Latest news of JPS Interactive Tagged Tanakh Project

Could Kynetx Connect JPS?

Becca Stern — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 02:59:56 -0700

When I first heard of the company Kynetx a few days ago, the initial image that popped into my head was that of KNEX, my brother’s favorite childhood toy. As I delved into the Kynetx website and learned more about the project, however, I began to understand the function of this program and how it can help JPS advertise its less well-known products.

Before I explain the functional advantages, some background on Kynetx. Created in 2007 by Phil Windley and Stephen Fulling, this private company went public in July 2009 with the launch of the AppBuilder, a program that allows quick and easy creation of Kynetx apps. You’re probably wondering what a Kynetx app is, and how it differs from other apps. Kynetx produces apps whose purpose is to enhance user experience. This means that the app might function as a way to make website navigation easier for a user and also as a marketing technique for a sales company.

Anyone can use Kynetx. All you (the user) have to do is download the app and it automatically integrates products to the context of your environment by performing item search and look up functions from any website. For example, you might be looking at Britney Spears’ webpage and the Kynetx app would allow you to purchase her CDs through Amazon, but from her website. This takes advantage of the impulse shopper because s/he might not necessarily want the …Baby One More Time CD, but because it was made available while the interest was prominent, the user is more likely to purchase it.

Needless to say, this would be a great tool for [JPS]{jewishpub.org) to use. If someone was visiting the Song of Songs Wikipedia page, the Kynetx app might pop up Debra Band’s The Song of Songs. Thus, by giving the user the opportunity to purchase [The Song of Songs] (http://www.jewishpub.org/product.php?id=222), the Kynetx app directs traffic to the JPS website, at which point the user might continue to explore the website and find a less popular, albeit interesting book to purchase.

In addition to impulse shopping, Kynetx can be used as a tool to connect people. For example, if you were to download the Kynetx Tagged Tanakh (TT) app, you would be able to see other users who contribute to or look at the TT. So, if you went to The Jewish Exponent website, you might learn that your favorite journalist is a contributor to the TT. You would know this because, as a user of the Kynetx TT app, a little blurb would come up next to the journalist’s name. If the journalist was not a TT contributor, the app would allow you to invite said journalist to join TT and to start contributing.

While I think that Kynetx is an original and useful program, I’m hesitant to use it because it seems a little too Big Brother to me. I don’t particularly enjoy being targeted with advertisements and, as an impulse shopper myself; I fear that my spending would increase drastically with an app like Kynetx. On that note, I recommend Kynetx to those trying to publicize a product, but caution users with similar spending weaknesses to my own.

The Long Tail: A Long Stretch?

Becca Stern — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 08:12:09 -0700

I recently finished reading Chris Anderson’s “The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More”.

The Long Tail is a statistical property which says that the majority of the population rests in the tail of probability distribution. The reason the Long Tail works is because today, with the accessibility of information, society demands variety. This demand stimulates the need to have a large number of unique items in relatively small quantities, in addition to a small number of popular items available in large quantities. Throughout The Long Tail, Anderson uses music as his prime example. The example works like this: Music is the general category. Within “Music” there are various genres that range from highly popular (Rock/Pop) to more unique (African Folk). Anderson explains that because there is a higher demand for Rock/Pop, it is at the front of the tail, while African Folk, which sells fewer albums, falls somewhere on the falling part of the tail.

The Long Tail doesn’t just apply to music. It can find a place in any aspect of the world because everything has a Long Tail. In Torah, the Long Tail is anything that doesn’t make it into a Dvar Torah (Sermon) or one of the greatest hits stories like Noah and the Ark or Moses and the Ten Commandments. For example, Eve eating the apple might be at the front of the tail, the Tower of Babel might be toward the middle, and Lot’s daughters seducing him might be toward the end of the tail.

The Tagged Tanakh (TT) helps make the Long Tail of Torah more accessible by incorporating tools to help users find what they want. It has moderation points that allow users to help sort and filter the most relevant content. User profiles enable people to share information about themselves so that they can find other people with similar interests. The mere act of adding tags makes info in the Torah more findable. Thus, the Long Tail of Torah can go on forever as long as people continue contributing remarks and tags to the Tagged Tanakh.

Tags, Janet Murray, and the Tanakh

Becca Stern — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 12:00:38 -0700

Though the Tagged Tanakh (TT) was conceived by JPS, the idea behind it was inspired by important people in academic, technological, and Jewish fields of study. Over the next few weeks I’m going to write a series of blog posts, each focusing on one of these individuals and how their work impacts the TT. My first subject is Dr. Janet Murray, a woman whose work has deep implications for the Tagged Tanakh.

Murray is an accomplished scholar in more than one field. She is internationally recognized for her work in game theory and interactive design. As the Director of the MA and PhD programs in Digital Media at Georgia Tech, Murray is also a member of their Experimental Game Lab (EGL). A prolific writer, Murray’s work is published in multiple languages, and in spring 2000, she was named to the Board of Trustees at the American Film Institute.

So, how does the work of Janet Murray impact the Tagged Tanakh? I read one of Murray’s articles, “Cyber-infrastructure as Cognitive Scaffolding: The Role of Genre Creation in Knowledge Making” in an attempt to understand the context of the Tagged Tanakh beyond Judaism and technology. Though confusing at times, Murray’s main point is that information is applicable to individuals based on how they categorize information. In other words, how we organize information conveys meaning. Tags are like post-its or labels that provide information about information (AKA metadata).

With tags, people can organize and group photos, videos, or any other form of data. By using ‘tags’ to define and organize the Tanakh, unconventional associations surface and anyone and everyone can find a way to connect to Judaism. As more people begin to populate the Tagged Tanakh, the network effect comes into play and the Tagged Tanakh’s value increases because more users create more tags, which creates more opportunities to interact with Torah. In this way, individuals eventually connect to each other via their tags and remarks.

