LimorE

I haven’t posted anything in a really long time, and I really dont have a good reason why.  I am starting a new blog and wasnt sure where to post the posts, but I will try to post more often.

I know you guys miss me.  (All 3 of you that read this )  That’s no knock…Thank you for listening…

I have some comments and thoughts, but will have to post about them tomorrow.  About to head out to cover the World Cup Game later this afternoon and need to get everything ready.

Who are you rooting for?

My mind is on overdrive all the time.  Literally, all the time.  I’ve tried everything to calm it down, yoga, running, working out hard so that I’m physically exhausted and need to pass out, but usually they just act as band aids. A few days will pass and I’ll wake up with crazy thoughts at all hours of the night.

Except this week. Why? Well, I’ve been coughing up a storm,  feverish, sore throat, the works.  And since I don’t get sick often, when I do, it feels deathly.   So, on my way to the office yesterday while I was picking up my go-to  Advil Cold and Sinus – I decided to get Robitussin for my cough.

I took a cupful (which btw, is double the dosage, but I didn’t agree with it) and almost instantaneously, started getting hazy.  Hazy in that, “I feel awesome, and this is going to suck when it wears off” hazy.

So, what does Robitussin and semi-robotripping have to do with slowing down?  Well, the Robitussin made me physically and mentally slow, so I was only capable of doing one thing at a time.  I couldn’t keep my RSS and Tweetdeck open at once, I could’t have an im conversation and look at new design schemes, I couldn’t read an email on one screen and share an article on another… or whatever other crazy variation of multitasking I attempt on a daily basis.

I had to slow down.  I couldn’t not, it wasn’t even an option.  I physically couldn’t process too many things at once.

Once my Robitussin wears off, I’ll probably go back to not being as slow, but it has taught me to slow down once in a while. Twitter streams and emails and ims will all still be there when  I’m done writing this post.

But the truth is, it goes for everything in life.  If you’re with someone at dinner, put the phone away.  There are very few people I do that with, and not b/c I dont care about the present company, I just…apparently am too connected at all times.  Why I feel its necessary to have my gtalk and tweetie and aim on my phone at all times I’m not sure.  Sure it makes for an easy im convo instead of txting, but I feel like its so easy to lose whats surrounding us.  I walk into a bar and every other person is on their phone.  Hey, wake up call…if you’re at a  bar txting someone else, go meet that person.  And if they dont want to, dont bother txting them while you’re out.  Its easy.   And sure, sometimes its to see who else wants to meet up, or you know… people checking into FourSquare or whatever, but really… be a little present.  Focus on one (maybe 2 things at a time) and I promise it’ll feel awesome at the end of the day.

Eh, this might just be the Robitussin talking…b/c as I write this my aim icon is flashing, and as much as I want to, refuse to look at it until I get this sentence finished.  :)

So, I’ll just leave you with this song to end my post….

This post is about friends.  Not Facebook friends, or FourSquare friends or Twitter followers, but you know…real life, “I love you and will bail you out of jail” friends.

The type of friends that the loneliest people crave, and the luckiest people have.

When you’re young, making friends is easy.  You both like something similar, like the color blue,  and voila  instant bffs.    Some people keep those friends for life, but most go through stages in their life and even the greatest of friends, come and go.

As you get older, making friends is harder because people have lives and work and its just hard to fit someone new into your life.

I’m not really someone who lets people in easily.  I’m friendly with a lot of people, but usually don’t let them in completely for one main reason… they usually disappoint.

And though I’ve gone through my fair share of friends in life, I feel like we lose track of who real friends are these days.

I’m not going to sit here and blame the ‘internet’ as most people are probably expecting me to do at this point, but why would I?

The internet actually brings people closer and makes the world smaller.  No matter where you are in the world you can have an im conversation with someone and it feels like you’re right there with them.

You meet someone you have a connection with and can email them the next day, or you can tweet @ them, or become facebook friends.

I think its amazing.  I’ve always thought that, and I’ve become really good friends with people via im that I only met a few times in my life.  I’ve become good friends with people via im that I don’t get a chance to see as often in person, but we talk daily.  I’ve also kept friends close when they move to other cities due to im.

