Click on the Video Below and Sample a Session from a previous Digital Hollywood event. For Additional Video Sessions, Click Here Digital Hollywood, October 27-30, 2008 Wednesday, October 29th 2:15 PM - 3:30 PM Track IV: Social Networks & User Generated Media as a Technology Challenge: The Platform, the Content & the Network Social networks and user generated media are not always a success. Just like any innovation, the challenge is to be among those left standing after the race to be first is over. On a certain level, the era of the social networks and user generated media sites is just beginning. The technology is just starting to make a social network a living and breathing universe of communications and activity, but there is also the downside of getting up and running only to burn out and lose your momentum. In theory, every successful television show or community of users is a potential social network, but in reality, the translation process does not always take hold. In this session we will explore what it takes to create and maintain a successful social network and user generated media site. Tom Gerace, CEO, Gather Steven Goh, Co-Founder, Mig33 David Zito, CTO, SocialVibe Mike More, CEO and Founder, Nabbr Tim O'Shaughnessy, CEO and Co-founder, LivingSocial.com Blake Cahill, SVP of Marketing, Visible Technologies Kelli Richards, President, The All Access Group, Moderator Blake Cahill, Sr. Vice President of Marketing, Visible Technologies: Blake Cahill is the Senior Vice President of Marketing for Visible Technologies. He is responsible for executing marketing strategies, driving thought leadership, and engaging with industry analysts to increase market and customer awareness for continued revenue growth. Blake has more than 15 years of executive management experience leading marketing, sales, product management, and customer support organizations. This experience includes both domestic and international companies in a variety of technology, consumer, and telecommunications industries such as AT&T, Belgacom, Qwest, SafeHarbor Technology, SBC, and ServiceMaster.com. Through these diverse experiences Blake has developed invaluable insights about how the intersection of customer experience, social media, brands, and technology can allow businesses and brands to execute and leverage the “voice of their customers”. Blake is advisory board member of the Society of New Communications Research, HomeSavvi.com and Divvy.com. Blake has been quoted and featured in CIO, Inc., PRWeek, Red Herring, Seattle Business Monthly, Seattle P-I, Seattle Times, TechCrunch, and Wired. Blake holds bachelor's degrees in political science, history, and business from Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island. Tim O'Shaughnessy, CEO and Co-Founder, LivingSocial: Tim is the CEO of LivingSocial, a social discovery and cataloging network that allows people to review and share their favorite movies, books, music, games, restaurants and beer. He's part of the original visionary team behind the product, which integrates users' interest profiles seamlessly with Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, hi5, and Orkut. Most recently, Tim led the consumer products team at Revolution Health where he integrated multi-million dollar acquisitions into the company, and previously, he managed product launches at AOL. When he's not working to make it easier for users to share and discover their own passions online, he's usually reading, traveling, or trying to take in a ball game. Tim graduated from Georgetown University with degrees in Marketing and Operations & Information Management. Tom Gerace is the Founder and CEO of Gather, the leading social network for the adult 30+ demographic. Before founding Gather.com, Tom served as Senior Vice President, Marketing, for National Leisure Group (NLG), a $1 billion annual seller of travel. Prior to joining NLG, Tom was the Founder and Chief Marketing Officer of Be Free, Inc., a publicly traded online marketing services company. In his early stages at the company, Tom served as Be Free's President and was awarded two U.S. Patents (5,848,396 and 5,991,735) for profiling computer users and targeting advertising based on that profiling. During his tenure with the company, Be Free raised more than $200 million and launched both U.S. and European operations with a staff reaching 340. Using those resources, the company acquired more than 300 leading online customers including barnesandnoble.com, Verisign, Bertlesmann, Time Warner AOL, IBM, Dell, Microsoft, and eBay. Before founding beFree with his brother Sam in 1996, Tom served as a senior business analyst at the Harvard Business School, authoring case studies including, “The National Information Infrastructure and the Internet.” Tom received a Bachelor of Arts in Social Studies, magna cum laude, from Harvard University in 1993. Steven Goh, CEO and Co-Founder, mig33: Steven previously was the principal founder and CEO of Sanford Securities Limited, Australia’s first online stockbrokerage. From a start-up business in 1996, Steven grew Sanford to 160,000 customers with $66 million in sales over six years and $2.4 billion in customer assets. Prior to Sanford, Steven spent time in the stockbrokerage industry with Merrill Lynch (formerly McIntosh West) and Saw James Capel, as a management consultant with Steven Goh & Associates, and in the accounting and audit industry with Coopers & Lybrand and Arthur Anderson. Steven is recognized as an authority on contemporary IT issues within the financial services sector. David Zito, CTO, SocialVibe: David’s past ventures as an entrepreneur and experience in the product and technology development arena have earned him high regards among his interactive peers. His career path began at the California Institute of Technology where he received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering. David specializes in the rapid development of highly scalable consumer and advertising related technologies. He started off as a producer at the internet incubator idealab! where he was a pioneer in the search marketing industry and helped create early versions of GoTo.com. His projects at idealab! led him to his next position as the Director of Technology at