Since the launch of the Tagged Tanakh in early 2010 some interesting tags have emerged. Some of my favorites include: JTW, environmentalism, and food.

I think that ‘tagging’ is an excellent process that creates an infinite number of access points to the Bible. Stay tuned as I continue to research and share with you the people who inspired the Tagged Tanakh!

The Delicious Connection Between Judaism and Technology

Becca Stern — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 08:56:15 -0700

Hello! My name is Becca Stern and I’m the newest addition to the JPS Interactive team. As the JPSI Summer Intern, I’ll be writing and contributing to the JPS Interactive blog and the Tagged Tanakh all summer, and I could not be more excited!

A little about myself: I’m a rising junior at the University of Pittsburgh where I’m studying English Literature and Children’s Literature. I’m a native of Philadelphia (go Phils!) and I love to eat and travel—especially at the same time.

One of my first assignments at JPS was to sort through JPS Interactive’s bookmarks. Using a web tool called Delicious, JPS staff have tagged and gathered interesting tidbits of information found online that relate to Judaism and technology. After hours of exploring three years’ worth of links (which I guess are kind of like digital bread crumbs), I started to conceptualize the path JPS Interactive and the Tagged Tanakh are forging.

If you would like to explore the links that JPSI has gathered you can jump to them quickly on the right hand side of this blog thanks to the Delicious widget we’re using. The links range from silly to serious, but they all share one common idea: Judaism and technology are not an oxymoron.

Personally, my favorite link not only connects Judaism to technology, but it adds humor to the mix. I like it because it shows how elements of Judaism can be appropriated and applied to modern society. Try not to laugh too hard…

Another interesting link lets you literally jump into the Bible—without moving away from your iPhone and Gchat. This virtual map tracks all of your favorite characters and their journeys, as told by the Tanakh. This could be a great way to enhance your understanding of the weekly Torah portion.

To sum it up, all of these Jewish-related websites are important because they make Judaism an accessible and relevant part of society.

Stay tuned throughout the summer as I continue to connect Judaism and technology!

Pulling The Torah Rather Than Pushing

JT — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 11:50:38 -0700

David Siegel would have us believe that the era of pushy salesmen and invasive marketing is coming to a close. With the dawn of the Semantic Web, pulling will become the more active verb (and business strategy) of the 21st century.

Siegel is an entrepreneur, typographer, and technologist and is one of the biggest proponents of the semantic web (aka Web 3.0). If you’re looking for a simple explanation of how the semantic web and its business applications work–check out this post Siegel recently composed for American Express or this post that discusses his work.

What does this have to do with Jewish educational technology? How does the idea of pull affect Jewish publishers, educators, and other community leaders?

Anyone who suffered through Hebrew School as a child knows, that if you don’t have a gifted teacher, interacting with Torah is generally a less than pleasant experience. As we grow older, we become more removed from the Bible, unless we decide to become a “professional Jew” or “adult learner.” For most American Jews, contact with the Bible is limited to uncomfortable encounters with Bible-thumpers, talking vegetables, or alienating conversations with supposedly more learned Jews. The Bible is repeatedly “pushed” onto people without clear and apparent justification beyond, “Did you know that the Bible says X about Y?”

I am often asked how the Tagged Tanakh will attract new readers to the Bible or at least engage audiences in new and innovative ways.

The Tagged Tanakh offers structured data associated with the Jewish Bible, blending vetted content with user-generated-content.

People seem to expect the Tagged Tanakh to push the values and ideas of the Torah onto unsuspecting noobs just like Hebrew School and other old-school institutions were supposed to. In fact, they couldn’t be more mistaken. The Tagged Tanakh will instead pull together students of all ages who seek out the wisdom of Torah. Passions, questions, and communities of practice will PULL people to the Tagged Tanakh because it caters to a wide range of needs and interests.

The Tagged Tanakh is a reflection of the Power of Pull in tandem with Torah study. On ReadWriteWeb.com, Jeff Stein sums it up perfectly:

“At the technical level, the Semantic Web has a lot of complexities. But the whole point of the Semantic Web is that with open data standards non-technical people can easily publish, link, mesh and look up data. Just like it doesn’t take a Computer Science degree anymore to build a good website.”

An Empty Middle School Dance Floor

JT — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 03:05:53 -0800

The Tagged Tanakh soft launch coincided with Tu B’Shvat at the end of January 2010. It was a quiet affair with not much pomp and circumstance. We released the site a tad prematurely, but we were so excited to get people tagging. We wanted to release early and release often.

In one year’s time, the Tagged Tanakh (TT) went from prototype to its first full release. Sure we couldn’t include all the cool features we originally wanted to, but we had made something unique – an online relational database of the English translation of the Jewish Bible.

The TT allows users to contribute remarks and tags to words and verses in the Bible. Vetted content provided by scholars and JPS staff is available alongside ideas and questions contributed by general users. People can create feeds that follow specific topics of interests or follow feeds made by other people. Feel free to take a tour!

We hope that it’s more than just hype, we want the Tagged Tanakh to be useful.
We want to conserve and stimulate conversations around Torah.

However, in order for the Tagged Tanakh to be of value it must take advantage of the network effect. Right now the Tagged Tanakh is like a middle school dance just after the doors opened. We need some brave souls to cut a rug and inspire more folks to join the dance floor so we can get this party started.

Access to the Tagged Tanakh is free, but you do need a registration code.
If you’re interested in getting in on the action simply send an email to me at:

jwaldman@jewishpub.org
Subject: Tagged Tanakh Registration Code Request

Happy Tagging!

