I’ve been meaning to write this post ever since I got back from my trip to San Francisco at the beginning of this month. The purpose of my trip was to attend the TC Disrupt Conference and to catch up with old friends. The whole trip from start to end was an amazing adventure and better than anything I ever expected.

After flying a mere 18 hours (with a stop-over in Atlanta), I finally made my way to Hotel Nikko on Mason Street. Even though I was jetlagged and sleep deprived I was full of energy and hyped up to go out and seize the day. My gal Randi Zuckerberg had invited me that day to go to a book-signing event with her up at Stanford University and even though I had had my fix of planes, trains and automobiles for a 24 hour time period, I of course couldn’t refuse an opportunity to meet up with my favorite girl in the area.  My buddy Scott Rutherford and I rented a Zip Car and drove to the event. I enjoyed the beautiful scenary of the drive up to the University, it was nice to finally see some of the views of the region. Usually during these trips to the valley, I don’t have the time to take a pause and just look at the scenary, so the pause was nice.

The book-signing event was in honor of the newly released book The Dragonfly Effect, a book by Jennifer Aaker and Andy Smith that discusses how to utilize social media to drive social change. Jennifer told us all the heartwarming story of Sameer and Vinay – two friends diagnosed with Leukemia – and how they utilized social media to find a bone marrow donor. I believe that this book will open people’s eyes to the amazing potential of social media in spreading the message to the right audience and creating a buzz not only when one needs to market a product but also in time of real need. The event was a great opportunity to sit around with some of the industry’s thought leaders and discuss all the philosophical ideas behind social media and how to utilize it for the greater good. Later that night I came back to the city, had dinner with some friends and went to sleep early in preparation for the next big day – the first day of the conference.

Monday through Wednesday I spent my days at the Disrupt conference – and what a conference it was. From the announcement of TechCrunch being sold to AOL, to the controversial women in tech panel moderated by Sarah Lacy, to the honest and heartfelt interview with Kevin Rose, to Soluto’s handing over of the TC Disrupt Cup to Qwiki.  It was a conference filled with ups and downs, emotions amongst the crowd were mixed regarding TechCrunch’s acquisition. Some felt it was good for TechCrunch while others felt it was a sell-out.  When I initially heard the rumors regarding TC and AOL, I didn’t really believe it. But then a few facts came to light (like Arrington’s departure to Seattle) and then I understood that perhaps this was true and perhaps finally AOL was on the right path. It seemed like AOL was on a shopping spree that same week (with the purchase of 5min and thinglabs) but all of its new purchases seemed to make sense. I hope for the sake of both TC and AOL that Arrington continues to play a vital role in TC because it wouldn’t be the same without him and I also liked to hear from Armstrong that AOL was behind TC in everything it did until now in order to become the blog that it was and would give TC writers the freedom they needed to express themselves. I hope Armstrong stays true to his promise.

Other than all the news and scoops, Disrupt was a great opportunity to catch up with my buddies including: Robert Scoble, JD Lasica, Rachel Sklar, Mike Butcher, Phil Jeudy, Ben Metcalfe, Andrew Scott and others. At night we had our fair share of parties including DJing by Philip Kaplan (AdBrite) on Monday night and a performance by MC Hammer on Tuesday night. You can see that white boys can really dance in this uncut video of Erick Schonfeld dancing away to Hammer’s “Can’t Touch This” presumably made by the very witty Paul Carr. C’mon you know wanna dance too…..

However for me the highlight of this trip was my last day – Thursday. In the morning I went to see my pal Matt Van Horn at Path’s beautiful offices – OMG they have the best view of the bridge in all of SF! I hadn’t seen Matt since he left Digg so it was nice to catch up. Later that day, I took the Caltrain to Palo Alto where I got a chance to visit Facebook’s offices (photos). Aditya Agarwal, Guru of Facebook Engineering, lover of house music and husband of the beautiful Ruchi Sanghvi, was nice enough to show me around and tolerate my constant big smile as I walked around. All of you who have been following my work, know how much I admire Facebook’s vision of a more social Web. As we walked through the different departments of Facebook, all in an open space, similar to their philosophy of the open Web, I was mesmerized by the energy and creativity in the air. And as we walked through the various cubicles, I got a chance to see him (Mark). He sat there in the open space, together with everyone, focused on his screen and if you were just a passerby who came from a different era, you wouldn’t even realize that this was man behind all of this.

