.

After seeing this article,    I went to the Alexa.Com site and compared JTF with some other Jewish related organizations.     All things considering,   especially the monetary factor,    I'm pleasantly surprised at JTF's ranking.   

Yeah, I just looked at alexa and JTF is ranked something like the top 3,100 sites in Israeli traffic ranking. 
For US, we are somewhere in the 500,000's but compared to these other most popular Jewish sites you can see we are not far from them.   For example, there is one Jewish blog I visit fairly frequently, which I thought got huge traffic and I assumed was very popular, and I come to find it's ranked somewhere in the 3,000,000's!   That's nowhere close to JTF.

Several hours ago,    I went to the Compete.Com site and it basically confirmed my findings on Alexa.Com


Interestingly,    there's a pro-Israel Jewish run site that came up in a discussion with several people the other evening.   This site tries to point out the truth about ultra leftist J Street.    I presumed the site had higher traffic than JTF.      That's not the case,   as it ranks around 2,500,000 on Alexa's site.     Also,   this other organization has a VERY small presence on ZooTube.    Where as JTF has a mega presence on ZooTube.   

It could very well be that among Jews, JTF.org is "the site that no one admits they read..."

I'm starting to think this!

[eb22]

You might be on to something.   

For the 2nd time this week,   someone gave me favorable feedback that I wasn't expecting.     The other day it was regarding the late and great Rabbi Meir Kahane.    Several hours ago,   it was a different person mentioning positive feedback about JTF.       

These are people who are well known in their respective circles and who earned my respect even before the pleasantly surprising news this week.      Both will likely continue to low key what they mentioned to me,   as I'm not exactly the typical audience that they encounter........... even though they are on the right ( wing )  on most issues.     Yet,   I have even greater confidence in their respective ability to make a difference.