2009 Speakers
 

Joakim "Jay" Baage has been working in media ever since he completed a year of military service as a writer for the Swedish Armed Forces newspaper Värnpliktsnytt.

He has since dropped camouflage in favor of business attire, moved to the United States and now has over a decade of experience from a wide range of international media companies.

In the last few years, Jay has focused on the transition from an analog to a digital world and how to build successful media and entertainment properties accordingly.

Jay currently oversees content, operations and ad sales for all Digital Media Wire. He furthermore manages marketing initiatives and strategic partnerships across the board for the company.

Together with Ned Sherman, CEO and Publisher of DMW, Jay heads up a series of of youth-focused entertainment and marketing conferences called The Millennials. In addition, he is Event Director for the NY and LA Games Conferences.

Jay is also a frequent speaker at international media industry events such as the LA Film Festival and Canadian Music Week.

He has a Masters Degree in Media, Entertainment & Technology Management from New York University and a Bachelors Degree in Business Administration from Goteborg University in Sweden.

Jay is a recipient of the Wallenberg Scholarship 2004 and 2006, The Sweden-America Foundation Fellowship 2005 as well as awarded scholarships for being “A Promising New Media Manager” by Swedish Newspaper Publishers’ Association 2005 and 2001.

He has a keen personal interest in digital media, art, music and pop-culture. On his desk, you will find an iPod, the latest issue of US Weekly and a pair of Cutler and Gross shades.

Jay claims to listen to "all kinds of music," but is happy to give you an ear full about hipster bands from his native Scandinavia like "Peter, Bjorn & John."

Scott Brown, senior manager of marketing strategy for the Cisco Media Solutions Group (CMSG), is responsible for the communications, marketing and executive communication activities for the group.

Prior to CMSG, Scott was the executive communications manager for Dan Scheinman, who formerly led Corporate Development at Cisco. Scott joined Dan in the formation of CMSG in December of 2006, and soon expanded his responsibilities to his current role.

Prior to joining Cisco, Scott was the executive communications director for Scott McNealy, Chairman & CEO, Sun Microsystems. He also held a variety of brand strategy and market research roles at Cunningham Communications, supporting high-tech clients such as Cisco, Adobe, Autodesk, Sun Microsystems and PeopleSoft.

Scott was a research principal and co-author of the Net Impact research series, which explored the global economic and productivity impact of Internet technologies. He co-authored an ESOMAR published paper titled, Net Impact: The Role of Technology in Delivering Citizen Services.

Scott holds a Master’s in marketing from Northwestern University in Evanston, IL and a Bachelor’s from Drake University in Des Moines, IA.

Tom Burke concentrates his practice on Internet, media law and entertainment litigation matters. He has nearly two decades of trial and appellate court litigation experience defending libel, invasion of privacy, right of publicity, shield law, and copyright and trademark lawsuits on behalf of publishers, Web sites, networks, studios, authors and journalists.

A veteran newsroom lawyer, Tom is experienced in obtaining access to public records and proceedings, protecting First Amendment rights using California's anti-SLAPP statute, and vetting books, articles, scripts and Web content on a pre-publication basis.

Increasingly, Tom's law practice focuses on Internet liability issues, including DMCA (copyright) and Section 230 online immunity issues, domain ownership disputes, and online privacy and data breach issues across all industries.

Tom's clients include: Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, The Bakersfield Californian, California Lawyer Magazine, Chico Community Publishing, CNN, California Newspaper Publishers Association, Lions Gate Entertainment, The Los Angeles Times, McClatchy Newspapers, The New York Times Co., San Francisco Bay Guardian, San Francisco Business Times, San Francisco Examiner and Sierra Club.

Kate Butler was named Business Development Director in October 2005. Before that, she was assistant chief of bureau for The Associated Press in California and Nevada. Before joining the Associated Press, Butler was senior business team leader at The Orange County Register in Santa Ana, California. She has been an editor at Bloomberg News in London and a reporter and editor at papers in California, Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Tim brings a combination of operational, technical and international business experience to Norwest Venture Partners. Tim focuses on investments in wireless and digital media as well as business development initiatives in Asia-Pacific. Tim led NVP's investments in and joined the board of directors of 3Jam, Brite Semiconductor, Lumos Labs and ngmoco. Tim also led NVP's investment in PCH International, a turnkey global supply chain services firm based in Shenzhen. Tim works with the boards of deCarta, Double Fusion and Veveo.