Tools and Resources for the Network Age

JT — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 02:58:11 -0800

Is the Information Age at an end? With a new decade nearly upon us, some have been saying that we are now entering the Network Age– a time when men will mine for data, not oil. Ranking and figuring out how people share their sentiments will become the driving force of community management and business growth.

In the book Authenticity, the authors describe “rendering experiences” for customers as the foundation of this new emerging economy. Digital Anthropology jobs and community management tools will drive the 21st-century economy. Eventually, we’ll all climb aboard the Cluetrain and ride off into brighter, more lucrative future.

And yet, most people still scratch their heads when social networks are mentioned. They seem to think that social networks equal Facebook, which is akin to saying all vacuums are Hoovers. The founding executive editor of Wired Magazine, Kevin Kelly, describes participation in social networks as organic behavior in a technological matrix.

In case that pithy statement didn’t shed some light on this matter, here’s a great presentation made by my buddy Gagan over at DesignStamp in Vancouver. Connecting with customers and rendering positive user experiences helps transform brands from products to lifestyles. This is the core of social networks, in my opinion. Businesses and organizations that understand this will thrive in the new millennium, those that disregard it are in for a bumpy ride.

Social media 101: Connecting with your customer

View more documents from DesignStamp.

The Future of the Tagged Tanakh

JT — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 02:56:10 -0700

It seems like everyone these days is talking about the future. Will people still read books? Can global catastrophe be averted by not eating meat?

According to the CEO of Google, in five years we’ll be surfing through mostly Chinese content online. According to a former muckity-muck at Facebook, the future is not information, but networks. While architectural students in London envision a future made up of, “car-crash spaces that occasionally come into focus as giant mechanised spindly crustacea.”

If the future is not our own, then how can we shape it? If entire conferences dedicated to the future of the web can’t predict how Google Wave will change our lives then how can us regular folk develop content and technology strategies that don’t become redundant thanks to the actions of Amazon or Twitter?

Originally we had imagined building the Tagged Tanakh in private development. We wanted to design and then release to the public a fully populated and rendered experience of accessible, relevant, and dynamic Jewish content. Our plan was to curate and refine the Tagged Tanakh and include all the bells and whistles: bi-directional Hebrew/English display, integration of third party datasets like The Harper Collins Bible Dictionary, or cool APIs.

But now we see the error of our ways. It’s actually better to share our work with the public sooner. This will help populate the Tagged Tanakh, identify usability issues, and clarify which features are the most beneficial. As founder of Meebo, Seth Sternberg recommends, “Launch fast and light, and listen to your users for feedback.”

So when will the fast, light, and PUBLIC version of the Tagged Tanakh be available?
Stay tuned to this blog for more information.

A Sneak Peek at the Tagged Tanakh

JT — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 08:21:16 -0700

Just in time for the New Year! At long last, we can share with the world a taste of the Tagged Tanakh (TT) prototype!

The JPS Technical Advisory Board and our Tech Team developed the Tagged Tanakh prototype from January-June of 2009. Core functionality like viewing the English version of the Jewish Bible, adding and viewing tags and remarks, as well as basic moderation and content aggregation are now operational.

Social networking features and integration of third party data sets, Hebrew text, and overall optimization and security issues still need to be addressed. User testing with Jewish professionals was conducted this summer to learn more about what worked, what needs improvement, and where we should go next.

As the venture capital world likes to say, we are now in the Mezzanine Level. We’re very proud of our work and eager to hear your first impressions.

Here’s a rough cut of the video demonstration of the TT followed by some screenshots that highlight particular features of the prototype.

Tagged Tanakh Prototype Demonstration from JPSInteractive on Vimeo.

Search the NJPS English translation of the Bible by book or by weekly reading:

Search the Tagged Tanakh for terms found in Torah or contributed by other users:

View tag clouds for particular books or weekly readings of the Bible:

Follow topics of interest by creating custom feeds that aggregate content by user, tag, or standing within the community:

Continue the age-old tradition of commentary and debate around the words of Torah:

Help bring Jewish learning to the next level: Support the Tagged Tanakh and other JPS digital initiatives.

Blending Curated & User-Generated Content

JT — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 09:38:56 -0700

The Tagged Tanakh is composed of two main types of content:
Content provided by scholarly experts and JPS staff including:

Excerpts from JPS books
Scholarly remarks
Glossaries and pointers to traditional Jewish commentaries
Related data (maps, images, videos and cross-references)

along with

User-generated content contributed by the masses including:

Personal commentaries
Questions and concerns
Keyword Tags

The content strategy of the Tagged Tanakh enables people to search the Torah for words and concepts that did not originally appear in the Jewish Bible (like environmentalism or sexism) and then connect those ideas to sources found in Jewish tradition.

By identifying who contributes content to the Tagged Tanakh users can control their experience by filtering information according to the credentials and/or background of the contributor.

With the Tagged Tanakh everyone has the opportunity to share their interpretations of Torah, continuing the conversation that the rabbis started ages ago.

Judaism, Free Culture, and the Open Siddur Project

JT — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 11:50:11 -0700

“As more and more culture becomes digitized, more and more becomes controllable, as laws are being toughened at the behest of the big media groups. What’s at stake is our freedom—freedom to create, freedom to build, and ultimately, freedom to imagine.”

So says cultural environmentalist and thought leader, Lawrence Lessig in his book entitled Free Culture. Lessig is an integral part to the copyleft and creative commons movements–legal and social agendas bent on reviewing and renovating the copyright laws that companies like Disney have lobbied long and hard to put in place.

Free culture is succinctly described as one where all members are free to participate in its transmission and evolution, without artificial limits on who can participate or in what way. The free culture movement seeks to develop this culture by promoting four things:

creativity and innovation;
communication and free expression;
public access to knowledge;
and citizens’ civil liberties.

(Hat Tip to Freeculture.org for the pithy definition!)

Which of course leads bubbies across the world to ask…”Is free culture good for the Jews?”