My issue though,  are the people that don’t make those real life connections.  They don’t really have or know how to keep real life friends.

The internet makes it very easy to be a loner.  Some are usually incapable of making real life friends but work very hard at increasing their twitter following so they can stay up till all hours of the night engaging with perfect strangers.

They sign onto ChatRoulette hoping to make a connection and not see too many naked guys.  They are willing to deal with the naked guys JUST for the possibility at making a connection.

Though, at the end of the day, no matter how many facebook friends you have, or how many followers on twitter you have, do you have someone to bail you out of jail if you needed it?

I think the internet has made it easy for people to get closer, but its also made people distant.   People who have thousands of facebook friends or twitter followers, have many people to share things and experiences with, but I feel like they lose out on real friendships.

If I died tomorrow, would I care how many twitter followers I had?  Would they show up to my funeral and even have anything substantial to say about you besides “ I know she likes Jamba Juice and Redbull and has a website”.

Its very easy to hide behind your tweetdeck and your facebook profile and not feel lonely b/c you’re interacting with people, but where are those people when you’re having a bad day?  I wonder why people don’t know how to be a good friend, and then I realize that in our life that friendship is hard to define.

There are many posts online explain how to engage your facebook fans, or how to get more twitter followers, and usually those are for business purposes;  I actually started to make a list on how to  keep your real  friends.  But I realized it comes down to one thing.

“Don’t Suck.”

Making genuine friendships is not easy, but I’ve realized that no matter how many facebook friends or twitter followers someone has, they are usually open for new REAL true friends.  Its much more fun watching that March Madness game with a friend at the bar than tweeting about it with everyone else watching alone.

I fear that people are just going to be hermits that can only talk to each other via machines and not know how to really interact.

Its become easy to not respond to emails or @ replies with your casual friends, but people seem to think its ok to not reply to their real friends b/c they don’t have to reply to everyone on their twitter feed.   But the truth is, real friends, actually get offended by that, and soon enough, they wont care to be your real friend anymore.

So don’t suck, because like everything in life, things and people come and go.  Tomorrow there will be a new technology people are jumping on and maybe you won’t be as fun on it and will have less followers or “friends”.    Will that drastically change your life?   These technologies are supposed to make the world smaller and make the world you live in better, they aren’t meant to be your only world.

If you don’t know who your true friends are, or the people that are trying to be friends with you sincerely, you’re going to live a very lonely life.

When you’re in jail, you only get one phone call.  They don’t let you power up and tweet something out.   You get one person.

If you don’t know who you would call, or aren’t sure if they would be there in 15 min with a check no matter where they had to get the cash from…I would reassess your real life friendships.

There’s been a lot of chatter lately about the lack of female founders in the tech space and some are even questioning if VCs have a gender problem.

Being a female founder of the startup iSpotaStory.com, I started wondering…Is it really any different than being a male founder?

My first reaction was no, but after thinking about it, I realized there are striking differences.

I’ve always had a lot of guy friends and even if there were girls around, I never really paid attention. I knew the tech space was dominated by guys, but I never really noticed that there were no iconic female founders; a la Mark Zuckerberg.
A lot of the current female founders I’ve met own sites that cater to the female demographic. For most this is their second career; they either write or publish content about themselves or women like them, probably because earlier in their career they were among the first women to do something. Or they are mothers, or wives, and so they created a site about what they lacked when going through their experiences.

Read the rest of the post….

So, my mom and dad aren’t really in the target demo for my site, but since they’re my parents…they check it out.  (And to my delight, actually like it — and not just b/c I’m their daughter as they say.)   My mom actually called me up every excited that she found out the Dalai Lama joined twitter (via my site) a day before she saw it on the news.  (The Israeli news channel… b/c that’s what they like to watch via Direct TV)

My parents have always been supportive of what I do.  Starting up a site is not always smooth sailing, and during hard times my dad would always say “Don’t worry, I’m behind you….whatever you need”, And of course, he knew that he couldn’t actually physically help with a lot of things, he knows Real Estate, not so much websites, but their support has helped me get to where I am today.

