Click on the Video Below and Sample a Session from a previous Digital Hollywood event. For Additional Video Sessions, Click Here Digital Hollywood, May 3-6, 2010 Tuesday, May 4th SuperSessions Special Workshops 2:15 PM – 3:30 PM Workshop B: HGmz-8, DMny-6 Virtual Economies, MMOs, Virtual Worlds & Virtual Goods Virtual worlds, virtual gaming and virtual communities have spawned a universe of goods and services. With hundreds of millions of users consumed in online gaming or social media, the phenomenon of the virtual economy is becoming ever more innovative and based in impressive economic numbers. As the technology enables better and more creative consumer experience, enabling full rich media virtual services and economies, the size, scope and future of the virtual world will only first become understood and realized. Craig Sherman, CEO, Gaia Online Cindy Armstrong, CEO, WebWars Kevin Dasch, VP of Finance and Business Development, IMVU Tom George, Director of Online Marketing and E-Commerce, Turbine, Inc. Teemu Huuhtanen, Executive VP, Business Development and Communications, Sulake Corporation and President, North America, Sulake Inc. David Traub, VP Business Development, DigitalSportsMedia, Moderator Craig Sherman, CEO, Gaia Online: During business hours, Craig Sherman lives in gaiaonline.com, the leading online hangout for teens and young adults. Prior to joining Gaia Online, Craig served as Entrepreneur in Residence at Benchmark Capital. Craig was also COO of MyFamily.com/ancestry.com (now called The Generations Network), where he helped grow the company from $10 million to $150 million in sales and transformed it from an advertising-based site to a highly profitable consumer subscription business. Before this, Craig held senior positions at American International Group, where he ran marketing for all divisions of AIG in Japan and Korea plus managed the region's highest margin subsidiary. Previous to AIG, Craig was CEO of Cendant Japan, a joint venture founded by Cendant and Mitsubishi Corporation. Craig is currently on the boards of kongregate, Netquote and Singlefeed. Previously, Craig also held board positions with Photobucket, prior to its sale to the Fox network, Homestead, prior to its sale to Intuit, and Logoworks, prior to its sale to Hewlett Packard. Craig graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University. Cindy Armstrong, President and CEO, WebWars, LLC: As President and Chief Executive Officer for WebWars, the innovator in layered reality gaming (LRG) and entertainment, Cindy Armstrong is responsible for all strategic planning, overseas development and publishing operations. She has been with the company since the beginning, bringing to light the innovative LRG platform, and working on the development of two online experiences that showcase the proprietary LRG technology; WebLords, the browser-based, free-to-play fantasy game in which players command their own army as they maneuver the Internet in search of World Wide domination, and Weblings, the colorful game allows players to tame a variety of adorable critters to collect and play with in their quest to battle evil Bugs lurking on sites across the Web. Helping WebWars change online gaming, Cindy brings to the company nearly 20 years of experience in operations, business development and finance at companies including WEBZEN America, Sony Online Entertainment (SOE), Nintendo America, Activision UK and more. Kevin Dasch, VP of Finance and Business Development, IMVU: Kevin joined IMVU in April 2007. He has responsibility for IMVU's corporate functions, including finance, human resources, legal, customer support, and corporate partnerships. He also oversees IMVU's virtual economy. Prior to IMVU, Kevin spent seven years at Dell, where he most recently led the company's Corporate Strategy Group, reporting to the Office of the CEO. Kevin also led marketing for Dell's $4 billion Consumer and Small Business private label financing portfolio and was a consultant in Dell's Corporate Development Group. Before Dell, Kevin was a management consultant with I/S/O Health Care Group, now a division of Monitor. Kevin earned a B.A. in History from Princeton University and an M.B.A. in Finance and Accounting from The McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin. Tom George is the Director of Online Marketing and E-Commerce for Turbine, Inc., the developer of Massively Multi-player Online Games Dungeons & Dragons Online®: Eberron Unlimited™ and The Lord of the Rings Online™, two of the largest, most popular IP-branded MMOs in the world. Tom is responsible for driving new players to Turbine’s games and oversees the company’s online media and acquisition efforts. Additionally, Tom directs the company’s Direct Marketing and E-Commerce/Microtransaction groups. He was one of the primary architects of the microtransaction-based business model, in-game store, and virtual currency economies for the Dungeons & Dragons Online leading its transition from a subscription-only MMO to a hybrid Free-to-Play