"Svivon" is a visual geographical magazine in the form of a PowerPoint presentation. It is distributed to the world via email. "Svivon" is a pun on several words: Literally it means Dreidel, which symbolizes its "spinning" around the Internet, but also: "Sviva" means Environment, and the "on" suffix resembles the words "Iton"/"Alon" (newspaper / bulletin).

"Svivon" belongs to the age of digital photography and the Internet. Many people nowadays produce high-quality digital pictures and the Internet enables them to easily share these pictures with others. "Svivon" uses the "presentation" format in order to bring out the best in the photographic material, and create an exciting magazine. It takes advantage of the Internet both as means of distribution, and for collecting the material. It is a cooperation between nature enthusiasts who want to share their knowledge and experiences.

"Svivon" deals with the Israeli environment, including urban areas, the countryside, or the wilderness. It deals with issues such as the interaction between man and the environment, flora and fauna, landscape, hiking, and any other topics that are fit for visual presentation.

Actually, the idea popped in my mind while washing the dishes one evening... It was a conclusion I drew from several factors:
- The overwhelming popularity of the nature and landscape presentations that I have been creating and distributing since the beginning of 2003. This proved that there is a high demand for such material in Israel and abroad.
- Several requests by people to contribute to these presentations.
- The activity and enthusiasm of many people in Internet forums dealing with nature and environment, and the quality of photos they are sharing.
It was clear in my mind that something new was called for!

An editorial team collects the material and prepare it for distribution.

Because we love nature, and care about the environment. Because we love our country. Because we believe in the concept of sharing, and the wonderful manifestation of this concept on the Internet. The work on "Svivon" is entirely voluntary and we do it in our little spare time.

The presentation file is emailed to a list of subscribers, to which you can join here. Then, it is redistributed by these subscribers to their email contacts, and so on... Anyone is allowed (and encouraged) to distribute the presentation, provide it for download on his or her website, even present it to an audience, as long as the presentation stays intact.

Any PC with Microsoft Office (or just Microsoft PowerPoint) installed will enable you to double-click the presentation file and enjoy it. If you don't have it, you can download a free "PowerPoint Viewer" from Microsoft website.



Sincerely,

Guy Shachar
Editor-in-Chief and the "Father" of "Svivon"
editor@svivon.net

Special thanks to Noam Naveh and Shlomit Tassa for their help compiling the English versions of Svivon.