Limor Elkayam founded iSpotaStory in 2009 after working in the media industry and being unsatisfied with what was out there. (Photo by Vadim Lavrusik)
After several years in the media industry, Limor Elkayam grew frustrated with the way her employers were managing their Web sites. For some, it simply wasn’t a priority and for others their strategy was off.
“I saw a lot holes in the way they were running their sites, and I wanted to fill the gap,” Elkayam said.
The former TV news producer decided that she would start her own user-generated news site, iSpotaStory, which allows users to submit the best stories from around the Web and add their own supplemental elements to the story.
This includes videos or links to other related stories, enabling users to create topical content pages like one for the Super Bowl or the iPad. She hopes the site will not only help filter the Web, but also provide a one stop shop for trending topics on the Web.
So far, so good, Elkayam said. After launching in November 2009, she said the site increased its unique visitors to 12,000 in January from only 2,000 in November. Clearly it’s difficult and early to measure the site’s success to date. And that’s not factoring in the competition. Elkayam’s site is competing with many others that have similar function of voting stories up, such as the giant Digg.
iSpotaStory.com
But Elkayam is pressing on with a staff of six that work on the site and curate stories from the Web. She said the goal right now is to grow the site’s traffic and then start thinking about advertising. The challenge for the site will be to set itself apart from the sea of others and find a niche. Right now the niche Elkayam said is being able to track the quirky stories out there (Fark?) and adding a new angle or supplemental links to a story.
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