Growing up,  my mom would always tell me I was great and awesome, and can do what I want to do, which I guess is probably what gives me have the delusional sense of self confidence that I have.

I should probably also explain that they’re not the most technological people in the world.  My mom is an RN Nurse.  She doesn’t have to use computers much, and though she knows how to check her email, and actually has a FB account (no we’re not friends ) she doesn’t do much online…though she really wants to.  (And has been saying that for about 10 years now)

My dad is a little more advanced.  He actually uses word, excel, and does research online, but that’s about it.

So, when I told them I was going to start a social news site, you can imagine how much they ‘got’ it.  But were beyond supportive once I explained what happens in the space currently and why I see it being the future, and why I have actual editors vs. just an algorithm like other sites.

I’ve explained things over and over, but it took a while for them to get what it is. And once I was able to let them understand what I was doing, I was changing again, making tweaks, which, I had to explain over again why I was doing it.

Explaining why though, has made the site better, b/c if my mom can get the concept, then sure as hell tech savvy people will get it.

And so, my mom gets very excited when she hears something on the news that she saw on my site before it was on the news.

I didn’t really expect my parents to be power users any time soon, but was happy they got it.  (Though its sill humorous when someone asks my mom what I do)

About a week ago, my CTO pushed something live.  We had been talking about it for a long time, but other things took precedence.    Basically, it’s a status bar (a la Facebook and Twitter) which makes adding stories a very easy process.  A user can copy a link into the status bar, the fields auto populate, and voila, story submitted.

This push is part of a larger play that we’re working on, but we’re rolling it out in steps.  On my way home from the subway, I called my dad to walk him through how it works.

What happened next was a little shocking, but also, incredibly cute.

My dad started submitting dozens of stories to the site, at all hours of the day and night.  Considering my dad isn’t in my target audience, and  I’m sure he really cares about the M&A and World Cup stories he submitted, I wasn’t sure I wanted every acquisition made that day taking over my site.

Now, in a few weeks, he’ll be able to customize his news and create his own topic pages and go wild, but for now, I needed him to chill with these stories.

So, I deactivated some, leaving the big ones, but just so that the site wasn’t inundated with similar stories, I had to edit him.

The next morning I get an email from my dad that read:

“How are you?
I put a lot of articles yesterday late-night.
It looks like someone deleted them. Did you delete?”
I officially felt bad.

I should’ve been excited that the site was so easy my dad could use it, and here I am deactivating his stories b/c they weren’t exactly what I’m looking for in stories that are featured.  I had explained that some stories he submitted didn’t have images, and I needed to edit, so they were temporarily deactivated, but I’m not sure he bought it, even though that part was actually true.

So the next few days I would get texts at 10am asking me if he did better, and one night he called excited that he put up a story before CNN covered it.

Ah, finally my dad was getting the concept of real-time news.  He actually even said….”but you know, Google News, I mean how do they pick their stories, just computers?  I’m better b/c I can actually read and decide.”

Yes dad, that’s the concept

And so, though I had to edit him a bit at first, I was happy we created a site that was ‘so easy my dad could use it’, because he did actually get some good stories.

The changes over the next few weeks will let him add as many M&A and soccer stories as his heart desires, but for now, he has to follow my guidelines.

When I told my guy friends about this on Sunday night that ‘my dad was killing me with all of his submissions”  he looked at me and said, it’s what you get for making the site so easy to use, and thus, ‘borrowing’ the slogan from Geico, “So easy my dad can use it”

I was going to make a video showing how it’s great he can actually add stories, and I still might, but in the meantime, figured I would share via this post.

Thanks Dad.

Lets face it, dating isn’t awesome (or maybe it is a little) but either way, throwing social media into the mix takes it to a whole new level.

Ah, Social Media.  Its supposed to connect people, make the world smaller, let people who don’t know one another in real life discuss similar topics of interest or band together to support a cause.

But it can really f-up your dating life.