Prior to joining NVP in 2006, Tim was a principal at Gabriel Venture Partners where he was actively involved in over a dozen wireless-related deals and led Gabriel's investments in Iridigm Display Corporation (acquired by Qualcomm), Sequoia Communications, Sandbridge, and Kajeet. He also contributed to the boards of Placeware (acquired by Microsoft) and Arula Systems (acquired by Raritan), TestQuest, NextG Networks, and IPWireless. Tim built Gabriel's wireless sector practice and helped establish business development capabilities through strong, strategic relationships across the wireless value chain, particularly in Asia-Pacific.

Prior to joining Gabriel, Tim spent more than five years working in Japan. He was a product manager at Gateway Inc. where he successfully launched direct-marketed PC servers in the Japanese market and quickly grew an enterprise product line into a full offering of network desktops, workstations, servers and configurable turn-key solutions. Prior to Gateway, Tim was a development engineer for General Motors. As a tri-lingual engineer based in Tokyo, Tim led project teams in China, Korea and Japan in the development, testing and sales of advanced chassis control systems for clients such as Toyota and Daewoo.

Tim currently serves on the advisory boards of the Silicon Valley Telecom Council, Dealmaker Media, Digital Hollywood, TiE Wireless SIG, MIT/Stanford VLAB, VC Task Force, and Silicon Valley Chinese Wireless Association. He was also listed on the AlwaysON Hollywood IT List recognizing technology leaders in the entertainment industry, as well as by The Deal as one of five emerging VCs to watch.

Tim holds an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar, and an MS in electrical engineering/system engineering as well as a BS in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan.

I am a Principal Research Scientist at Yahoo! Research in Santa Clara, CA. I manage the Internet Experiences Group. My research focus is social media.

At the highest level, I am interested in emerging digital media ethnoscapes - the fluid, shifting landscape of people and groups - that make up internet life.

My work at Yahoo! Research continues threads that have been previously developed: mediated collaboration, mobile connectivity, transmedia technologies, digital archive and memory, and the development of emplaced media. My work and ideas elaborated in more detail in my written publications, and embodied in technology prototypes and products.

I take a human centered approach to design and innovation, and believe that lasting innovations derive from a deep understanding of how technologies are woven into everyday lives. Therefore my work centralizes the influence of social and cultural factors on people's adoption and adaptation of technologies. Over the last decade, I have conducted studies to address how social technologies and social media are created, consumed, adopted and adapted in different regions: in Japan, the US and the UK - and also in virtual worlds. I have designed applications for personal (mobile, desktop) and public space settings.

He has been successfully developing interactive marketing goals and strategies at Warner Brothers for over 2 years. He implements best practices for Global Interactive Marketing campaigns including all aspects of online and mobile marketing such as media planning, online public relations, social networking, promotions, retailer support, web site developments, eCRM and e-commerce.

Mr. De Luca is an online media veteran with targeted skills [SS1] in digital entertainment properties and expertise in the areas of online syndication/distribution, social networking, rich media, e-commerce, VOD, ITV, gaming and wireless. De Luca’s innovative digital entertainment practices and executions have been noted in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, L.A. Times, Reuters, Hollywood Reporter, Variety and Video Magazine.

Prior to going to Warner Brothers, De Luca contributed to the rise of Lions Gate Entertainment as VP of Digital Media and Internet Operations. During his 5 plus years at Lions Gate, De Luca carried out key digital campaigns for hundreds of titles including SAW, Monsters Ball, Crash, Open Water, Cabin Fever and The Dead ZONE. De Luca’s effective and result-oriented online marketing programs aided in transforming Lion’s Gate into the most prestigious and successful major independent studio.

De Luca has been a regular speaker on the digital executive conference circuit for over 10 years.  His work has been featured in Entertainment Weekly and he has won an Adtech Award for online marketing as well as the 2007 International Business Award for Best Online Advertising Campaign for Harry Potter “The Order of the Phoenix”.

Mitch Galbraith is the Chief Operating Officer, and employee number one, of Funny or Die. Prior to joining Funny or Die in April 2007, Mitch was the CEO of Insider Pages, a Sequoia Capital funded local search start up sold to IAC in February 2007. Before joining Insider Pages, Mitch spent six years in Yahoo’s Small Business group most recently as its Senior Director of Business Operations. Earlier in his career, Mitch held sales, sales management, marketing, and strategy consulting positions with Andersen Consulting, The Boston Beer Company, and Diageo. Mitch holds a BA in Economics from the University of California at Davis and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Prior to founding NewTeeVee in December 2006, Liz covered the web beat for GigaOM.com. In addition to writing and editing for NewTeeVee, she programmed the NewTeeVee Pier Screenings as well as NewTeeVee Live. Prior to GigaOM, she wrote for Red Herring.

