Walla!

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.

Walla

In American radio, film, television, and video games, walla is a sound effect imitating the murmur of a crowd in the background. A group of actors brought together in the post-production stage of film production to create this murmur is known as a walla group. According to one story, walla received its name during the early days of radio, when it was discovered that having several people repeat the sound walla in the background was sufficient to mimic the indistinct chatter of a crowd. Nowadays, walla actors make use of real words and conversations, often improvised, tailored to the languages, speech patterns, and accents that might be expected of the crowd to be mimicked.

Walla is called rhubarb in the UK where actors say "rhubarb, rhubarb", rhabarber in Germany, rabarber in the Netherlands and Flanders (Belgium) as well as Denmark, Sweden & Estonia, and gaya in Japan, perhaps in part reflecting the varying textures of crowd noise in the different countries. Other phrases are "carrots and peas", "watermelon cantaloupe, watermelon cantaloupe" and "natter natter" (to which the response is "grommish grommish").

Walla (disambiguation)

Walla is a sound effect imitating the murmur of a crowd in the background.

Walla may also refer to:

See also