Click on the Video Below and Sample a Session from the last Digital Hollywood event. For Additional Video Sessions, Click Here Digital Hollywood Fall 2006 Monday, October 23 1:00 PM – 2:15 PM Session B: Citizen Media – Blogs, PODs, Activist Media & Personalized News Dean Wright, Senior Vice President and Managing Editor, Reuters Consumer Services Jason McCabe Calacanis, CEO, Weblogs, Inc. an AOL Company, Senior Vice President, AOL JD Lasica, Executive Director and co-founder, Ourmedia.org David Feinleib, Director, Mohr, Davidow Ventures (MDV) Ted Shelton, founder and CEO, The Personal Bee Jed Alpert, CEO of Rights Group, LLC Maria Thomas, Vice President and General Manager, NPR Digital Media Shelly Palmer, Managing Partner, Advanced Media Ventures Group LLC, Moderator Jason McCabe Calacanis, co-founder and CEO, Weblogs, Inc., an AOL Inc. Company: Jason Calacanis is the founder of Weblogs, Inc., a media network of 85 blogging sites covering a range of subjects across niche industries through more than 160 independent, freelance experts that produce over 10,000 blog postings per month. Weblogs' more popular blogs include: Engadget (technology), Autoblog (automotive), Joystiq (gaming), Cinematical (films), Blogging Baby (parening), SlashFood, and TVSquad. Acquired by AOL int October 2005, Weblogs are now featured on AOL.com and a variety of sites in the AOL network. Prior to launching Weblogs, Inc, Calacanis was the founder of the Silicon Alley Reporter. Maria Thomas, Vice President, NPR Online: As vice president for NPR Online, Maria Thomas leads the talented team of writers, programmers, content developers, and designers that make possible NPR's Web site, npr.org. With 15 years of experience in high technology and finance, Maria brings to NPR a broad range of strategic business skills and expertise unique to the online environment. There couldn't be a more fitting job for her. She is an avid NPR radio listener who confesses to having an Internet addiction. Thomas joined NPR in October 2001, after more than two and one-half years with Amazon.com in Seattle, Washington. At Amazon.com, Thomas directed various Internet operations including the launch and management of Amazon.com's camera and photo store. She also developed and managed the company's partnership with Ofoto, a Kodak company engaged in the online photo services business. Maria also spent seven years as an investment officer with the World Bank's private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), in Washington, DC. In 1995, she was awarded an Eisenhower Exchange Fellowship to study the limitations to financing small- and medium-sized enterprises in Argentina. In 1997, Ms. Thomas made the institution's first investment in a private company in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. Her career at the IFC culminated with an appointment to the position of special assistant to the CEO of the IFC. Ms. Thomas began her career on Wall Street where she spent five years in corporate and project finance with Kidder, Peabody & Company, Incorporated. Thomas holds a M.B.A. degree from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University and a B.S. in accounting from Boston University. She passed the CPA exam in Massachusetts. Thomas lives in Washington D.C. DEAN WRIGHT, Senior Vice President and Managing Editor, Reuters Consumer Services: Dean Wright joined Reuters in May 2005 as its first ever Managing Editor for Consumer Services. Based in New York, he leads the editorial operations and programming for Reuters consumer facing media services globally including the online, mobile, and interactive television platforms. His appointment underscores the editorial commitment that Reuters is making in its efforts to grow its media business by reaching consumers directly over digital media platforms. A media executive with over 30 years’ experience in journalism, Mr Wright joined Reuters from MSNBC.com where he served as Editor-in-Chief and Managing Editor for News. He was instrumental in making the site the U.S.’s number one online news destination, with 23.5 million unique users, based on its strong visual identity and reputation for original reporting. Previous to that role he was a Senior Director with America Online, where he helped manage the integration of programming between AOL and the Time Inc. web sites. Mr Wright’s journalistic experience ranges across newspapers, newswires and online media. He has reported from Washington for the Associated Press, and worked on a range of metropolitan dailies in the U.S. and Canada including the Louisville Courier-Journal, The Toronto Star, and The San Jose Mercury News. J.D. Lasica is one of the world's leading authorities on citizens media and the personal media revolution. A writer, blogger and consultant, he is the co-founder and executive director of Ourmedia.org. His book about the personal media revolution is Darknet: Hollywood's War Against the Digital Generation (Wiley & Sons, May 2005). Author Lawrence Lessig said of "Darknet": "There are few who see the future clearly, and even fewer who can explain what they see. This brilliant, beautifully written book sees, and explains." (See other commentaries here.) J.D. was an editor at the Sacramento Bee for 11 years, has written articles about technology and culture for major publications, and headed up editorial teams at three startups. He blogs at New Media Musings, Darknet and Social Media. He lives with his wife and son in the San Francisco Bay Area and is a frequent speaker and panelist at