Aharon Varady, the mind behind the Open Siddur Project, would turn the question on its head, “Have all those rights reserved by copyright law been good for the Jews?”

According to Varady, copyright put a clamp on the free transmission of a lively and vibrant culture that thrived on sharing texts and learning by attribution, as is taught in the Pirkei Avot chapter 6:6, “He who quotes something in the name of the person who said it brings deliverance to the world. For it is said: ‘And Esther said to the King in the name of Mordechai.’ Esther 2:22.”

Varady goes on to say, “It’s important to remember that for most of Jewish history Jews didn’t have copyright law. Jewish discourse was preserved and disseminated orally as a gloss on our written tradition. With the introduction of copyright law in 1923, suddenly Jewish publishers initially invested in the dissemination, transmission, and education of Jewish culture, were deputized in the role of gatekeepers and guardians of intellectual property. Tell me how preserving the rights to authors for their lifetime– plus 70 years– aids in the transmission of Torah from one generation to the next? For a living tradition, it doesn’t.”

“Furthermore, the values of pluralism and multiculturalism reflected in the Jewish laws obligating respect and tolerance for diversity between communal minhagim (customs) and nuschaot (prayer traditions) need to re-emphasized at times such as ours when Jewish culture is threatened by homogenization on the one hand and ignorance on the other.”

The Open Siddur Project, lead by Varady and a small cadre of self-taught hackers is both a social network and a digital archive of public domain prayer materials. As a work in progress it is already starting to ruffle the feathers of old-school publishers who have cornered the market on traditional prayer materials.

Varady hopes his free and open platform for crafting new siddurim reaches “creative Jews inspired by the substance and real diversity of historical and contemporary Jewish practice but who are only interested to the extent that they can actively engage this legacy — a legacy that they’ve heard over and over again is their inheritance. If the Open Siddur Project is doing anything radical it is asking Jews who love their siddur how they would improve it — and then giving them the tools to do so.”

Initiatives like the Open Siddur Project are natural allies with the Tagged Tanakh as both ventures seek to aggregate Jewish content for personal and communal purposes. Providing access to central Jewish texts to an ever-widening constituency of interested people lay at the heart of both web applications. Although, the Tagged Tanakh relies on works that are copyrighted (specifically, JPS’ translation of the Hebrew Bible), we hope to make user contributed comments licensed under creative commons, enabling everyone to take and build on those comments while ensuring a chain of attribution to the original author.

Only a few players exist in the Jewish free culture scene and we require both creative and financial capital. Show your support for the Tagged Tanakh by throwing in a dime to help contribute to the digital future of Judaism. The best way to support the Open Siddur Project is by actively contributing to the project as a volunteer developer, researcher, transcriber, translator, artist, or commentator.

The Business Design of the Tagged Tanakh

JT — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 08:51:54 -0700

Q: What is business design?
A: An emerging field in economic and creative thinking.
Here’s one definition and here’s an entire blog dedicated to the subject. If you’re looking for a more academic perspective, check out what Roger Martin, dean of the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management has to say:

“Design’s powerful impact on business strategy will require a whole new way of thinking. Traditional companies reward two types of logic: inductive (proving that something actually operates) and deductive (proving that something must be). Designers combine inductive and deductive reasoning to create a fresh approach — abductive thinking — which I define as suggesting that something may be and reaching out to explore it. Instead of acting on what’s certain, designers bet on what’s probable. Companies such as Apple act like design shops by saying, ‘If everything must be proven, we’ll never make the likes of an iPod.’”

Still skeptical about design thinking kick starting the global economy? Here’s a conversation between BusinessWeek’s Innovation Guru, Bruce Nussbaum and the aforementioned Roger Martin.

One of the most influential American design houses of the last thirty years, Ideo has made business design their core service to organizations and nation states. Last year, their CEO Tim Brown, produced a Design Thinking Manifesto for the Harvard Business Review. If you want to get a masters in business design you can even go to Stanford’s d.school. But where are there examples of business design influencing the Jewish world?

Probably Shai Agassi’s Better Place is the most well known example. But where else can we see the ethos and practice of design thinking merge with Jewish values and education?

We hope that the Tagged Tanakh will be another shining example of Jewish business design. From our early thought experiments, to our user testing of the Tagged Tanakh prototype, we have been employing the design thinking process to imagine how people will interact with Torah and each other in the 21st century.

If you have a vision of what this looks like, please share it with us. Collaboration and the integration of multiple facets are central to the process of business design. In keeping with that philosophy, we hope that the Tagged Tanakh can become a platform that reveals even more than 70 faces of Torah.

Image taken from DesignThinking

Crowd Sourcing

Sarah Simkin — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 05:18:30 -0700

Building data sets is expensive and time consuming. That is, if you hire experts. But what if you open your project to anyone who is interested in helping via crowd sourcing?

The results can be both awesome and potentially threatening. The White Glove Tracking Project illustrates how a bunch of techies with ample free time can synergize their efforts. Companies like Lego, BMW and Muji innovate products and services through crowdsourcing. The scientific community has begun harnessing the power of the masses for tasks like crater finding and bird identification. Even user testing can be crowd sourced. I think anyone would be hard pressed to say that completing huge amounts of work in record time is a bad thing. What some might take issue with however is the quality of work done by anyone. A lack of authority can be freeing, but are data and products produced without credentials reliable?

Quality aside, there are other potential pitfalls to crowd sourcing. Even if all the work is done for free or at very low cost, it’s still necessary to pay for the aggregation and cleaning up of the data at the project’s conclusion. There is also unfortunately the risk of faulty results caused by targeted, malicious efforts or just laziness.

What would happen if you employed crowd sourcing techniques to add commentaries to the Bible, or even create new translations? Or better yet, what if crowd sourcing was used along side credentialed experts to provide a mixture of authoritative as well as populist interpretations?