Shawn Gold is  Chairman/CEO of Cocodot, a verticle media company focused on "celebrations". He is also co-founder of  Social Approach, a social marketing advisory using social graph influence mapping technologies.  Formerly, he was  CMO , head of marketing & content for MySpace. At MySpace Gold spearheaded the development and implementation of marketing initiatives and campaigns for MySpace’s more than 110 million users worldwide. He also oversaw the growth and expansion of popular MySpace franchises including Music, Film, Comedy and MySpace Celebrity, as well as creating MySpace’s “Impact awards” and “Our Planet” programs to recognize and reward social responsibility.

Gold has over 15 years of experience in digital marketing and content strategy, including serving as publisher of WeblogsInc, the largest publisher of professional blogs on the Web (now an AOL company). In 2000 he bacame president and chief strategy officer of Intermix (formerly eUniverse), where his team brought the online entertainment network to profitability, making it the most popular on the Web. Additionally, he headed marketing and communications for WHN, an ecommerce company that provided marketing services to the 2002 Olympics, ABC, NBC, Comedy Central, MTV and Fox.

Prior to WHN.com, Shawn served as head of strategic planning at Rare Medium where he created the inaugural interactive communication strategies for P&G, General Foods, Mattel and Nestle. In 1995, Shawn was GM and Founder of Icon New media’s Advertising Division, publishing Word.com and Charged.com. There he created the first interstitial ads on the web and an industry-leading advertising system based on time rotation and contextual integration.  He started developing interactive content in 1992 as a partner with TouchTunes Interactive, a telecommunications music marketing service in the USA, Japan and New Zealand. He is a founding board member of the Producers Guild of America’s New Media Council and author of The Guide to Laughing at Life book series that promotes wellness through laughter.

Colin Gillis has been a Senior Technology Analyst at Canaccord Adams, based out of New York, since 2004. His area of focus is on companies that lever the Internet to monetize media.

Colin has been in the financial services industry since 2000 and has worked on the sell-side at RBC. Prior, he worked at Ricoh, a multi-national conglomerate based in Japan, where he gained excellent exposure to global business and appeared at multiple public speaking events. Colin also gained experience with Brooktrout Technology, where he designed and coded the first-ever fax-over-IP system and was present for Brooktrout's move from a private to a public company.

Colin graduated from Brown University with a BSc(Hons) in Electrical Engineering and received his MBA (Hons) from New York University's Stern School of Business.

As President of Fox Interactive Media, Ross managed all day-to-day operations for the company from its inception until December 2006. Under his leadership, the FOX Network of sites became one of the largest on the Internet with record setting growth with more than 140 million monthly users. He also oversaw a partnership with Google, which will yield the company nearly $1 billion in advertising from the search and monetization leader.

Previously, Ross served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of Fox Sports Interactive Media. In this role, he oversaw the online, wireless and broadband presence for Fox Sports. Earlier in his career, Ross held senior management positions with AltaVista Network, an early pioneer and leader in search, CBS Sportsline, where he oversaw all content and development for the top rated sports site and pay cable giant HBO. He also spent time in advertising at Saatchi and Saatchi and in sports management and marketing with ProServ and Lapin and Rose Communications.

Ross currently serves on the board of music leader Napster.com, storage and media management leader Fabrik, Inc., Virtual World innovator VSIDE, and one of the leading Internet holding companies in india, fuse+media.

Susan Mernit is the founder of Oakland Local (oaklandlocal.com) news & community hub for Oakland, CA focused on environmental, food, development and social justice issues, and the recipient of a 2009 New Voices grant from J-Lab at American University. She is also the consulting web strategist for The Center for Investigative Reporting’s California Watch project (californiawatch.org).

A former VP at AOL and Netscape, and a former Yahoo Senior Director, Mernit was the consulting program manager for The Knight News Challenge (newschallenge.org) in 2008-09, as well as a consultant to organizations including Salon.com & TechSoup Global, where she led the re-design of their portal. Mernit spent summer 2008 at TechStars, incubating a company that died; that experience has super-fueled her energy. She is a CE at BlogHer, a blogger, and a co-founder of Public Media Collaborative, a volunteer group focused on training nonprofits, ethnic media & community groups on using social media tools.

A popular trainer and speaker, Mernit works regularly with The Knight Digital Media Center at USC’s Annenberg School, and with The Maynard Institute, and is the Keynote program chair for the October 2009 Online News Association conference in San Francisco.