technology and media conferences. David Feinleib, Director, Mohr, Davidow Ventures (MDV): David Feinleib brings extensive entrepreneurial and operating experience to his role at MDV. He focuses on consumer and mobile investments. Prior to MDV, David founded Centeris, a venture funded company providing interoperability software for mixed Windows and Linux environments. Before Centeris, David was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Ignition Partners, where he co-founded and was VP of Product Management at Consera Software (HPQ). Prior to Consera, David co-founded and was CEO of onDevice (KEYN), a wireless software company. Before onDevice, David led marketing and development teams at Microsoft. He managed the Out of Box Experience team for Windows and worked on television and internet access services. David’s first entrepreneurial endeavor was in junior high school when he developed and sold ShareWare programs. In his spare time, David maintains a blog at www.vcmba.com and keeps his skills sharp by operating a small online advertising business. David serves on the board of Centeris Software. Education: David holds a B.A., summa cum laude, from Cornell University, and an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Ted Shelton, founder and CEO, Personal Bee: Ted has a long history as an entrepreneur—Prior to founding The Personal Bee he spent time as COO of Orb Networks, Inc; as CEO and co-founder of The Dr. Spock Company; CEO of Israeli-based Neta4 Technologies; and was the first outside executive recruited to WhoWhere? Inc., the eighth-largest Web property in audience reach at the time it was acquired by Lycos in 1998. From 2000 through 2003 Ted served as the chief strategy officer for Borland Software Corporation, helping to reposition Borland as a strategic vendor of life-cycle development infrastructure from its prior history as a tactical vendor of development tools. In prior lives, Ted also led a development team for CMP Media, a high-tech media company, Swiss Bank Corporation (now part of UBS), and was a founder of IT Solutions, Inc., a software development company focused on the NeXT computer. The Personal Bee is a brand-new, new-media company. In a nutshell, it is dedicated to helping information producers and consumers capture the essential buzz from the roar of information washing over us all everyday. The Personal Bee believe that smart analysis of the information torrent coursing through blogs and mainstream news sites, coupled with the abilities of smart, aggressive and ambitious human editors, will help accelerate the evolution of our news media. The first expression of our thinking is The Personal Bee as you see it today: a collection of news editions personalized to your way of thinking, drawing from a panoply or sources, both novel and traditional, on a wide range of topics. Jed Alpert, is CEO of Rights Group, LLC, a mobile entertainment and marketing company with clients including Visa International, Samsung, Pepsi, and Collegehumor.com. Its Politxt division is the leading provider mobile services to campaigns and advocacy organizations including People for the American Way, SEIU and the ACLU. He was previously President of Sunshine Amalgamedia, Inc., a technology-driven entertainment company with operating divisions in interactive content, including Interactive TV; exhibition (Sunshine Theater NYC); television development and production; and feature film production. At Sunshine, Jed developed an innovative syndication sponsorship model commissioning top young directors to make short films for multiple distribution networks with nationally branded sponsorship. Sunshine partners, clients, and customers have included Microsoft, Oracle, Scripps Howard, and others. Additionally, while at Sunshine, he oversaw the production of feature films and developed television. During his tenure practicing law at Rudolph and Beer, and as an associate at Paul Weiss, Alpert’s clients included films such as Slingblade, Hurricane Streets, Sunday, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Cruise, Next Stop Wonderland, Three Seasons, and Star Maps. He represented companies such as Open City Films, Rhino Entertainment and Sonic Net. Further, Alpert produced numerous feature films including Sunday, winner of the 1997 Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize and the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award. He has also served on the board of a number of film festivals and arts organizations, including Genart, The Newport Film Festival and Thread Waxing Space. Jed holds a BA from Connecticut College and a JD from Cardozo School of Law. Shelly Palmer, Managing Partner, Advanced Media Ventures Group LLC, is an award-winning inventor, technologist, composer and television producer. He is the host of Media 3.0 with Shelly Palmer, a weekly business news show that can be seen on public television and online. He invented Enhanced Television (Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, Monday Night Football), the most popular form of interactive television in the United States. Mr. Palmer is 1st Vice President of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, NY. He created and chairs the Advanced Media Technology Emmy Awards which honors excellence in the science and technology of the media business. He is the author of one of the most popular television business news blogs. Television Disrupted: The Transition from Network to Networked TV is coming out at NAB on Elsevier Books/Focal Press this spring.