I should probably start off explaining that though none of my friends are really tech savvy,  it is one of my criteria’s for dating someone, therefore, if you don’t know what bing is, lets just say… we can be friends.

Its not that I’m a bitch, but I own a social news startup, that aggregates stories from around the web via content curators so if you don’t know what any of that means or get the concept, its going to be really hard for me  to want to date you,  considering I do that 90% of my day.

But, I digress.

I’ve always thought that “Facebook ruins lives” for many reasons.  If  you’re friends with an ex or someone you like, you find out way more information than you want to.   I really didn’t want or need to see my ex on his Aruba vacation with his new gf thank you very much, but that came up on my feed.   And who’s this skanky girl that’s posting hearts and stuff all over the guy I like’s wall?  And why is he engaging her.  (oh phew…its just his cousin)

Information I didn’t want to know, nor wanted to freak out about, are now in my face (or on my feed).   But, b/c of my obsession with FB,  I’ve dealt with my hatred for it. (Eh, we can’t all be perfect)  So don’t’ worry FB, I won’t be unfriending you any time soon.

But Twitter and FourSquare…you’ve both just entered the arena with new ways you can fuck up a new relationship.

FourSquare is seriously  becoming the bane of my existence.   Besides that, I already thought we broke up, why is he still in my life?  Oh, b/c everyone else is using it?  So I still find out where they are?   Awesome.

Here’s my issue.  I don’t want to know that the guy I’m talking to who I haven’t spoken to in 2 days, just checked into a club, nor do I want to know that he’s two blocks from my office at a lunch meeting.  Its information I’m quite happy without, yet you like to have it show up in my twitter feed.   It’s almost as bad as seeing your ex’s vacation pics.  Except its worse…its real-time, he’s literally there RIGHT now.

What if I was going to go by that place for lunch.  In the olden days, you know…before check-ins, it would’ve been a coincidence.  Now…I would just look like a crazy stalker.  And what if I was a crazy stalker?  (Which, I’m not  )

So I have to consciously think NOT to go there.  And FourSquare, its just too much brain power for me to care or think about.   But knowing that information, I now have to deal with it.  So once again, you make me hate you.

And Twitter, getting information from someone who you were supposed to hang out with before they get a chance to tell you b/c they’re telling the world is just a little too real time for me.  It almost ruins some conversations b/c I already know.

So, for all you tech-savvy guys, here’s my advice.  THINK, then tweet.   If I find out something from Twitter before I find out from you telling me, I might get annoyed by that. As far as check-ins go, just tell your friends, sometimes I just don’t want to know where you are.

Its too much information…leave some for the imagination so that next time I see you, I don’t have a recorded trail via Twitter or FourSquare letting me know where you’ve been since I last saw you and then I’m actually zoning out when you tell in me real life, b/c I already know.  Yea, I cyber check you out, but I’m not admitting to that when I see you.

So maybe, lets chillax with the whole real-time location checking, letting everyone know what you’re doing thing.

Thanks.

(Btw, the situations in this post didn’t happen to me, but similar things have, so if you’re someone I’m dating, chill, I’m not actually freaking out or zoning out  )

So, Sunday was the Super Bowl. (yay, saints)  Though I won’t pretend I really watched the game all that much.  I was actually updating my site, iSpotaStory.com (shameless plug, I know) as the commercials were aired.  (yeah, life of a startup founder is awesome  :))

Anyway – before the game started I was hanging out at the party, and realized…wait, I’m the only girl here.  And no, I’m not dating one of the guys, which I guess becomes ‘ok’ , they’re all just good guy friends.   I wanted to be there.  And though that’s not necessarily an anomaly for me, I realized that in my life,  that’s always been the case.

I grew up with 2 older brothers.  Their friends were always over, and I would play Mortal Kombat II on our Sega Genesis with them . (yea, old school I know… btw, I always played Mileena, knew all the fatalities, and kicked their ass.  –  I had to play the cool girl)  But it molded me into the woman I became.

I’ve always been able to walk into a room full of guys and be totally comfortable (probably more  so than a room full of girls honestly).  To me, its the same thing as walking down the stairs in my parent’s house and seeing 15 guys playing video games, plopping onto the couch in between all of them and saying “Hey, what about me? I want to play!”