With the Tagged Tanakh, crowd sourcing is allowing us to discover new theories and ways to connect with Torah. Is crowd sourcing dangerous? Is it good for the Jews?

In this age of instant gratification we’ve become accustomed to getting information on anything quickly and easily. This grab and go mindset is now permeating all facets of society. What happens when scholarly interpretations, traditional rabbinic sources, and Torah tweets live side by side? We hope that the Tagged Tanakh will point to an answer.

The Value of User Testing

JT — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 06:47:51 -0700

Our goal at JPS Interactive is to create a positive and meaningful Torah study experience. We believe that if more people can access and interact with the seminal text of the Jewish people, our community will be stronger and more vibrant. As we put the finishing touches on the Tagged Tanakh prototype we inch closer to the next exciting stage of development–User Testing.

In essence, user testing is a process where volunteers use a product and communicate how they feel about it and any problems they might have encountered while using it. Through this process assumptions made during the design phrase are verified or discredited. The data gleaned from user testing then informs the next round of iteration and development.

User testing is a central part of agile methodologies and ensures that we are creating a sound user experience with the Tagged Tanakh.Jakob Nielson and Alan Cooper are the main usability gurus out there and copious examples of usability standards and best practices can be found online. User testing is the key to assessing the efficiency of the product, not the people using it. If there is one verb that embodies the process of user testing it is TO LISTEN.

Soon, we will begin testing the Tagged Tanakh prototype with members of our initial target audiences: Jewish educators, rabbis, and non-profit professionals. If you wear one of those hats (and live in Philadelphia or NYC!) and you’re interested in being amongst the first to explore the Tagged Tanakh prototype, please contact JT Waldman at JWaldman@jewishpub.org to set up a user testing session.

Competitive Analysis: What Else Is Out There? Part II

Sarah Simkin — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 08:12:03 -0700

We continue with our investigation of sites that rival the Tagged Tanakh…

Oxford Biblical Studies Online has the Oxford University Press’ history and prestige to its advantage, but high subscription costs ($20 monthly for individual users) and an overwhelming amount of inaccessible content deter new users from entering the site.

Kolel Open Book Proeject is similar in concept to the Tagged Tanakh (TT) but unable to match the volume of the TT’s eventual content. Unlike many of the other competing sites we’ve looked at, the Kolel Open Book Project does have some elements of user interaction in its community forum. The project also hosts online courses and programs. But yet again the design looks outdated and not very enticing.

Shema Yisrael Torah Network offers classes, forums for teachers to communicate and learn from one another, and free study materials. The site is mainly geared towards educational institutions like Jewish day schools and does not cover individual adult learners.

The Lookstein Center out of Bar-Ilan University provides resources for Jewish educators, but does not feature much Web 2.0 functionality nor meet the needs of individual adult learners.

That pretty much covers the playing field of online Jewish Bible resources and sites. There are plenty of Palm Pilot, iPhone, CD-ROM, and other digital versions of the Tanakh, but these are the main players on the Internet.

The incorporation of interaction design, user-generated content, appealing visual design that removes that stodgy out-dated feel, and serendipitous opportunities to delve deeper into the Bible are missing from almost all of these sites.

Our closest competition at this stage of the game are our friends and partners in Israel, CET who created the site Psookim. However, Psookim does not have the same level of sophisticated site and forum moderation and ranking nor will it include the semantic structuring of the Bible that we are underway with for the Tagged Tanakh.

Currently, the playing field is quite level, giving the Tagged Tanakh some amazing opportunities to radically change the way users interact with the Bible and each other.

Competitive Analysis: What Else Is Out There?

Sarah Simkin — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 10:19:44 -0700

Previously on this blog we discussed the importance of considering our competitors. Continuing in that vein, I took a look at some of the other Bible sites out there to get a better understanding of what is unique about the Tagged Tanakh.

World ORT is run by an international NGO promoting Jewish education, concentrating primarily on providing resources for institutions rather than on targeting individual users. The idea behind it is strong and the content is there, but the site itself is buggy and poorly designed.

Mechon Mamre sports an unappealing interface and lacks a presence outside the web, which diminishes its reliability. Nevertheless, it has a devoted following due to it’s simple design. It offers free downloads of various biblical texts in Hebrew and English…including the public domain 1917 JPS English translation based on the King James Bible.

Torah-La-Am is organized like a library, but users must pay for each article they wish to read. The content is fairly good, but isn’t backed up by any of the traditional scholarly credentials.

Biblos is an encyclopedic resource aggregating content from multiple religions, but doesn’t create any new information or commentary. Yet another top-down example of presenting the Bible as opposed to facilitating conversations around the Bible.

Project Genesis is a division of the Jewish Outreach Program consisting of several semi-connected sites:

Torah.org is a comprehensive and educational resource of online Torah classes
TorahMedia.com consists of thousands of recordings of Torah audio, free downloads, and a premium lending library
eKiruv.com provides online management tools and other resources for Jewish outreach organizations.
JewishAnswers.org is an archive of “Ask the Rabbi” questions and answers
Cross-Currents.com is commentary from an array of Jewish writers
LZechernishmas.com is a service that makes it easy to create and join efforts to complete the full six orders of the Mishnah text in memory of a loved one.

The lack of a clear connection between Project Genesis’s various sites makes it difficult for a user to access all that the project has to offer.

The biggest function differentiating the Tagged Tanakh from these sites is user interaction. None of them allow users to communicate with one another or to comment on others’ comments, which is a key component of the Tagged Tanakh. Many of these sites are focused on outreach, rather than Torah for Torah’s sake and the sake of connecting Torah to things beyond traditional Judaism.

More information on the Tagged Tanakh’s competitors coming soon!