Sharon launched her federal career on the staff of U.S. Representative Rick Boucher (D-VA).  A longtime leader in energy and technology policy, Congressman Boucher is a senior Member of the House Judiciary and Commerce committees and is Chairman of the House Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet for the 111^th Congress  As Deputy Chief of Staff and head of the Washington office, Sharon was responsible for all legislation under the jurisdiction of the Commerce and Judiciary Committees, operations of the House Internet Caucus (which Rep. Boucher co-founded and continues to co-chair), energy and international relations/trade issues.  She played he had a significant role in the development and passage of the Bankruptcy Reform Act and the Class Action Reform Act; the introduction of the first major patent reform legislation and major music copyright reform legislation.  She also served as Press Secretary and on campaign staff in both press and fundraising roles. 

Following Capitol Hill, Sharon spent four years directing federal policy operations for Amazon.com where she worked closely with Amazon’s top executives to develop the company’s public policy agenda, political action committee, and firmly established Amazon as an influential player on all major tech policy initiatives.  She led Amazon’s efforts on the high-profile Can-SPAM act, the Internet Tax Freedom Act and was an active participant in industry coalition efforts surrounding remote sales tax, spyware legislation and privacy initiatives. 

Before starting her own practice in 2007 and then launching TwinLogic in 2009, Sharon was a Vice President at the Bockorny Group, where she provided strategic counsel, political advice and direct lobbying for several clients including News Corporation, Amazon.com and Aquantive.  She led successful efforts to boost the Congressional presence and visibility of the Digital Media Association, Avaya and DirecTV. 

A political science graduate of George Mason University, Ms. Ringley also attended George Mason University School of Law. After obtaining her BA in 1993, she spent two years teaching English to high school students in Japan.

Ned Sherman is CEO and Publisher of Digital Media Wire, Inc., where he works at the center of the rapidly growing digital media industry. Under his leadership, Digital Media Wire has grown from a small newsletter publisher into a well-respected B-to-B brand that owns and produces five annual conferences - Digital Music Forum, Games & Mobile Forum, Digital Media Conference, Future of Television Forum, Digital Commerce Summit and The Billboard Digital Entertainment Conference & Awards (now DEMXPO) - and provides daily news, information and community to 30,000+ executives and professionals at entertainment, media and technology companies throughout the world.

As digital media community-builder, Ned has established partnerships with the leading B-to-B media companies and educational institutions, including VNU Business Media, Billboard Magazine, The Hollywood Reporter, Reed Business Information, Multichannel News, Business 2.0, Business Week, CableFax/CableWorld, VIBE/SPIN, MidemNet, NYU’s Stern School of Business, USC’s Center for Telecom Management and UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, and hundreds of the leading digital media companies, including Microsoft, Real Networks, Sony Corporation of America, AOL Time Warner, Napster, Yahoo! and many more.

Ned’s background is in law. Before joining Digital Media Wire, Ned spent 7+ years as a corporate and entertainment attorney practicing at several of the leading law firms in the world with an international client base across industries including technology, Internet, media and entertainment.

As a founding member of the iLaw Group in the Entertainment Department at Loeb & Loeb LLP in Century City, he handled complex licensing transactions and financings for media and entertainment clients including Universal Studios and MGM and launched dozens of Internet and new media start-ups. He has counseled company founders from initiation of a business plan to seed, angel, venture capital and later-stage private financings and managed all legal aspects of Internet clients from corporate organization, stockholder relationships, board compositions and dynamics, stock option plans, capital raising and security regulatory matters, Internet law issues, trademark, copyright, content and technology licensing, advertising and privacy issues.

He sits on the Board of Directors of Wild Way, a non-profit dedicated to cultivating environmental awareness and developing educational programs for inner-city and “at risk” kids and has traveled extensively from Europe to Asia to South America to Northern Africa. Ned is married and lives with his wife and son in Hollywood Hills, California.

Ian Swanson Co-Founder and CEO
Sometrics

Ian Swanson is co-founder and CEO of Sometrics (www.sometrics.com). Sometrics was the first to tailor its analytics and ad managing solutions to focus on social networking platforms and applications, providing the most relevant and effective audience analysis and social ad targeting available. In December 2008, the company achieved another first when it launched the Advertiser Supported Transaction Platform, an ad server to manage all virtual currency monetization from multiple offer providers.

Before launching Sometrics, Swanson was business development manager for Userplane, an AOL company that provides social media apps to hundreds of thousands of online communities, supporting millions of users daily. Swanson was instrumental in helping the company extend the reach of its hosted chat, IM and other communications apps, and in building the company’s ad network. Before Userplane, he was an executive with Sprint and helped launch two mobile web startups.

