Walla!

Walla! Communications Inc.

250px
Type	Public (TASE: WALA)
Industry	Internet services
Founded	Israel (1995)
Headquarters	Tel Aviv, Israel
Key people	Avraham Gabai, (Chairman) Gadi Hadar (Founder) Erez Pilosof (Founder) Gadi Hadar (Founder)
Net income	132 Million NIS (2009)
Number of employees	250
Website	www.walla.co.il

Walla! (Hebrew: וואלה!‎) is an Israeli web portal, providing news, search and e-mail, among other things. One of the first Israeli internet portals, Walla! is considered as one of the most popular web sites in the country. As of August 2011, Alexa rankings put it in the top 9 sites by traffic originating in Israel. The portal was founded by Erez Pilosof and Gadi Hadar in 1995, and soon afterwards acquired by "Mashov Computers Marketing", a member of The Mashov Group headed by Yaki Dunietz and David Assia. In 1998, the company, traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, changed its name to "Walla! Communications Ltd". In the same year, the company was acquired by Formula Systems, headed by Dan Goldstein, and in 2001 it merged with IOL, a similar site run by the Haaretz Group.

Walla! provides news from Israel and around the world, 24 hours a day. Most news stories that appear in Walla! come from the Haaretz Group, news agencies and other content providers. However, during the year 2006, Walla! started building an independent news and editorial staff, which produces original news stories and special features. In addition, Walla! produces original content in various fields such as sports, cinema, music, fashion and food.

The website offers many programs and services, a search engine, E-mail, online shops, chats, and video on demand. The main holders of the company are Bezeq and Haaretz Group.

Main Services

• Walla!News – Breaking news and analysis from Israel and around the world, 24 hours a day.
• Walla!Mail – A free email service offering unlimited storage space.
• Walla!Shops – Online shopping network.
• Walla!Music – On demand music as well as the option to listen to various radio stations live.
• Walla!Cellular – Downloads for mobile phones.
• Walla!pedia – In 2005 Walla made use of the GFDL copyright license on which Wikipedia runs and copied the entire Hebrew Wikipedia's database. Walla! displays the articles under the headline Walla!pedia, but mentions that the articles originated from Wikipedia. Unlike Wikipedia, the users cannot edit the articles and the former versions and history of the articles are not shown.

External links

• Walla! (Hebrew)
• Walla!Shops (Hebrew)