March 1, 2001
http://www.thejewishweek.com/bottom/specialcontent.php3?artid=109

Joy To The World

Jodi Bodner DuBow - Long Island Staff Writer
 

So your best friend went to Israel, met a guy, fell in love and just became engaged. You're elated for her, of course, but you feel left out in New York.

What does he look like? How do they seem together? However many phone calls and e-mails the two of you exchange, you just can't picture him or them as a couple. You wish you could be there but circumstances won't allow.

Now you can feel a part of things with onlysimchas.com.

The site "devoted to bringing simchas to the Web" started about a year ago when a college student and his wife, Dov and Shira Katz, posted their digital pictures from a friend's wedding on-line, making them available immediately for friends and family who were unable to attend the celebration.

Their hobby has become a business, with photo album postings of more than 360 simchas.

"It all started because of all my wife's friends' weddings," Dov says. "We went to like 19 of them last summer. But it seems to have radiated from my circle of friends and now everyone's talking about it.

With a mouse click, you can be privy to photo collections of engagements, weddings, births and bar/bat mitzvahs, and post messages in guest books. Brides and grooms can manage guest lists, gifts and thank-you notes and enjoy access to countless services and simcha resources. A gift registry will be available soon.

In addition, charities also are posting information on twinning for bar mitzvahs or helping the less fortunate make a simcha with donated goods and money.

"We really had no intention of making it a commercial enterprise," says Dov, 23, a junior at the Columbia School of Engineering and owner of an Internet development company, the Morningside Internet Group. "Creating a Web page is common for me and I made several for a few of our friends, but the feedback was so good, it just grew."

Dov, the primary caretaker of the site, took in three partners, including his brother-in-law, Doron Katz. Doron, a fourth-year medical student, also serves as the site's business developer to help service the escalating interest. Still, they all say onlysimchas.com remains a part-time undertaking.

Four months ago the site had 8,000 page views per day; now it's getting about 45,000. "Because people will look at many pictures, the average hit consists of viewing more than one page," Doron explains.

Looking at the growth from another perspective, last April about13,000 to 14,000 pages were viewed a month; now the site is getting that by 9 a.m. "from people who are logging on from Israel," says Dov. "Those are the people who couldn't make it to the simcha and that's where I get my nachas."

One user from Israel writes on the comment page: "I wanted to thank you for the wonderful chessed that you provide to those of us who wish they could be at these simchas but aren't able to."

The site is used by people in almost every U.S. state and in 15 countries. The user-friendly site allows members (membership is free) to set up an on-line photo gallery by uploading pictures from a scanner or digital camera, sending the Web designers the prints or inviting them to the simcha to take the pictures (an option for a fee available only in New York, New Jersey and Israel). Changes occur almost minute to minute, some made by Dov, the bulk by members.

"I'm just the mashgiach," says Dov, who monitors the pictures for security reasons and to maintain decency. "People make their own changes, I just supervise to ensure integrity."

Dov says the autonomy is what has allowed the site to grow with little effort, although both he and Doron admit that despite the "part-time" premise, the endeavor is time consuming.

Money comes from selling advertising space to the appropriate vendors, whose listings are highlighted in the service directory featuring everything from flowers and bands to apparel and catering halls, all with Jewish appeal.

"Jews want their own stuff," Dov says. "They won't go to the Wedding Channel."

But the real profit will come from the gift registry. Doron has been in touch with such well-known stores as Fortunoff and Bloomingdales, and he expects the registry to be operating soon.

Still, as encompassing as it has become, Dov and Doron maintain onlysimchas.com is about sharing in simchas. Indeed, clicking on a recently posted photo album from a wedding on Long Island in mid-February, the viewer gains entrée to the badeken, the tanaaim, faces of the family and the chupah.

There are delightful pictures, too, of a little girl born in early February. She is seen in a variety of settings, from the hospital to an adoring embrace by her grandparents.

Dov says onlysimchas.com is successful because it answers a wide-scale problem.

"It's a way for communities to communicate," he says, "and for joy to be shared."

To view this article at The Jewish Week website, visit http://www.thejewishweek.com/bottom/specialcontent.php3?artid=109