Swanson actively advises several successful social networking applications, Fortune 500 companies and startups with their brand and marketing strategies within the social media ecosystem. He is often invited to share his insights at industry events and has addressed audiences at the IAB’s Leadership Forum – Audience Measurement; SNAP/SWAT Summits; Graphing Social Patterns, User Generated Content Conference, among many others

Since joining Trinity Ventures in 1996, Gus has specialized in funding early stage companies pioneering new market categories. He particularly enjoys getting involved at the time of company formation, working with founders to help build the team and refine the business model. Gus focuses on consumer services and consumer enabling technologies, and maintains an interest in enterprise software. Prior to Trinity Ventures, Gus began his operational career in engineering management at Digital Equipment Corporation. He also worked at Bain & Company, consulting to technology firms on new product development and business strategy. Gus is a Director of the M.I.T. Club of Northern California and the Chinese Software Professionals Association.

Bill Tancer is the General Manager, Global Research at Hitwise. Bill brings 12+ years of marketing, market research and corporate strategy experience to Hitwise. As the GM for Global Research, Bill leads a team of research analysts in the US, UK and Australia, providing cutting-edge research and insight into online consumer behavior and the application of online competitive intelligence.

Bill's analysis of the online landscape has been quoted extensively in the press, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, USA Today, Business Week, Television Week, Forbes Online and CNN Money. Bill is a frequent guest on CNBC, and has been interviewed on MSNBC, NPR, Dow Jones Marketwatch, CNN Radio and CBS Radio. Bill speaks frequently as a keynote and main agenda speaker at industry events such as Web 2.0 EXPO, Searchnomics 2007, J.P. Morgan Global Internet Conference, O'Reilly Money: Tech Conference, Columbia Business School Innovative Marketing Conference, Shop.org, Internet Retailer, Search Engine Strategies, E-tail, Ad:tech and PhocusWright.

Additionally, he is the author of the weekly online column for TIME, "The Science of Search." He was also named Television Week's "12 to Watch" for 2008. Bill has served on the board of directors for SEMPO and he is currently on the advisory board for the PEW Internet and American Life Project.

Prior to joining Hitwise, Bill has led market research and strategy teams at LookSmart, Zaplet, NBC Internet and Pacific Bell Internet Services. Bill has also covered the Internet sector for Gartner Group as a senior technology marketplace consultant.

Bill has a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Florida in Quantitative Management and a Juris Doctorate degree from the Walter F. George School of Law, Mercer University

Michael Terpin founded SocialRadius in 2007 as a spin-off of his high-technology public relations firm, Terpin Communications, which specializes in emerging technologies. SocialRadius is a social media marketing company, focusing on thought leadership content creation and syndication, social media outreach and strategy. Success stories include the outreach for recording artist Will.i.am’s “Yes We Can” video for the Obama campaign (which won 2008 Emmy, Global Media and Webby awards); the “Spirit of Exploration” blog and outreach for Bombay Sapphire gin; social media event marketing for Live8, LiveEarth, the Green Inaugural Ball and the David Lynch Foundation; and the social media launch of start-ups ranging from Software.com to Shapeways, a division of Philips.

Terpin also founded Marketwire, one of the world’s largest international newswires. Originally known as Internet Wire, Market Wire was funded by Hummer-Winblad and Sequoia Capital in 2000 and was acquired in April 2006. It is now majority owned by OMERS Capital Partners, Toronto, and is the world’s third largest distributor of press releases by revenues.

Are Traasdahl is founder and CEO of Thumbplay, an award-winning company that he and co-founder Evan Schwartz established in 2004 and have already grown into one of the top mobile entertainment services in the U.S.  In recognition of the remarkable growth and accomplishments of the organization, he was named one of 2008’s “Top Mobile Executives” by Billboard magazine, and was named “Best Emerging CEO” by the Executive Council of New York in 2007.  

Are has been on the leading edge of wireless communications throughout his career. In 2002, Are co-founded and led the launch of Telenor Interactive (nasdaq: teln), a U.S. Subsidiary of Telenor Group, the first company to launch cross-carrier premium messaging in the U.S.  In 1999, Are helped establish Carrot Communications, a leading wireless company in Scandinavia and one of the first companies to sell wireless content directly to consumers.  He has spearheaded wireless entertainment campaigns for such companies as NewsCorp, Disney, ABC, Univision, Telemundo and Fuse and with wireless carriers like Verizon, AT&T Wireless, Cingular and T-Mobile.   

Earlier in his career, Are worked as a journalist for one of the largest media concerns in northern Europe and as a strategy consultant for a leading global management consultancy based in the UK.   

He is a graduate of the Norwegian Institute of Technology (NTH), Trondheim, Norway.