Meet the JPS Interactive Team

Sarah Simkin — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 05:30:36 -0700

JPS was founded in 1888 to provide Jewish immigrants and their children with books about their heritage in the language of the New World. With the Tagged Tanakh, JPS will provide their great-great grandchildren with dynamic content and resources about their heritage in the language of the new digital world.

JPS staff and advisors are building on 120 years of publishing experience to create new ways of distributing meaningful Jewish content. Our management team blends scholarly insight, seasoned professional skills, and innovation to create something that is both groundbreaking and rooted in Jewish tradition.

Dr. Ellen Frankel JPS CEO and Editor-in-Chief
Since 1998 Ellen has worked as the CEO and Editor-in-Chief of The Jewish Publication Society since 1998. A scholar of Jewish folklore, Ellen has published eight books on Jewish subjects, including The Classic Tales: 4000 Years of Jewish Lore; The Encyclopedia of Jewish Symbols; The Five Books of Miriam: A Woman’s Commentary on the Torah; The Jewish Spirit; The Illustrated Hebrew Bible, and the JPS Illustrated Children’s Bible. She has also been a contributor to the 10-volume series, My People’s Prayerbook. Ellen travels widely as a storyteller and lecturer, speaking at synagogues, learning institutes, national organizations, colleges and schools, and to radio audiences.

JT Waldman JPS Director of Interactive Media
JT Waldman oversees the daily operations of the Tagged Tanakh project. His work on the TT garnered him a PresenTense Fellowship and an invitation to attend the ROI2008 summit in Jerusalem. As the creative force behind the Tagged Tanakh, JT brings experience in the arts and Jewish education to his role as project director. In 2005, JPS published Megillat Esther, JT’s critically acclaimed graphic novel adaptation of the Book of Esther. Drawings from this groundbreaking work have been exhibited at the HUC Skirball Museum, the Jewish Museum of Maryland, and The Sherwin Miller Museum of Jewish Art. In 2006, he enhanced his technical skill set by completing a rigorous course in digital design at the Vancouver Film School. JT’s hands-on experience as a Hebrew schoolteacher and youth adviser blends with his creative background to inform his approach in developing the technology and content of the TT.

Rabbi Shai Gluskin Web Development Consultant
An ordained Reconstructionist rabbi, educator, and community leader, Rabbi Gluskin is a Drupal web developer. Using his expertise in open source technology, Gluskin manages the back-end design and operation of www.jpsinteractive.org. He currently operates his own boutique design shop Content2Zero.

Sarah Simkin JPS Interactive Intern
The newest member of the Tagged Tanakh staff, Sarah is a student at the University of Pittsburgh studying political science and writing. She is a graduate of the Tuttleman/Lasko Internship Program. During the school year, she is a staff writer for The Pitt News and student assistant to the University of Pittsburgh’s Office of General Counsel.

Introducing the JPS Scholarly Mark-up Group

Sarah Simkin — Mon, 11 May 2009 11:39:22 -0700

Input from scholars, rabbis, and dedicated lay learners is essential to the development of the Tagged Tanakh (TT). From April 2008 to July 2008 five biblical scholars formed the first JPS Scholarly Mark-up Group (SMG) to inform the design of the TT prototype. Under the direction of Rabbi David E.S. Stein, these experts in Rabbinics, Near Eastern Studies, Jewish Intertextuality and Hebrew literary structure provided tags and annotations for Exodus chapters 1-20, as well as for the Song of Songs, to ensure that the Tagged Tanakh is vetted and structured by experts.

These scholars are developing a taxonomy: a classification system that works from the top down. Later, individual TT users will create a folksonomy, a collaborative classification system created by tagging (hence the Tagged Tanakh). The tags and annotations of the SMG will inform the structure of the TT prototype as well as pre-populate the project with authoritative and credible data. 661 verses were tagged, containing a total of 2028 unique tags and annotations. These will serve as a basis for tags to be added by general users and JPS staff. As the Tagged Tanakh grows, JPS will launch further SMG groups to mark-up the entire Bible.

Meet the Tagged Tanakh’s first SMG!

Rabbi David E.S. Stein served as the SMG coordinator and contributed tags on lexicography, gender, and literary analysis. He has previously worked on such projects as the JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh (1999) and The Torah: A Women’s Commentary (2008), which won the Everett Family Foundation 2008 “Jewish Book of the Year” award. Educated at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and Stanford University, he currently lives in Santa Monica, California. Selected publications by Rabbi Stein are available here.

Shirly Yulzary contributed tags on Hebrew literary devices, narration, and literary structure. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Tel Aviv University in Israel and a research assistant on the Wisdom Literature of Israel and Ancient Syria project. She has been published in Shnaton – An Annual for Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies(2007).

Professor Amelia Devin Freedman contributed tags on social structure and conventions in the biblical world, vocabulary usage, and legal traditions. She also did an amazing job of cross indexing the the TT with the Harper Collins Bible Dictionary in an effort to make the text more accessible for new readers. She is a professor at the University of Massachusetts in Lowell and author of God as an Absent Character in Biblical Hebrew Narrative: A Literary-Theoretical Study. She lives in Boston, Massachusetts.

Danny Deutsch contributed midrashic tags on the relationship between humans and the environment, leadership, theology, and politics. A former kibbutznik and computer programmer, Danny was educated at various yeshivot and at Sacred Heart University and Central Connecticut State University. He is a Marriage and Family Therapist and resides in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Professor Elaine Goodfriend contributed tags on the Ancient Near East , Egypt, and narrative analysis. She has written articles for the Anchor Bible Dictionary (1992) and for the dictionary Women in Scripture (2001). Professor Goodfriend received her Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. She is a lecturer in Near East Studies and Jewish History at California State University, Northridge and currently resides in the San Fernando Valley.