They always let me.  Of course they thought I would just be an easy win, but they soon realized I was able to hold my own.

In college, I lived in a frat house.  Yeah, I was in a sorority, but for some reason, living with 7 guys was more comfortable for me.

So, where am I going with this?  This past weekend, I read an article on TechCrunch about Silicon Valley having a gender problem.  http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/07/silicon-valley-you%E2%80%99ve-got-a-gender-problem-and-some-of-your-vc%E2%80%99s-still-live-in-the-past/

Now, I’m not here to comment on whether they do or they don’t, b/c I really don’t know the Silicon Valley or their VC scene (as much as I would like to…I’m still figuring out the Silicon Alley scene)   but it made me realize that even in my career choice…founding a start-up, I am one of the only girls in the arena.

Now, I’m sure there are plenty of female founders and co-founders, and I actually know two right here in NYC.  (We used to share an office space) but why do women not choose this field?

I know there are girls that get technology, but maybe girls are less likely to take risks?  I don’t have an answer as to why. Sure, I know many girls that just don’t get it, and Facebook is about as technological as they’re getting (for now).  And no knock on them, I know nothing about designers, so it evens out.

But ladies…where are you?

The NYC tech scene is booming, and a new site, NYC30.com, just launched to feature some of the startups.  (Here’s the article about me…http://nyc30.com/ispotastory-looks-to-curate-the-best-from-the-web/ – another shameless plug)

But what does this mean to female founders out there?  The tech world needs you!  I can’t pretend I’ve been ‘Ms. Woman Power’, but I do know that being the only girl at the super bowl party is fun, and so this is an open call for all of you smart, innovative, and tech savvy ladies out there.

Sure, it’s not easy working long hours, and I almost don’t know what to say to  some girls  who complain their bosses made them work till 8 when I voluntarily make myself work till 2am some nights, but though the life of an entrepreneur isn’t necessarily all glamorous, the rewards and hard work really feel great.

So, does Silicon Valley have a gender problem?  I don’t know.  Maybe, I have a gender problem, ever since I can remember I had an entourage of guys around me when I went out.  (I vaguely remember a stranger on the street commenting on that when I was 14 years old.)

But this is an open invitation to the party.  Yea, I’m taking it upon myself to invite you.  The guys are terrible at the guest list, but it doesn’t mean you aren’t invited.

What do you say?

So, I’m a few days late updating this blog, but I did make a prediction on Feb 9th at 10:53am, that everyone will start writing about the Betty White FB fan page.  http://twitter.com/LimorE/status/8859594032 (which was actually a few days after I realized it would)

Now, I”m not writing this post to brag that I ‘called’ it, but actually quite the opposite.  I’m fascinated by what happened.  Besides the fact that Betty White, who has been in show biz forever, has never hosted SNL.  I’m actually not sure why it took till 2010 for someone to start this FB group? Though, maybe because random groups are popping up daily (I got an invite the other day for “i bet I can get 1M people to join this FB Group….really? Why would I join that?)

But its fascinating that everyone from CNN, HuffPo, popeater, etc all started writing about this FB group.  I of course, am a member (actually 2x, with both of my fb accounts), but what I found funny is that by writing something is ‘getting’ viral is basically promoting it.  When I joined the group it wasn’t growing by 3500 people a day, I dont even think it had 50K+ people but once all the sites started picking it up, and people read about it, they joined.   I mean, really, who DOESN’T want Betty White to host SNL?

So, my questions is, is  the group becomming viral, or did a few influential people see that people were joining and wanted to “break’ the story that this group is viral, hence promoting people to join.  In which case, would the group really have 250k+ fans on its own?

Again, I’m all for Betty White hosting SNL, and called that all the sites would pick it up and run with it, but if the media waited a min to see if it actually went viral, would it have?

So here’s the thing. I like to be in the know, I like to play with the newest sites/apps/etc that the social media gods like to go on about.   I don’t always conform, but I like to at least have a solid argument as to why I don’t like something besides just not wanting to conform.

