Jewish Portal of Teacher Education

Source: The Jewish Week

The multimedia company, 4Wall LLC, has released the Jewish Internet Metric Study which takes a business-oriented, top-level look at the Jewish Web using the practices of the renowned consulting firm McKinsey as a guide. With this analysis the community can better understand the business issues, the competitive situation, and the hurdles and opportunities for sustainability on the Web. The sudy focused on three areas of the Jewish Internet: news-based sites, educational and informational sites, and the search experience for Jewish-based terms.

Methodology

For the Jewish Internet Metric Study, the researchers examined the most recent quarter (April-June 2009) and used selected historical data to understand web engagement, traffic, demography, content architecture and market response. They focused on three areas of the Jewish Internet: news-based sites, educational and informational sites, and the search experience for Jewish-based terms. A proprietary framework was applied to understand the competitive situation and strategy alternatives. Data is illustrative and offers a “best guess” to formulate conclusions. There is no proof of accuracy for specific data points, though higher-level findings and relative analysis remain valid.

The study reports the following broad trends currently affecting the Jewish Internet:

• Overall traffic to major Jewish news and educational/information sites is rising.
• In the news category, there is no dominant U.S. site.
• In the education/information category there are a number of strong sites, with Chabad emerging as a brand leader.
• Overall search traffic for Jewish terms is steadily declining.

Report on Selected Jewish Education and Information Sites
Site Traffic and Engagement

In the education/information category, there are a number of strong sites, with Chabad emerging as a brand leader. Chabad’s website consistently serves as an example of what a successful educational/informational Web presence can look like. While many of the learning sites have decent traffic, Chabad’s traffic rose by 37 percent over the past year and is now significantly above the other sites studied. In contrast, the Web presence of other religious movements – Reform, Conservative and Orthodox Judaism – was much poorer, though ou.org does moderately well. The site Beliefenet.com was selected as a secular example of the great potential for the education/information genre.

The engagement patterns for Jewish sites suggest they function often as reference sites. Beliefnet, on the other hand, has succeeded at being an educational community. Almost 80 percent of Beliefnet’s traffic is driven by “regulars” and “addicts” while the average for the Jewish sites is 40 percent by these types of visitors. Aish and Chabad do better than average, with more than 50 percent of their traffic driven by regulars. Still, as in the Jewish news sector, there is room to expand by fostering a community of habitual users.

Social Analytics

Jewish educational and informational sites are taking advantage of social media – with MyJewish Learning’s “jewlearn” Twitter account and Aish’s YouTube presence as successful examples – but none has a more focused brand across social media than Chabad. Chabad has leveraged its international identity in coordination with its local chapters to create a social web experience that is both down on a local level and part of something “larger.” As a result, while the metrics count only the largest Chabad account on any one social platform, there are often dozens more localized versions with loyal local followers all linked through the Chabad brand.