BATTLE OF THE NETWORKED JEWS

You may know the old joke about the Jew who is marooned on an island for many years. Finally, he is rescued. His rescuers find that, during his time on the island, the castaway has built two shuls. Why? Because, he said, pointing at one of the structures, THAT ONE I wouldn't be caught dead in.

In an age of Friendster, Ryze, Orkut and LinkedIn, it was only a matter of time before the "one Jew, two shuls" concept was applied to networking sites. An early entry was J2J Networking, a serious networking site for Jewish professionals.

Let the battle of the social networking sites begin:

In one corner: JEWSTAR.COM

In the other: JEWISHGEOGRAPHY.ORG

Jewstar is a networking tool that is highly derivative of Friendster--you invite people to join your network, fill out a profile of yourself and your affiliations, then write testimonials of your friends. You can search for someone by name, affiliation, school, etc...Call it Friendster with a bris.

JewishGeography also provides search engines. On further investigation, I realize that the site is extremely old. Apparently, judging by my email address, I joined it seven years ago. The last time anyone on their end updated their site was May of 2000. I guess that in this race, it's no contest--Jewstar wins this match. Too bad, I like the JewishGeography site and name better.

NEXT MATCH

champion JEWSTAR

vs.

chutzpadik challenger JMERICA

Coming soon to [grimacing in advance] Pay-Per-Jew.

(What? Is that any worse than "Coming soon to [grimacing again] a theater near Jew?")

BATTLE OF THE NETWORKED JEWS

You may know the old joke about the Jew who is marooned on an island for many years. Finally, he is rescued. His rescuers find that, during his time on the island, the castaway has built two shuls. Why? Because, he said, pointing at one of the structures, THAT ONE I wouldn't be caught dead in.

In an age of Friendster, Ryze, Orkut and LinkedIn, it was only a matter of time before the "one Jew, two shuls" concept was applied to networking sites. An early entry was J2J Networking, a serious networking site for Jewish professionals.

Let the battle of the social networking sites begin:

In one corner: JEWSTAR.COM

In the other: JEWISHGEOGRAPHY.ORG

Jewstar is a networking tool that is highly derivative of Friendster--you invite people to join your network, fill out a profile of yourself and your affiliations, then write testimonials of your friends. You can search for someone by name, affiliation, school, etc...Call it Friendster with a bris.

JewishGeography also provides search engines. On further investigation, I realize that the site is extremely old. Apparently, judging by my email address, I joined it seven years ago. The last time anyone on their end updated their site was May of 2000. I guess that in this race, it's no contest--Jewstar wins this match. Too bad, I like the JewishGeography site and name better.

NEXT MATCH

champion JEWSTAR

vs.

chutzpadik challenger JMERICA

Coming soon to [grimacing in advance] Pay-Per-Jew.

(What? Is that any worse than "Coming soon to [grimacing again] a theater near Jew?")