9:30 AM - 10:45 AM
Track IV:
The Broadband Video Tipping Point: Availability of Vast Content and Portability - Broadband, ITV, Mobile & DTV
Video has finally reached into the merger of the entertainment, communications and technology revolution and making itself heard. Call it a Video Tipping Point, a video revolution or simply the next logical step in video to the consumer on all platforms, all the time, but something big is at hand. Video search is becoming the hot button topic and one must ask the question, what are they searching for? As broadband brings video to the consumer on any number of devices, there is no shortage of video content. From the billions of hours of already existing libraries, the daily output of the global news and content providers to the trillions of hours of "personal video," call them v-blogs, Video PodCasts, mobisodes or personal video chat, our universe is past the point of no return. We are now simply codifying the experience, giving it form and coherence. For those who are with us today, welcome to the party, because you will remember this tipping point moment forever.
Dwight Marcus, founder and Chief Technical Officer, NPOWR Digital Media Inc.
Josh Goldman, CEO, Akimbo
Karl Quist, founder & President, TotalVid
Suranga Chandratillake, co-founder, blinkx
Doug Textor, Chief Executive Officer and Founder, The Cannery
Kris Alexander, Director of Media and Entertainment Solutions, Akamai
David E. Leibowitz, Managing Partner, CH Potomac, Moderator
Kris Alexander, Media and Entertainment Specialist, Akamai Techno
logies: Kris Alexander has an accomplished record as a marketing professional and business development entrepreneur in the high technology and media & entertainment industries. Alexander is presently the media and entertainment solutions manager for Akamai Technologies, overseeing the creation of media on-demand solutions for media and entertainment businesses to digitally deliver music, movies, games, and syndicated content. Prior to Akamai, Alexander held positions with and provided consulting services to high tech and media and entertainment businesses including Microsoft, Cisco, Verizon, Level 3, HP, Parker Guitars, EB Games, Turbine Entertainment, nVIDIA, and ATI. He also founded and operated the independent record label, Empire Underwater. Alexander serves on the advisory boards of the Themis Group, which provides marketing and community management of online games and entertainment, and the WarCry Network, the largest independent network of "massively multi-player" games including Everquest, Lineage, Star Wars Galaxies, and City of Heroes. Alexander has spoken on the subjects of Digital Content Delivery, VoIP (Voice Over IP), and IP Security at industry conferences including CeBit, Internet World, and NEMO. He has contributed to several industry white papers regarding online gaming and electronic entertainment, most recently the Themis Report 2004. He is a contributing author to the International Game Developer Association Online Games 2005 white paper.Suranga Chandratillake, co-founder of blinkx, is an IT innovator with over seven years' frontline experience. He received his MA in computer science from the University of Cambridge, England specialising in distributed processing architectures. Following his university years, Suranga worked as a software developer for Morgan Stanley, creating global risk resolution systems as well as on next-generation voice recognition technologies at netdecisions, an IT consultancy group. While working at netdecisions, Suranga joined a small Cambridge-based technology start-up called anondesign, working in the area of commerce-focused content management and delivery. In true start-up fashion, he held numerous roles including presales, product development and software development. Another Cambridge-based technology firm - Autonomy Corporation - caught Suranga's attention and he joined the company where he became the operational CTO. After three successful years at Autonomy, Suranga went on to found blinkx. Blinkx, the smartest thing on your computer, is changing the way that people think about search technology. Free-to-download, blinkx automatically and intelligently links to relevant information anywhere and in any format: on the Web, in the news or on the desktop. Utilizing blinkx, users are no longer limited to Boolean keyword search. Instead, blinkx automatically and implicitly conducts searches based on the content being view by each individual user. blinkx is a privately-held firm based in San Francisco and London.
Karl B Quist, Founder & General Manager, TotalVid: TotalVid is the
brainchild of Founder and President, Karl Quist, avid windsurfer and self-confessed TiVo addict. Frustrated by the lack of windsurfing videos available through traditional retail stores and the almost non-existent windsurfing shows or movies on TV, Karl realized there was a gaping hole in the market. Knowing that there were other frustrated enthusiasts in other action sports segments hungry for content, Karl developed the concept of TotalVid in 2003. Now home to over 1,400 titles in surfing, snowboarding, windsurfing, skiing, inline skating, mountain biking, BMX riding, wakeboarding, motor sports, anime, travel, and a host of other actions sports TotalVid delivers Karl’s vision of using the power of broadband to bring hard-to-find, specialty videos to enthusiasts, directly to their PCs. Before founding TotalVid, Karl was a New Ventures Director at Landmark Communications as part of the Corporate Development group, focused on Internet and database marketing investments. Prior to Landmark, Karl spent two years as a consultant with McKinsey & Company where he provided strategic operations counsel to leading Internet and financial services companies. Karl is a director for CoolSavings and Alliant. He holds a BS in Commerce from the University of Virginia and an MBA from the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration. Karl makes his home in Norfolk, VA, with his wife and two children, and is a dedicated windsurfer.Josh Goldman, Chief Executive Officer, Akimbo: For more than 15 years as a successful high-tech entrepreneur, Josh Goldman has combined his passion for breakthrough technology with his ability to create innovative business models for high-growth companies. He joins Akimbo, the first Internet-to-TV video on demand service, from Sprout Group venture capital, where he was the firm’s first entrepreneur-in-residence, working to develop business ideas for new high-tech companies. Prior to Sprout Group, Josh served as president and chief executive officer of mySimon, Inc., the largest comparison-shopping service on the Internet. He oversaw the growth of mySimon into a major consumer e-commerce site, culminating in the sale of the company to CNET Networks. He then stayed on as president of CNET’s consumer division. Josh received an MBA from Harvard Business School and a bachelor’s of science degree with honors in Computer Science from Tufts University.
