Facebook Inc. is expanding its operations in the Israeli market. In the past few months, the social network has increased its online sales and marketing effort in Israel, in order to boost activity.
Facebook is not talking about opening an Israeli branch at this time, nor renting space for an office. Two Israelis at Facebook's Irish offices, Elad Brindt and Nimrod Halevi, will be responsible for more aggressively marketing the company's ad tools in Israel as well.
In the past few months, Brindt and Halevi have made a number of trips to Israel, meeting with most large advertisers in the market to persuade them to increase their advertising on Facebook's homepage in Israel, and leverage the advertising potential of the 3.5 million-strong Israeli Facebook community. If the marketing effort succeeds, Facebook might expand its Israeli operations and even hire local service and salespeople.
Facebook's strategic decision comes after its collaboration with Masa (a joint media platform of Nana10, Microsoft Online, and Facebook in Israel), under which Nana10 exclusively sold ad space on Facebook homepage ended.
In view of the termination of the relationship between the parties, Bonnie Solomon, who was appointed to manage Facebook's activity in Israel through Masa less than a year ago, will leave his job within a few months.
Solomon and Nana10 CEO Guy Alon Eliav declined to respond to the report.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on March 27, 2012
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