The visit left me in awe and I traveled back to the city in a state of inspiration. I was hurrying back to Townsend Street where at TechCrunch HeadQuarters, Soluto was throwing a Keg Party. It was a nice farewell gathering to a week filled with all the best that Silicon Valley had to offer.

But I didn’t leave the SF area without doing one more very important thing. On the day before my departure, my old Macbook died – the beach ball of death had begun to spin and wouldn’t stop no matter what I tried. That day I thought of running over to the Mac store on Market and Stockton but was told that unless I booked a “genius” appointment way in advance, I wouldn’t be able to get anyone to even look at my little mac-y  :-(

On the morning of my departure, 3 hours before my flight was supposed to depart, I decided that I wasn’t going to give up without even putting up a fight. I gathered all my Israeli chutzpa and hurried over to the Mac store with all my luggage after I checked out of the hotel. I ran over there and basically begged the geniuses to take a look at my little one. They were kind enough to take a look and said that the motherboard had to be replaced and that the cost would be so high that it just made more sense to get a new laptop. I ended up getting myself a beautiful new 15″ Macbook Pro (which needless to say I am in love with). Now I was finally content. If there was ever a moment of utter satisfaction of a week well spent, it was this one. I almost missed my flight due to this stop-over but it was worth it (Update: Since my return, my boyfriend had been able to fix my old mac-y in a matter of five minutes by switching to “safe mode” and then uninstalling one minor program. Damn you geniuses! And why are you called geniuses anyway? Perhaps they should call you geniuses in getting people to purchase more Apple products).

This was a truly amazing trip which filled me with new energies and reminded me again of why I was in the space I was in and how much I love doing what I am doing and how grateful I should be for being given this opportunity to make my hobby a profession.  There are not many people in this world who can say that. I remember when I was younger, not really sure of what I had wanted to do in life and being envious of those who were so sure of their purpose on this earth. Since social media came about, I had found my place.

A trip such as this one, when you find yourself surrounded by so many of the tech industry’s leaders and shapers – the people who make all of this possible – is so inspiring. When all these guys get together in one spot, it seems that only magic happens. And that’s exactly the feeling that you’re left with, a magical feeling, like anything’s possible and nothing is beyond your reach. Goodbye for now San Francisco, but not for long. Your energies are addictive and will be missed.

Lately they seem to be making a push back to their social roots with an entire division called People Networks built around their social properties (Bebo, AIM, Yedda, Socialthing and ICQ). AOL has previously launched social-networking features called Social Inbox, which is a one-stop destination with aggregated social feeds from across the Web, multiple email accounts and media recommendations. However, as Ziv Navoth, SVP marketing at people networks told me in our interview two weeks ago, AOL is planning much more to come. AOL plans to allow consumers to aggregate their disparate piles of online information through connective offerings that allow them to pool all kinds of Web content and communications in one place. In other words: Life Streaming. I will have more on this when it goes live.

AOL also recently announced a new country manager for Israel; Avichay Nissenbaum, CEO of Yedda. Avichay has an extensive background in the start-up industry; his first company  SmarTeam which focused on product lifecycle management was acquired by Dassault Systems in 1999, and Q&A site Yedda was bought by AOL in 2007.

In his role as Country Manager Avichay will focus on establishing better connections with the Israeli Web scene by promoting AOL’s developer network and the services that power known brands such as AIM, ICQ, Bebo, Winamp and Mapquest. His attention will also be focused on identifying local companies of value for potential acquisition. AOL currently has over 200 employees in Israel across several companies it has acquired over the years, namely: ICQ, Relegance, Quigo and Yedda. Avichay is one of the most knowledgeable and experienced leaders in the Israeli hi-tech industry and also a dear friend. I wish him much luck in his new role.

People Networks are now planning an extensive synergy of all these properties (and also 3^rd party outside content) under the banner of “life streaming” where users will be able to syndicate all their online activity into one stream.

Yesterday I was lucky enough to have a conversation with Ziv Navoth SVP for Marketing and Partnerships at AOL.  Ziv is an extremely interesting guy. While running marketing at Bebo, he grew the user base from 22 million to 45 million users and pioneered numerous innovations including a new business model for media companies to distribute and monetize their content and a new form of online entertainment, combining original productions with brand sponsorship. Since the Bebo acquisition his task at AOL has been to expand a network already 90+ million strong. See my full conversation with him below.