Click on the Video Below and Sample a Session from a previous Digital Hollywood event. For Additional Video Sessions, Click Here Digital Hollywood, October 19-22, 2009 Monday, October 19th 3:45 PM – 5:00 PM Track III - The Smartphone, Session III Platform Strategies II: Apps - Entertainment, News, Music, Games, Location-Based, Communication and Community The Smartphone – the perfect personalized experience – is unique in that it is so modern and today. Why? Don’t ask, it just is. The Smartphone provides the perfect platform for social networks, broadband or video, more and more is how a consumer relates to the total communications experience. All Smartphone content and applications conform to this understanding of how the entertainment, information and communications experience is defined. Apps are being sold and downloaded by the hundreds of millions each month, each providing a simple and elegant purpose – and some almost no purpose at all, just fun. We are in a new world of Apps for all seasons and whims. Benjamin Chen, Chairman and CEO, Mochila Maria Kermath, Director, Product Strategy, AT&T Interactive Chris Tolles, CEO, Topix David Scacco, CEO, TwitVid.com David Maher Roberts, CEO, Filter Anthony Bontrager, President, 1Cast Tim Chang, Principal, Norwest Venture Partners, Moderator Benjamin Chen, Chairman and CEO, Mochila: Benjamin Chen is a 20-year veteran of high tech startups. Prior to Mochila, Mr. Chen was a founder of AppGenesys, a leading managed services web hosting provider for Fortune 500 clients, partnered with Intel, Softbank, JP Morgan, where he was Chairman, CEO and CTO. Previously, Mr. Chen was the CIO and CTO at iXL, a strategic e-business consulting firm. At iXL, he helped grow the company from 100 to 3,000 employees worldwide and from $2M to $120M revenue per quarter. During Mr. Chen's tenure, iXL was known for delivering innovative technology solutions to the F500, included a $50M contract with Delta Airlines and $100M contract with General Electric. Other key customers included AT&T, CheapTickets.com, FEDEX, Sony (AiBO Launch), Tickets.com, and WebMD. Mr. Chen was part of the executive management team that helped take iXL public in 1999. Prior to iXL, Mr. Chen worked at CBS Studio Center, as a technologist working on some of the first convergence of prime time television content and the internet. Mr. Chen also produced the 1996 Emmy Awards Cybercast, demonstrating the world’s largest number of internet video streams that year. Mr. Chen has also served on the advisory/boards of Teralytics and Exodus/Digital Island, a Cable and Wireless Company. He received a B.S. in international finance from the University of Southern California and is an avid martial artist with a Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do. Maria Kermath, Director, Product Strategy AT&T Interactive: Maria began her career in digital doing video application development & content acquisition for U-verse, AT&T’s IPTV product offering. She left to pursue her passion for entertainment at HBO. There, Maria created strategies to extend HBO content onto IP enabled devices. She developed & executed HBO’s first virtual comedy show promoting the HBO US Comedy Arts Festival. Her next opportunity put her in the center of the virtual world. Maria was Director of Business Development at Millions of Us, an agency that brings Fortune 50 brands into online communities such as blogs, social networks, online video aggregation sites, and virtual worlds. She returned to AT&T Interactive, the cross-platform advertising monetization branch of AT&T, in 2008. As the Director of Product Strategy she is responsible for researching, synthesizing, and rationalizing key market trends in the online and mobile advertising, search & application industry. She’s also responsible for exploring and incubating new and adjacent markets for new products and opportunities. Maria holds a B.S.B.A. in Marketing from Creighton University and a M.B.A. in Marketing and General Management from the University of Illinois. Chris Tolles, CEO, Topix: Chris came to Topix from Spoke Software, a business social networking company, where he was a co-founder and VP of marketing. Before Spoke, Chris was a Director of Marketing at AOL/Netscape for AOL Music, Netscape Search and Directory Products. Chris was a co-founder and VP of Marketing at NewHoo, and led the sale of the company to Netscape. After the acquisition, NewHoo was relaunched as the Open Directory Project at Netscape and became the world's largest human edited directory of the web, and is still used by companies like Google, Alexa and AOL. Previous to NewHoo, Chris held a variety of sales, marketing and management positions at Sun Microsystems. Chris graduated from the University of California at San Diego with degrees in Computer Science and Economics, where he was awarded the Michael J. Addison award for his senior thesis about the online information industry. David Scacco, CEO, TwitVid.com: David Scacco From 2000 through 2007 Scacco led a strategic sales team at Google. He holds the distinction as the company's first advertising sales executive. In his role as Director of the Vertical Markets Group Scacco was responsible for building and managing an all-star team, which provided marketers with industry specific expertise across 12 macro categories including Travel, Finance, Consumer Packaged Goods, B2B Technology, and Agencies. In this capacity Scacco and the Vertical team built successful advertising partnerships with many of the world’s best known brands and advertising agencies, as well as some of the fastest growing internet companies. Scacco received the prestigious Founders Award for his