More opportunities to learn how you can sponsor the creation of a digital Torah are coming soon!

Tagged Tanakh CTO wins Golden Dot Award for Best Mash-Up

JT — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 11:12:35 -0700

Earlier this week, the Tagged Tanakh’s Chief Technical Officer Sze Wong, walked away with a Golden Dot Award for his work on the Twitter Vote Report Project. Given away at the 2009 Politics Online Conference, the Golden Dot Awards honor individuals or organizations whose online initiatives influence the political sphere in significant ways.

Sze worked with over twenty other contributors to create the Twitter Vote Report, a mash-up that tracked voter responses during the 2008 presidential election. Twitter Vote Report captured on-the-ground reports from polling stations, recounting long lines or malfunctioning voter machines to capture the varied experiences of American voters. Talk about sentiment analysis?! As Sze describes in his personal blog, “In plain English, it’s using social network technology to allow the public to document political events.”

In addition to his work with the Tagged Tanakh and FlipSide5 (creators of one of the most addictive iPhone games out there), Sze still manages to find the time to work on important and innovative projects like the Twitter Vote Report. Congratulations to Sze for supporting democracy through information technologies that build community and transparency).

I hope that your track record for success bodes well for the Tagged Tanakh.

Check out this video about Twitter Vote Report to learn more about the project:

Darim Online + JPSinteractive = Happy Fun Fun Jewish Educational Technology Time!

JT — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 11:27:34 -0700

If the adage is true and you can measure a person by their friends, then JPS Interactive is a head above the rest due to friends like Lisa Colton and Darim Online. During the 1990s Lisa founded Darim Online and created a large chunk of the synagogue and Jewish non-profit websites in North America. Since then, Lisa and co. have created the premier boutique consulting firm for the professional Jewish world. What Dr. Ruth did for sex education, Lisa is doing for technology and education. She makes it all seem less threatening and in clear and jargon-free presentations Lisa unpacks the mysteries of RSS, how a Facebook Page differs from a Facebook Group, and demonstrates how the tools of social media are changing everything.

In addition to lecturing and disseminating best practices, Lisa and Darim Online are training Jewish educators on how to incorporate technological tools into their classrooms and curricula. This cohort of educators will be one of the core groups of user testers who will be reviewing and providing feedback on the Tagged Tanakh prototype. JPS Interactive is proud to have Darim Online as one of our pilot partners.

Last night, Lisa and I sat down at a local pub to enjoy deliciously tasty post-Pesach beer. When I asked her what brought her to the City of Brotherly Love she told me that the Philly Federation had invited her to speak to not one, but three groups of Federation affiliates. Little did Lisa know that JPS’s office is located within the Philly Federation building, and thus I happily broke the Monday doldrums by dropping in on one of her sessions.

As someone who is also on the lecturing circuit I really appreciated Lisa’s congenial speaking style and the thoughtful preparation of her presentation. Including the Facebook page of one of the organizations she knew would be attending the lecture inspired squeals of joy by the young professionals who had created said profile on Facebook. She shoots she scores!

Lisa provided tachlis information with links to animoto and to Avi Chai’s Educational Technology Blog, and provided inspirational evidence of the power of videos as a means of building support for your organization. The following video is yet another amazing example of the power of typography and sound. Kol HaKavod Lisa!

Technology Behind the Tagged Tanakh

JT — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 08:46:13 -0800

The core system of the Tagged Tanakh is built off a new MVC framework introduced by Microsoft for ASP.NET.

The data is being stored in a MS SQL Server 2008 Database, which is accessed via the new LINQ to SQL data mapping library included in .NET 3.5.

The Tagged Tanakh makes extensive use of AJAX, with much of the code being based on the jQuery javascript library.

Stay tuned for more updates about the evolving technology solutions being deployed with the Tagged Tanakh.

Torah 2.0 or just more hype?!

JT — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 08:42:39 -0800

So the cat is out of the bag and our little stealth project that was nicely moving under the radar has just been spotted. Is the Tagged Tanakh something revolutionary or just more hype?

This past weekend at the excellent inaugural LimmudPhilly conference, JPS offered a sneak peek at the type of interactivity that will be offered by the Tagged Tanakh. As a group we read aloud 15 verses from Genesis 38 and then three more additional sources were introduced to help the participants recognize that the text could be “unpacked” in a variety of ways.

The first source was an excerpt from Aviva Zornberg’s Genesis: The Beginning of Desire, the second was a Google map of where Adullam is now located, and the last was a funny youtube clip.

The 30+ participants were then armed with pencils and post-its and asked to tag sections of Genesis 38 that had been divided and affixed to pieces of paper hung up around the room. Participants were asked to circle words or phrases that they wanted to tag, and encouraged to add their remarks and questions about the text. After 20 minutes, the text was surrounded with post-its pointing out facts like, “Tamar means date palm” or direct questions like, “Where are there other examples in the Bible of women covering their faces?”Tagged Tanakh on Paper

At the end of the workshop when asked how this activity made them feel, participants said they felt “energized,” “inspired by the collective wisdom in the room,” and “surprised that they found things in the text they never noticed before.”

We will continue to test the Tagged Tanakh on paper with workshops like this to refine the scope of the project and ensure that we’re building something that people will use and value. This way we can insure that the hype is reflected by reality.

The Tagged Tanakh Technical Team

JT — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 17:22:07 -0800

Building the Tagged Tanakh is an amazing team that blends proven experience and cutting edge talent. The Lead Tech Team is Phase Six

Phase Six is an integrated front-end and back-end Web applications boutique firm. Their blend of technical prowess and creative style is evident in their work with clients like Disney, Chronicle Books, and SideReel.com.

Chief Technical Officer–Sze Wong, Zerion Consulting.