Enter, Foursquare.

Everyone was so obsessed with this FourSquare that I had to cave and use it despite my worries of being stalked. No, I’m not full of myself, I just, well…don’t want to get stalked.

Every other day, Mashable, TechCrunch, and the like would write articles about FourSquare and how it’s the next big thing and how everyone is going to use it so I started using it to check it out.

And I’m not sure why, I knew very well that it was creepy to tell people where I am and knew very well that I didn’t want people ACTUALLY knowing where I was, but my goal was simple. I wanted to become the mayor of Jamba Juice and MSG. No seriously…those were my goals. I have access to season tickets for the knicks at MSG and that’s why that attempt was there, and Jamba Juice…well, let’s just say I walk in, they know my name, my order, and how long its been since I’ve been there. So yea, I wanted to be the Mayor. If anyone deserved to be, it was me.

Well, the more people started writing about FourSquare, the more I felt ok using it, and started to randomly check in where I got my coffee…then if I was out watching a Football game, or at brunch with some friends.

I was casually flirting with FourSquare, I dind’t quite trust it, but my wall was starting to come down.

I wasn’t really accepting friends, especially not people I didn’t know, but since I logged in with my Twitter account, it would tell my Twitter followers where I was, which I was semi ok with since I don’t really “know” all of them.

Then something happened.

I checked into Max Brenner at Union Square.

Why did I check in? Bc one of the people in my friends list checked in a few days earlier and it made me think to.

Quickly after checking in, I got a txt from a friend who asked “Max Brenner? What are you a tourist in from NJ?” after laughing and defending my restaurant choice, I realized that he just knew where I was. Not caring since he was a good guy friend, I kept drinking my lemongrass tea and eating whatever crazy dessert was ordered.

I got home a little later and checked twitter and received 2 messages. One guy saying he was right by Max Brenner but not to worry b/c he wouldn’t actually come stalk me, and another telling me that if someone wanted to assasinate me, it would be very easy to.

Though one guy I know fairly well, and the other I talk to on Twitter all the time, it made me realize why I never liked FourSquare to begin with.

And something just clicked.

Its like realizing the guy you started dating who you knew was a total jerk but because everyone loved him you gave him a chance, was actually, a total jerk.

And you can’t really blame anyone else, you decided to date him.

Well, I can’t blame anyone else, I decided to join FourSquare.

But the same way you know you need to leave that jerk, I officially need to leave FourSquare.

I voluntarily was willing to tell people where I was, and for what? To get a stupid badge on my phone? Like anyone cares.

What if it wasn’t guys I actually knew that responded to me. What if it was some crazy person who followed me on twitter and stalked me out, would I really care about the 7 points and the explorer badge I had just unlocked? Doubtful.

Now, I’m sure I’m going to get a lot of hatemail about this post, defending FourSquare, but did anyone actually think about what would happen if someone was raped or killed b/c they were easily able to be stalked.

Sure, maybe I’m over-reacting, and realize it’s a bit nuts, but you get paranoid living in NYC. Which is why I no longer, actually, CAN no longer watch Law and Order. A single girl in NYC basically inviting people to know where I am at all times, or times that was selected, why would I do that?

And so FourSquare, I am officially ending our brief love affair. You never were able to give me what I wanted, but I’m ok with that. I just can no longer check-in. Please take your badges and go.

Ok, I could’ve probably used a better title for the first post, but I always find it humerous that wordpress chooses “hello world” as the default, so I decided to keep it.

I’ve often blogged in a few different places, but decided to centralize all the posts in one location.   I might add some back dated posts, but will probably just leave this as is.  (Maybe I’ll just add some links)

So, with that all said, I’ll welcome to my official LimorE blog, where I’ll probably go on about what fascinates me, or just rant about something.

I’ll also make predictions about what I think the next viral thing is going to be.  If I lived in Vegas I would let people bet, but we’ll create fake lines just for fun.

Enjoy my blog for now.  I”ll probably spruce it up one of these days, but for now, the black and white look basically sums me up quite nicely.