game, making it one of the best Free-to-Play games available. Prior to his work at Turbine, Tom was the Director of Product and Marketing for PoxNora, a microtransaction-based online turn-based strategy game now owned by Sony Online Entertainment. Tom also worked for WorldWinner, now a division of Liberty Media’s Game Show Network, as its Director of Customer Marketing. In both of these roles Tom drove continual revenue growth via microtransactional business models while increasing player retention and engagement through database marketing-driven lifecycle management. Tom holds an M.B.A. from Babson College and a B.A. in German Studies from Amherst College. Teemu Huuhtanen, Executive VP, Business Development and Communications, Sulake Corporation and President, North America, Sulake Inc.: As executive vice president, Business Development and Communications, Sulake Corporation and president, North America, Sulake Inc., Teemu Huuhtanen is instrumental in leading the continued development and growth of Finnish-based Sulake’s top property, Habbo, one of the world’s most popular online social networking and virtual world communities for teens. Huuhtanen is responsible for cultivating relationships with major music, television and motion picture studios, as well as retail, fashion and sports industries, to generate relevant and interactive brand partnerships. His mission is to bring real-world mainstream entertainment properties and brands that are important to Habbo’s teen user base into the virtual community. Huuhtanen also oversees global public relations efforts for Sulake Corporation. He leads the Sulake team responsible for the company’s communications and PR. As an accomplished thought leader for the digital entertainment landscape over the past five years, Huuhtanen has regularly been a speaker at the industry’s premier conferences and business forums. He frequently addresses issues such as in-game brand engagement, working with entertainment properties, social networking and online gaming monetization models, among many other topics. In 2008, The Hollywood Reporter ranked Huuhtanen on its “Digital Power 50 List” of top innovators who influence the creation and distribution of online content. In 2009, he was named one of Digital Media Wire’s “25 Executives to Watch in Digital Entertainment.” American Venture Magazine appointed Huuhtanen to their list of the “Top 40 Under 40” executives to watch in the technology industry for 2007. Huuhtanen served as a member of the 2008 Engage! Expo Advisory Board. Also, he was a panel judge at the Hollywood Netawards and Hollywood Mobile Awards during the 2008 Hollywood Film Festival. He currently serves as a member of the Digital Media Wire Advisory Board. Since Habbo’s launch in 2000, Huuhtanen has helped grow the teen virtual community to 16.5 million unique monthly users worldwide, in 31 countries on six continents. (Quantcast). Prior to joining Sulake, Huuhtanen held several senior consumer and B2B sales and business development posts for numerous digital start-up companies worldwide. Huuhtanen is based and oversees Sulake’s North American headquarters in Santa Monica, Calif. David Traub, VP Business Development, DigitalSportsMedia: David earned a Masters in Education in 1990 from Harvard University, while conducting simultaneous class-work in interactive cinema and AI-based narrative at the MIT Media Lab. In 1984 he earned his undergraduate degrees in rhetoric and film with honors from the University of California at Berkeley, concluding with an honor thesis focusing on the use of film and television in education. His primary focus: the aggregation and delivery of "social and emotional" and other learning-centric applications/content via mobile phones, thin clients/PCs, TVs and videogames. He is currently writing the book: "17 Questions to Why You Are Here" as an introduction to his proprietary "mythological evaluation tool" that will be an example of such "augmentative" interfaces. In the real world, David has 20-years of experience as a digital media-oriented business development executive, investor, venture catalyst, and/or board member to over 35 startups/private equity companies. He has co-raised and deployed nearly $30 million dollars in support of these ventures. David has created digital media as an co-founder executive and/or executive producer of digital products across a wide variety of clients such as EMI North America, MCA Records, Philips/Polydor, Microsoft/ MSN, Apple Computer and many others. He is also an author of nearly 50 articles and reports on the evolution of the digital domain for trade publications, professional books and institutional clients; and a speaker who has given nearly 50 forward-looking keynote and other speeches throughout the world for clients such as the EU, the Swedish and Canadian Governments, TV Globo (Brazil), the National Institute of Film in Denmark, Viacom, US West, Mercedes/Siebold, The Broadband Content Development Forum and numerous other economic development agencies and universities.