Click on the Video Below and Sample a Session from a previous Digital Hollywood event. For Additional Video Sessions, Click Here Digital Hollywood, May 4-7, 2009 Tuesday, May 5th Special Workshops 2:15 PM – 3:30 PM Workshop B: Virtual Worlds, Virtual Economies, Virtual Goods and Services and Virtual Gaming Steve Hoffman, CEO, RocketOn, Inc. Sibley Verbeck, CEO, The Electric Sheep Company Jim Crowley, CEO, Turbine Jeff Titterton, Vice President of Marketing, IMVU Joe Hyrkin, Vice President of Sales & Business Development,. Gaia Online David D Christensen, Vice President, Business Development & International Operations, Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) Rob Uhrich, Senior Director, Digital Markets, PaymentOne Jason Wonacott, CEO, Wonacott Communications, Moderator Steve Hoffman is the CEO of RocketOn, Inc. He's also a founding member of the Academy of Television's Interactive Media Group and the founder of the San Francisco Chapter of the Producers Guild of America. Prior to starting RocketOn, he was the COO and co-founder of Zannel, the first large-scale mobile instant media messaging platform. Before that, he was the North American Studio Head for Infospace, where he ran the North American mobile games publishing & development group. From 1998 - 2002, he was the Chairman & CEO of Spiderdance, Hollywood's leading interactive television studio, whose customers included NBC, Viacom, Time Warner, TBS, GSN and A&E. He also consulted for R/GA Interactive, designing projects for Kodak, Disney, Intel, AdAge, and Children's Television Workshop. From 1994 - 1998, he ran LavaMind, a developer & publisher of computer games and entertainment websites. In Japan, he worked as a game designer for Sega, generating new concepts and designs for games and amusement rides. Prior to Sega, he was a Hollywood development executive at Fries Entertainment, where he managed TV development. He graduated from the University of California with a BS in Electrical Computer Engineering and went on to earn a Masters in Film & Television from USC. He is also the co-author of "Game Design Workshop" published by CMP in 2004. Rob Uhrich, Senior Director, Digital Markets, PaymentOne: Rob Uhrich is Senior Director, Digital Markets for PaymentOne, the leading payment provider for alternative and global online payments. Rob has over a decade of business, market development and operations experience in payments and transaction processing for online based and digital content service providers. He has been with PaymentOne since it’s inception over 8 years ago and been instrumental in assisting PaymentOne’s clients in generating over $3.5 Billion in gross retail billings. Rob brings PaymentOne expertise in the digital entertainment and content markets. Prior to PaymentOne, he has held sales and business development positions in a variety of industries from shipping and logistics to medical devices. Rob has a Bachelor of Science in Finance from Santa Clara University. Sibley Verbeck, CEO, The Electric Sheep Company: Sibley Verbeck is founder of The Electric Sheep Company, and is responsible for overall company strategy and management. Sibley blogs about the virtual world industry and is a co-founder of the Virtual Worlds Roadmap. As a former Chief Scientist of StreamSage, Inc. and Comcast Online, Sibley has been a leading researcher in advanced computational linguistic and statistical techniques for analyzing audio, video, and text. In January 2001, Sibley received an award from the Washington Techway Magazine as one of the top young technology executives in the DC area; in 2003 he was selected as one of MIT Technology Review's top 100 technology innovators worldwide under the age of 35. He has been an invited speaker on topics ranging across virtual worlds, search, computational linguistics, Internet infrastructure, digital television, scientific publication, and undergraduate science education. Sibley is involved with the I Do Foundation, the Acceleration Studies Foundation, and the Journal of Young Investigators. Jim Crowley, CEO, Turbine: Jim Crowley is Turbine's president and CEO. He bring is a wealth of operational experience to Turbine and is responsible both for the vision and the day-to-day operations of the Company. Prior to joining Turbine, Jim spent three years as Chief Operating Officer of m-Qube, Inc which he helped turn into one of North America's largest mobile media companies. Jim also spent eight years as the Chief Operating Officer of Network Plus, Inc., one of the country's largest publicly traded competitive telecommunications and data providers. Crowley is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School and Connecticut College. Jeff Titterton, Vice President of Marketing, IMVU: Jeff is the vice president of marketing at IMVU, where he leads customer acquisition and new member monetization. Prior to IMVU, Jeff was Founder and CEO of RealJock.com, a health and fitness-focused site for the LGBT community. Prior to RealJock.com, Jeff served as SVP of Member Sales and Marketing at PlanetOut, Inc., where he managed the company's subscriptions and transactional revenue lines for its