Did You Know? 770 Has a Virtual Mayor

As life goes digital, people are using social media tools to broadcast more about themselves to their friends. One such service, foursquare, allows users to tell others where they are using a game-like mechanism. Even 770 Eastern Parkway has a “mayor” of its own.

Gianna Palmer of the Forward did some research about the Virtual Mayors who claim ownership – again, virtual – of Jewish locations in New York City and beyond through Foursquare.

And there are some surprising candidates who rule on the location-based social networking website which is available to users with GPS-enabled smartphones to “check-in” at venues and gaining awards and badges.

Arguably the e-mayorest of them all is Mordechai Lightstone, 26, director of social media for Lubavitch.com, the Forward reported.

“An early adopter of foursquare, he claims 92 mayorships to his name, the majority of which have a connection to Judaism. Lightstone goes to synagogue three times a day and checks in each time — except, of course, when the use of a smartphone would violate Halacha.”

“Obviously, as an Orthodox organization we don’t want to encourage people to check in to their Chabad House on Shabbat,” he told the newspaper.

“Although Lightstone uses foursquare for both personal and professional uses, some of his provinces straddle both categories, including Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood and 770 Eastern Parkway, world headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement.”

Those two sites in particular, Lightstone said, “give me a little bit of street cred within the Jewish foursquare community.”

Foursquare@Lubavitch can also be followed at http://foursquare.com/lubavitch