I swear, you guys, I’m not ditching you for a man!!
I’ve been super busy with another project that I’m very excited about. Through Startup Weekend Seattle, I’ve had the opportunity to join a phenomenal team of people developing a system called Digri (pronounced “degree”). It’s a real-time friend-recommendation engine that uses your location (using foursquare) and your network of friends and interests (using Facebook) to recommend people you might want to meet RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE, like at a bar or a party, a convention, a networking event, whatever. It’s super awesome technology that I feel is the next step in defining and leveraging the strength of social media, and it feels like an enormous blessing from the universe that I get to be a part of it along with some of the freakin’ smartest people I have ever met in my entire life. (Seriously. They’re all total geniuses. Like, the real thing. I’m blown away.) We’re in beta testing right now, so feel free to sign up, and let me know if and how it works for you.
Anyway, yeah, we built this thing last weekend. In like 45 hours. And we’re moving forward on it — fast. It’s sucking up alllll my time, but I love it! I’m learning and growing more than I have in a really long time. It’s painful in some ways and very very wonderful in others.
The other thing I’ll add is this: I’m taking a lot of heat for not having a stronger presence over on Evil Beet, and for bringing on yet another weekday writer rather than doing it myself. There’s a lot of “you’re letting this site go to shit” and “why don’t you care about this site anymore????” in my inbox.
I do care about Evil Beet. It’s my baby and I love it. That said, I’m human and I need to grow. It’s hard when your favorite band changes their sound. You get angry. I’ve been there. But I’ve been running Evil Beet full-time since I was 24 years old. I turn 28 tomorrow. I don’t want to find myself in my 30s doing the exact same thing professionally that I did when I was 24. What I’ve done instead is hire some of the funniest and smartest and hardest-working women I could find to write it when I’m not there. They’re not going to sound exactly like me, because I hire people with unique voices and then I encourage them to use those voices and get credit for their voices (unlike some other gossip blogs I can think of …). I have not stopped caring about Evil Beet. I have not stopped caring about my own personal and career growth, either. I can’t stick around and write celebrity gossip forever just because some assholes on the Internet think I should.
Lastly: The rumors that I fired Kelly are completely ridiculous. Kelly was not fired. Let me repeat that: Kelly was not fired. It’s completely insane how people think that the only reason anyone would leave a job is because they were fired or there was some sort of drama. Kelly has been writing for Evil Beet on her weekends for a year, and — guess what?! — she’s ready to grow professionally. I know a thing or two about that, and she knows how strongly I support her and her career as a writer.
Okay. Got that off my chest. In the gallery, you can find a bunch of pictures of me and my team creating Digri. As I mentioned before, we’d love feedback on it. You guys know how to get a hold of me. :)
