Lex Friedman
Manalapan, NJ
hire_lex at thefriedmans dot net
732-490-7447
Summary of Qualifications
• Oft-published writer, with a unique ability to explain the complex simply, without talking down to the reader
• Creative, self-motivated driver of online community and product
• Dedicated professional with experience leading teams to deliver and maintain interactive, social-focused websites
• Superior written and oral communication skills; can break down complex processes into manageable parts
Writing Experience
• Current: Senior Writer for Macworld. I write hardware and software reviews, tutorials, news, and opinion pieces for the world's largest and most widely-read Apple-focused publication.
• Staff Writer, TidBITS. I wrote news and reviews for this online Apple-centric publication.
• Author, The Kid in the Crib: A Dr. Seuss Parody (Lyons Press, 2012).
• Author, Teach Yourself iTunes Match in 10 Minutes (Sams Publishing, 2012).
• Author, Mac Basics for Windows Refugees (101 Publishing, 2012).
• Author, The Snuggie Sutra (St. Martin's Press, 2010).
• Director, Cracked.com. Wrote articles, hosted weekly pitch meetings, and edited content for this comedy site. Also created,
wrote, hosted, directed, and edited the weekly "News on Cracked" web series for a year.
Community Building and Product Management Experience
• Senior Director of Community and Product for Demand Media. Promoted from Director of Content Programming to
Director of Community first for Livestrong.com, and later across all Demand properties in the Senior role. Created community strategies and
used member feedback to drive product development, both for existing products
and entirely new ones. Shepherded product development from inception to launch. Created and managed official blogs and Twitter accounts,
and developed new ways to interact and engage with our communities. Successes included merging multiple website communities (via acquisition) into one
for both Cracked and Livestrong.com, and fully revamping and relaunching Answerbag.com—with significant engagement improvements.
• Co-Founder, TheDailyPlate.com. Set and implemented product goals and direction for this website focused on
healthy-eating. Oversaw initial public launch and launch of premium "Gold" program. Continued to adjust and devise product strategies to boost membership and
retention. Grew site from launch to more than half a million members in two years.
• Director of Games / Product Manager for Fox Interactive Media. After a year of web development, earned promotion to Product Manager. Product managed blog
platform for Grab.com, a social gaming site, and other projects for FOX Sports, American Idol, and MyFox local affiliate sites.
Earned a second promotion to Director of Games, setting and executing the product vision for gaming sites including Grab.com, GameRival.com, and MySpace Games.
Web Development Experience
• Co-Founder, TheDailyPlate.com. In addition to the product and community work mentioned above, built site as sole coder, both back-end
and front-end, on LAMP architecture. Used technologies including PHP, MySQL, Memcached, ImageMagick, and Smarty, as well as the Prototype/Scriptaculous
Javascript framework.
• Senior Web Developer for FOX Interactive Media/Intermix. Hired as the first full-time PHP/MS-SQL programmer for Intermix, working with a very small team on the
creation and continued evolution of Grab.com, a social gaming site (before promotions, as referenced above). Developed highly-scalable codebase to support the viral growth of the website.
Education: Bachelor of Arts, Brandeis University - Cum Laude