Tickets.com. After Tickets’s IPO and merger with Advantix, David jumped back into another early-stage start-up at PayMyBills.com. As VP of Web Development, he architected one of the first completely open-source based, service-oriented, web platforms of its day. This groundbreaking system processed over $1 billion in transactions and earned certification from leading financial institutions nationwide. Also, David received user interface design awards from Yahoo! and Forbes for the Tickets and PayMyBills web products. He re-joined Goto.com, renamed Overture, as a special advisor to the Chief Architect where he drove key strategic, technology and IP intiatives. When Yahoo! purchased Overture, David transitioned to Director of Engineering and helped launched the Yahoo! Publisher Network into a multi-million dollar advertising marketplace. David left Yahoo! in January of 2007 to found UserMade Studios specializing in user-generated content platforms and expertise networks. David’s team from UserMade joins him at SocialVibe where he is currently CTO and leads product development. Mike More, CEO and Founder, Nabbr: Mike More is a serial entrepreneur with over 18 years experience in the music industry. Prior to founding Nabbr, Mike founded a highly successful music production and publishing company. Mike's companies worked with a wide range of artists such as Don Henley, Britney Spears and Garth Brooks selling over 20 million CDs worldwide. Mike is a voting member of the Producers & Engineers wing of NARAS. Bill Cromie has been with Nabbr since its inception. Typical of his Gen-Y generation, Bill is an early adopter and lives and breathes all things Web 2.0. A graduate of NYU, he brings over 10 years of software development experience, having started programming while still in high school. At Nabbr, Bill leads the software team in its continual development of the core widget platform. Previously, Bill designed software systems for the real estate development market. Kelli Richards, President, The All Access Group: Kelli Richards is an established veteran and respected pioneer in the convergence of entertainment and technology, especially within the digital music/media arena (where she has been an active participant for the past decade). She's a catalyst for profitable creative breakthroughs that involve brands and technologies, and individuals at the top of their game. Basically, she connects the dots between technology companies and the entertainment industry – seeking new revenue streams and distribution opportunities for both. Kelli is the principal of her own company, the All Access Group, which specializes in harnessing the power of the Internet and e-commerce opportunities to create world class campaigns, facilitate strategic alliances, and produce unique projects for A-List celebrities and musicians, established corporations, as well as for numerous startups. She acts as a "Director of Entertainment Alliances" for hire to major technology companies -- creating strategic initiatives and spearheading content acquisition deals that allow for mutually advantageous collaboration with content owners, including top entertainment companies and established artists (directly). She has unparalleled access to decisionmakers both in entertainment and in technology, which allows for accelerated traction in terms of getting things done for her clients with alacrity. In addition, she seeks brand extension opportunities that will generate additional revenue streams and promotional opportunities for name artists through new means of digital distribution. Prior to launching the All Access Group, Kelli spent 10 years at Apple Computer most recently as Music and Entertainment Markets Manager. She has also done work with Silicon Graphics (SGI) in their Entertainment Marketing group. Kelli previously held positions at EMI Records as an A&R exec, and also at Guitar Player Publications. For several years in the mid-to-late 90s, Kelli partnered with rocker Todd Rundgren to develop a series of firsts during the early days of digital music, most notably PatroNet, the earliest Internet-enabled artist subscription service (see "www.patronet.com"). For the past two decades, she has also been an acclaimed producer of various music projects as well as a wide variety of events including: MB-5, Webnoize Conference, Tribute to Paul McCartney CD, California Music Awards (formerly the BAMMIES), Pollstar Awards, Webby Awards, and other similar projects/events. Kelli also produced a highly successful conference which she co-founded for two years running in 1999 and 2000 entitled "MB-5: The Future of Music", and more recently produced a large fundraiser in 2002 in support of the UN's "Adopt-A-Minefield" organization dedicated to clearing landmines featuring Paul McCartney, Brian Wilson & Jay Leno. She was the talent producer behind the BAMMIES (now known as the California Music Awards) for nearly 20 years. She has also been co-producer of the Pollstar Awards for the past five years. All Access Group's diverse range of clients have included: Philips, Apple Computer, Motorola, iFilm, Akimbo Systems, Media Rights Technologies, Sony Net Services, Wipro, Todd Rundgren, David Bowie, Michael Jackson, IUMA, My-Reputation, Storymail, NBC Interactive, and many others. Kelli has recently co-authored two books – a book/DVD entitled "The Art of Digital Music: 56 Artists, Visionaries & Insiders Reveal Their Creative Secrets", published in 2005 by Backbeat Books; the other one is "Creating Business Breakthroughs You Want: Secrets and Strategies of the World's Greatest Mentors" published in 2004 by Mission Publishing. She's a sought after panel moderator and speaker at digital music and digital media conferences, and a contributor to the media as an expert in the areas of digital music, digital media, artist-related issues, and integrated brand entertainment. She holds an MBA with an emphasis in marketing, and a BA in marketing/filmmaking from San Jose State University. She also holds a Certification in Life Coaching through Debbie Ford’s Institute for Integrative Coaching. In her spare time, she enjoys yoga, gourmet cooking, nutrition, reading, time with friends, and hiking in the local recreational areas of the San Francisco Bay Area.