work at Google. Prior to joining Google, Scacco was Director of Business Development at Ziff-Davis where he created integrated cross media marketing partnerships with leading Tech and Telecom marketers. Prior to that Scacco spent 7 years with a direct response computer reseller where he held the position of VP of Marketing. Scacco began his career in ad agency account management. Scacco holds a BS from Northern Illinois University. David Maher Roberts, Chief Executive Officer, The Filter: David Maher Roberts is an entrepreneurial executive with web start-up and international new media experience. After completing European Economics and Law and Advanced Management programs, Mr. Roberts began his career as a magazine editor and publisher. At the young age of 24, he successfully raised the funds to launch Unique, the first student lifestyle magazine, and The Game, a European football magazine. With roots firmly in content and fulfilling specific information and entertainment needs, Mr. Roberts went on to become the publishing director at Future Games in 2001. There he served as the board director responsible for the entire portfolio of 10 magazines, 2 websites, and 80 employees. After 2 years, he founded Future Plus, a creative agency to provide tailor-made print and digital content solutions for Future’s advertisers. As Future Plus’s publishing director, Mr. Roberts generated revenues of more than 8 million dollars in just over 2 years. From June 2004-December 2006, he also served as the New Media Director for Future’s European web operations. After leaving Future, Mr. Roberts served as the New Media director at iSporty, where he provided the founders with a launch strategy and platform for their sport social network and he was a founder and senior partner of Digital-dna LLP, where he consulted on creating and implementing web strategies for their clients. In his spare time, Mr. Roberts plays, watches, and coaches football and passionately makes and listens to music. He lives with his wife and two children outside of Bath. Anthony Bontrager, President, Onecast, Inc.: A recognized veteran in telecommunications, broadcasting and interactive media, Anthony Bontrager is currently Managing Partner with Axis Partners, LLC a digital media consultancy and head of Business Development at Onecast, Inc. a stealth mode digital media company backed by wireless pioneer Craig McCaw. Prior to Axis and Onecast, Anthony was President and CEO of Broadstream Communications, Inc., a company he co-founded to create the telecommunications industry’s first virtual head-end and middleware service for IPTV delivery. Under Anthony’s leadership, Broadstream was the first company to secure the largest library of IP-content rights from companies such as NBC-Universal, Disney/ABC, ESPN, Starz, Discovery, Fox, Turner Networks and others. Previously, Anthony was General Manager at Fisher Pathways, Inc. (a division of Fisher Communications, Inc.), where he oversaw programming origination and satellite and fiber re-distribution of television and video content for companies such as ESPN, The Portland Trail Blazers, CNN and others. Anthony’s telecom career began during the early days of PCS systems deployments and continued with Advanced Radio Telecom Corp. where, as Vice President of Real Estate, he oversaw the acquisition of over 800 million square feet of telecommunications facilities in the United States, London and Scandinavia. Anthony sits on the advisory boards of NDR Media, Inc. and SATCON; and the board of directors of Alexandria Investment Company. Anthony is a member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences - Interactive Media Peer Group and Film Group, and is a past member of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) and World Teleport Association (WTA). Anthony is also a co-author of Washington State’s wireless siting policy. Tim Chang, Principal, Norwest Venture Partners, focusing on Wireless and Digital Media investments, and also leads Norwest's China initiatives. Tim led NVP's investment in 3jam, Brite Semiconductor and Lumos Labs, and serves on the board of directors for these companies. Tim also led NVP's investment in PCH International. He is actively involved with NVP's wireless portfolio, including deCarta, DoubleFusion, Veveo, and Clairmail. Prior to joining Norwest, Tim was a Principal at Gabriel Venture Partners, where he established and led the Wireless investment practice, and was actively involved with investments in Placeware (acquired by Microsoft), Iridigm (acquired by Qualcomm), IPWireless (acquired by NextWave), Skycross, NextG Networks, and Sequoia Communications. Tim served as a director on the boards of Iridigm and Sequoia Communications. Before entering the venture capital industry, Tim was a Product Manager at Gateway, where he launched Enterprise products into the Japanese market, and began his career as a tri-lingual development engineer for General Motors, working across China, Korea, and Japan. Tim is an active contributor to the wireless industry, and serves on the advisory boards of Telecom Council Silicon Valley, TiE Wireless SIG, Under-the-Radar, Wireless Communications Alliance (WCA), MIT/Stanford VLAB, VC Task Force, Silicon Valley Chinese Wireless Association, and Digital Hollywood. Tim received his MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he graduated in the top 10% of his class as an Arjay Miller Scholar. He also holds an MSEE and BSEE in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan, where he was a Deparmental Scholar and received full fellowship. Tim is also an accomplished musician and actor, and continues to perform around the Bay Area.