Gay.com, PlanetOut.com and other web sites. Jeff also led PlanetOut's marketing, business analytics, customer service, and community management teams, and he helped take PlanetOut public on the NASDAQ in 2004. Prior to PlanetOut, Jeff led editorial functions at Alexander Ogilvy Public Relations and Future Publishing USA (including "MacAddict" and "The Net"). Jeff earned a B.A. in English Literature with a concentration in Economics from Cornell University. When he's not spending time with his partner and two kids, Jeff likes to bike, run, and participate in the occasional marathon or triathlon. Joe Hyrkin, Vice President of Sales & Business Development, Gaia Online: Joe Hyrkin has more than 15 years of experience in senior sales and business development management both domestically and internationally. He has focused his career on creating and launching new businesses around the world, and has been instrumental in pioneering creative revenue opportunities in the community Web space. At Gaia, Joe oversees all revenue including virtual goods, advertising and merchandize as well as all Business Development efforts including strategic partnerships, and distribution. He has pioneered business models that create some of the best brand and consumer engagement on the web. Prior to Gaia Online, Joe headed up the business side of Multimedia Search at Yahoo!, where he also served as head of Business Development and Sales for Flickr. Before his time at Yahoo, Joe served as Vice President of Strategic Accounts and Asia Pacific Operations at publicly listed company, Virage Inc, a provider of video search and publishing services and software. While at Virage, Joe and his team pioneered some of the first business relationships in the broadband entertainment space, working with some of the world's leading media companies. Prior to Virage, he headed sales for Sina.com, the top Chinese language web portal, and before that Joe ran The Economist Group's business in China for 4.5 years establishing the company's presence in the country and overseeing offices in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. David D Christensen is Vice President, Business Development & International Operations for Sony Online Entertainment (SOE), a division of Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc. that develops, markets and distributes massively multi-player online games (MMOG). Christensen is charged with generating strategic growth opportunities for SOE globally with an emphasis on international markets. Christensen is a veteran of the video games industry with a broad range of business experience, including development deals, acquisitions, licensing and business affairs. Most recently, he served as Vice President of Business Development for IGE, the world’s largest MMOG service provider, offering MMOG-specific content and virtual currency and assets exchange services. Previously, Christensen served as Director of Business Development for Vivendi Games (formerly Vivendi Universal Games). During his tenure, he identified and acquired intellectual properties for the company that accounted for nearly $70 million in incremental net revenue and nearly $20 million in EBITDA. He was instrumental in leading negotiations on licensing and development deals on several critically and commercially acclaimed franchises including Crash Bandicoot, The Incredible Hulk, Lord of the Rings, Riddick and Spyro. Earlier in his career, Christensen was a founding member of talent agency R.E.D., where he drove business development and legal affairs for the firm’s game development clients. Christensen began his career as a tax consultant at the firm of Deloitte & Touche LLP. Christensen studied at the Georgetown University Law Center for a Masters in Taxation and received his Juris Doctor at The John Marshall Law School. He earned his Bachelor’s degree at the University of Illinois. Jason Wonacott, CEO, Wonacott Communications: Jason created Wonacott Communications after several years heading up PR and communications initiatives both in-house and agency side. From the success and insight of these environments he founded WComms with one goal: provide the benchmark public relations and new media results of a major agency while being affordable, adaptable and approachable. Adhering to this mantra, the company quickly established itself as a respected strategic PR partner for a number of start-up and established online interactive entertainment and digital media companies, including Atlus Online, NHN USA (ijji.com), Cookie Jar Entertainment, WEBZEN, Realtime Worlds, Gala-Net, Clear Ink, Moblyng, and many others. Prior to launching Wonacott Communications in 2007, Jason was director of corporate communications for MMO developer and publisher Turbine, Inc. and then the head of corporate communications for Korean MMO developer Webzen’s Western markets subsidiary. He was also a senior member of two independent Los Angeles-based public relations firms, providing strategic counsel and program tactical execution for a number of clients in the consumer electronics, digital entertainment, luxury lifestyle, technology and alternative energy industries.