Doug Textor, Chief Executive Officer and Founder, The Cannery: As The Cannery’s CEO, Doug Textor is responsible for overseeing day-to-day operations of the company, large client engagements, and long term strategy for the company. Textor founded the company as Canned Interactive in 1992 – a time when "new media" was in its infancy. Recognizing the opportunity to build an industry, Textor applied equal amounts of entertainment and engineering saaviness to create a new breed of business that combined the best of new interactive technologies, computer programming techniques and graphic design with cutting-edge marketing methods. Textor’s approach, combined with the advent of broadband and DVD, proved to be a recipe for success that helped make Canned Interactive the premiere creative design and multi-media boutique in Hollywood. The Cannery has developed many of the entertainment industry’s most acclaimed DVD projects, including "The Matrix," "American Beauty," "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone," and "Beauty and the Beast." Additionally, the company has also produced dozens of high-profile movie web sites, including those for "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me" and the release of "Rocky." The company’s clients include an impressive array of entertainment and media firms including Disney, DreamWorks, New Line Cinema, Sony Digital Sony Music and Warner Brothers. Textor began his career at 19 when he put his passion for mathematics and computer science to work by developing and programming real-time trading systems for Wall Street – systems that did not exist at the time and went on to change the way the world’s financial markets operated. Work with Hewlett Packard, Total Solutions Software, Inc., and The Index Group followed, where Textor continued to work on real-time trading systems, as well as laboratory automation projects, redundant and non-stop systems and business re-engineering programs. Textor holds a BS in Mathematics from Ramapo College of New Jersey and an MBA from Stanford University.
Dwight Marcus is a founder of NPOWR Digital Media, Inc. and has served as its Chief Technical Officer since the Company’s July 2001 inception. His "System for the Automated Generation of Media"—the backbone of NPOWR’s stimTV™ Networks—was granted U.S. Patent protections in February 2000 and is currently in reissue status under supervision of the Company’s patent counsel. Mr. Marcus has invented all of the Company’s currently-held intellectual property, including two additional pending patents. He is also architect of the Company’s business models. In his role, Mr. Marcus supervises the Company’s research and development activities, network technology development, database interface technology, media editing, database storage preparation and production operations. Mr. Marcus’ 30-year professional career has uniquely fused media production and technologies. He is a recognized expert in media production techniques, and his work as a producer, writer, director and composer in the commercial and advertising fields has received nearly every respected industry award including the Golden Eagle, a Clio, and numerous gold medals including Best of Show at the New York International Film and Television Festival. He was also nominated for a Grammy Award. Mr. Marcus was CEO of Marcus-Glodell & Associates from 1980 to 1995. The list of clients for whom he has directed major projects reads like a "Who’s Who of American Business" – Eastman Kodak, Xerox, Dow, Mobil, Philips, Time-Warner Cable, Simon & Schuster, Chase, Gannett, Corning, DuPont and the United States Navy. From 1995 to January, he was engaged as a consultant for technology and production for Medic Interactive Corp., where he later became Senior Vice President of Technology and Production at the New York City-based company. At Medic Interactive, Marcus was involved in the business of creating interactive television media and novel data-warehousing strategies for internet deployment. Marcus attended Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where he was awarded the Henry. J. Fuller scholarship for his groundbreaking design of the first buss-centric computer.
David E. Leibowitz is Managing Partner of CH POTOMAC, a strategic ser
vices company focused on the entertainment, media and technology industries. Mr. Leibowitz brings twenty-five years of experience in copyright, media, communications, and technology matters, as well as business issues facing the entertainment, new media, consumer electronics and information technology industries. Among other activities, Mr. Leibowitz serves on the Industry Advisory Boards of Peppercoin, 13 Colonies Software, and Neurok Optics. Earlier in his career, Mr. Leibowitz Co-Founded VERANCE and served as it Chairman. VERANCE offers innovative technology solutions to protect, manage, and monitor audio and audiovisual content, including broadcast monitoring and verification, copy protection and content management. Before that, Mr. Leibowitz was Executive Vice President and General Counsel of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), responsible for business and legal issues facing the industry with particular emphasis on how to position the industry to utilize new physical and electronic format systems. During this period, Mr. Leibowitz chaired the worldwide recording industry’s International Steering Committee on DVD Audio, the RIAA New Technology and Multimedia Committee and the RIAA Legal Committee. Prior to his work at the RIAA, Mr. Leibowitz was a partner in the Washington, D.C., law firm Wiley Rein & Fielding. Mr. Leibowitz also has served as Policy Planning Advisor to the Register of Copyrights for the U.S. Copyright Office.