Working with Phase Six and JPS is consultant CTO Sze Wong. With over ten years of experience working on massive technology projects, including a $50 million accounting software system for Fannie Mae, Mr. Wong provides technical oversight and documentation, ensuring that industry standards and best practices are included in the Tagged Tanakh’s development.

Technical Advisory Group Providing Key Expertise

admin — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 14:05:36 -0800

The JPS Technical Advisory Board (TAB) offers guidance and strategic direction on all technical matters relating to the TT project. The TAB brings to the TT project extensive experience in software development and online business and management, giving JPS a distinct advantage. The TAB will provide counsel on issues pertaining to user experience, Web applications, and risk management.

Nancy Ackerman’s professional work focuses on the user experience of high tech products and services. With an educational background in information science and telecommunications, Nancy has worked on software and web projects for both the non-profit and private sectors. She was a systems analyst at Deloitte & Touche Consulting Group, and then worked at Google as an engineering manager and user experience (UE) researcher. Currently, Nancy is working on a new venture: an informative e-commerce site highlighting the what/why/how of basic Jewish home rituals paired with artistic, modern Judaica products. Her passion is innovation for the social good. Nancy currently lives in Miami Beach with her husband, Alex. As a JPS Trustee, Nancy also serves as the liaison between the JPS Board and the TAB.

Stan Coplan is currently employed by Aetna, Inc. as an e-health strategy and delivery expert. Stan is also the founder of MegaMedia Inc., and a partner in Search and Data, LLC. He was formerly employed at Baker Videoactive where he served as VP of operations, CTO, and president, and was a member of the executive committee responsible for taking the company public.

During his 20+ year tenure in the high-tech industry, he has been responsible for strategic planning at the enterprise level and technology planning for enterprise IT systems. As a pioneer in the multimedia and software information technology industry, Stan is expert in the design, development, and integration of multimedia, software and hardware products and has been responsible for the development of over 170+ software, multimedia, and related products.

Martin Kaminer is a founding board member and currently the chairman of the board of Bikkurim, an influential non-profit incubator of tech start-ups in the New York area. He has been a board member and active supporter of numerous national Jewish organizations including JESNA, the Jewish Theological Seminary, the Jewish Funders Network and Jewish Family & Life. When he’s not busy giving advice, Martin runs an educational technology company that provides computer-based learning to educationally and economically disadvantaged populations. Martin lives in New York City with his wife Sarit and his children Gidon and Ayelet.

Josh Marcus is the lead developer for the DecisionTree web user interface and calculation API, a set of innovative web-based geographic decision-making tools for Avencia, Inc. Josh has ten years of experience applying his software engineering, system architecture, and management experience to building sophisticated, scalable web-based applications. Prior to joining Avencia, Josh served as chief technology officer for Solutions for Progress, a public policy technology company. In that role, he led the development of The Benefit Bank for several state governments, a web-based application that helps low income households gain access to tax credits and public benefit programs. Josh recently led the development of the AfricaMap project for the Harvard Center for Geographic Analysis, and served as the manager of data and mapping projects for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in the state of Pennsylvania.

Jason Shindler is the owner of Curvine Web Solutions, a website development firm located in Bellevue, WA, with graphic design and programming expertise. Jason has had nine years of experience developing websites and web applications for businesses of all sizes. In his free time, he is involved with different parts of the Seattle Jewish community, including YJP and teaching elementary school children at synagogue religious schools.

Andrew Sternthal is the CEO and co-founder of ekkoTV, a Philadelphia-area based start-up that has developed a web-based synchronous communication and interaction platform and modules for both business and consumer-facing companies. ekkoTV currently has more than 100,000 minutes a day of interactions coming through its platform and modules. The company was a finalist for the 2008 Ben Franklin Emerging Business Award for Most Innovative Product or Service.

Andrew was the lead business development executive at CDNOW, Inc. from start-up to sale (1995-2000). After CDNOW’s sale in 2000 and prior to ekkoTV, Andrew served as an outsourced strategic consultant to emerging media and technology companies, helping client companies with business planning, fundraising, strategic and product development, partnership development, and sales. In 2001, Andrew was recognized by The Philadelphia Inquirer’s PhillyTech Magazine as one of their “30 under 30” technology executives to watch. In 2005, Andrew won a Mid Atlantic Emmy Award in the “Outstanding Magazine Broadcast” category for his work as the producer of a youth oriented TV and video-on-demand program distributed by Comcast.

Darim Learning Network for Educators

JT — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 18:35:50 -0800

Darim Online is a proven leader in the digital Jewish world with over ten years of experience providing Internet strategy and technology consulting for synagogues, Jewish day schools, camps, federations and other organizations. The Darim Learning Network for Educators is a new program for congregational and other educators who work with middle and high school students. It builds on the success of the Darim Learning Network for Synagogues, which includes more than 175 participants from over 85 congregations.

The partnership between JPS and the Darim Learning Network for Educators brings cutting edge technology and content directly to the people who crave it most: educators primed and accustomed to integrating digital activities into their curriculum. The two cohorts of fifteen educators trained by Darim Online will serve as the Beta testers of the Tagged Tanakh prototype and directly inform the iterative development of the project.

Center for Educational Technology

JT — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 15:24:20 -0800

CET is an NGO dedicated to the advancement of education in Israel, in the Jewish world, and around the globe. In its 37 years of activity, CET has invested significant resources in carrying out its social mission, and has established its expertise and reputation as a content developer, advocate of advanced technologies, and as a leader of next generation learning and pedagogy.

The partnership between JPS and CET is grounded in shared goals and common vision. In exchange for access to CET’s digital version of the Hebrew Masoretic text, JPS will provide a digital version of its English translation of the Tanakh to CET. In addition to this mutually beneficial agreement, CET has offered technical support and consultation based on their advanced experience with technology and Jewish content.