Saturday, January 6 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM DH7: Session A: Broadband Entertainment Programming and Content n the past six months the entertainment industry has clearly staked its claim with regard to the creation of original programming, innovative technology, and the desire to serve a massive viewer audience on the Net. Whether it’s through newly branded names or traditional media companies with divisions that compete in the space, broadband information and entertainment content, from live streams to archives, animation to massively delivered data, is reinventing entertainment on the Net. While some start-ups in the field have had tough going, the well managed companies have persevered. On this roundtable we bring together a group of the leaders in this new movement toward broadband entertainment independence. Jonathan Taplin, President and Chief Executive Officer, Intertainer Ron Bloom, CEO, Rampt Erik Smith, Director of Developer Relations, Liberate Technologies Marc Chalom, Vice President Content, iNextv.com Susan Bratton, Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing, Excite@Home Network Frederic V. Bien, Senior Vice President New Media Technology, Turner Broadcasting, Time-Warner, Moderator Frederic V. Bien, Senior Vice President New Media Technology, Turner Broadcasting, Time-Warner: Frederic Bien oversees new media technology for the entertainment division of Turner: TBS, TNT, TCM, Cartoon Network, sports team, Nascar.com. In 1999-2000, Bien was Vice President Communities and Marketing Technology, then CTO of BigStar Entertainment http://www.BigStar.com. Bien is the CEO and founder of Belamo Corp., that produces and markets http://FLIRT.com, the Online Romance Channel, a commercial web site about romance and relationships. FLIRT.com was accessed by over 2 million people in 1999, mostly women. Partnerships with Elle and RoadRunner. In the first half of 1999, Bien was VP Business Development for Playboy.com and managed Playboy Online' Los Angeles office, helping the company in integration of new content partnerships. From 1993 to 1997, Bien founded and was CEO of Bien Logic Inc. an Internet software company that signed and fulfilled multimedia software contracts with Paramount Publishing, Franklin Electronic Publishers, and Apple Computer. Bien Logic developed and marketed web traffic analysis software: SurfReport and ProxyReport. Major customers included Netscape, Oracle, WalMart, ANS, Xerox, Hewlett-Packard, Smithsonian Institute. Bien Logic was sold to Netrics, Inc. in October 1997. Bien Logic was also the largest web design agency in San Diego and Orange County with over 30 major accounts. This agency division was sold to SiteLab International, LLC, in July 1997. Bien received a Ph.D. in Mathematics from MIT in 1986, was Assistant Professor at Princeton University, 1986-92 and was a tenured Associate Professor of Mathematics at University of California San Diego, 1992-96. Bien recorded rock albums in Belgium in 1979-81, as a drummer, composer and band manager. Bien's jazz fusion band, Spring, was the feature of an Amnesty International Concert in Europe in 1981. Bien toured in New England, Québec Canada and New York (Blue Note) in 1983-88. Jonathan Taplin, President and Chief Executive Officer, Intertainer: For more than three decades, Jonathan Taplin’s career has been full and varied -- one heavily seasoned with experience in the entertainment worlds of music, film and finance. As President and Chief Executive Officer of Intertainer, Taplin is now embarking on his latest venture, tapping into the world of digital convergence where his 35 years of in-depth knowledge helps him forge Intertainer’s path into the most dynamic media revolution in history. Taplin’s introduction into the entertainment business began in 1965, when he was just 18 years old. The summer before his freshman year at Princeton University, Taplin ventured to The Newport Folk Festival, where he landed a job with The Jim Kweskin Jug Band. That experience led to a dream job, serving as road manager for Bob Dylan and The Band. Taplin witnessed firsthand the birth of folk rock with Dylan’s performances, and for the next seven years, Taplin worked for the musical poet and The Band. Then in 1974 he moved to Hollywood to pursue his dream of producing films. He arrived in Los Angeles with just one referral to seek out, a young director named Martin Scorsese. Together they produced Mean Streets, starring Robert DeNiro and Harvey Keitel. The project became a critical and box office success, and went on to be selected for The Cannes Film Festival. He defined independent films and the new wave of ‘70s films. Between 1974 and 1996, Taplin produced 26 hours of television documentaries and 12 feature films including The Last Waltz, Until The End of the World, Under Fire and To Die For. His films were nominated for Oscar and Golden Globes and chosen for The Cannes Film Festival seven times. His television work garnered three Emmys. After 10 years of producing films, Taplin ran in more financial circles, where he advised Sid Bass and Richard Rainwater in their successful attempt to save Walt Disney Studios from a corporate raid. This experience brought him to Merrill Lynch, where he served as vice president of media mergers and acquisitions. In this role, he helped re-engineer the media landscape with such feats as helping in the leveraged buyout of Viacom. Ron Bloom, CEO, Rampt: Ron Bloom steers strategic efforts for Rampt, overseeing company direction, key partnerships, planning, and development of next generation products and services. Bloom was a cofounder and served as Chairman/CEO of THINK New Ideas, guiding the company through venture funding, an IPO and an eventual merger that created a profitable global organization with over 1500 employees in 12 offices. Bloom has a long history of internet innovation, having been a partner in On Ramp, founded in 1994 and pioneer in the develop of business, commerce and content solutions . In his various capacities , Bloom has served as an e-business consultant to a  wide range of Fortune 1000 companies, helping to create winning strategies and solutions. Prior to joining Rampt Bloom has been a leader in creating the concept of value acceleration, combining strategic thinking, synergy and partnership, and capital infusion to help both startups and mature companies benefit from the technology revolution. Bloom has helped to raise over $500 million in investment capital for both public and private companies. He is a respected contributor, speaker and author in the interactive community whose visionary outlook has affected the concepts for business, strategy and customer relations in the information age. Erik A. Smith, Director, Developer Relations, Liberate Technologies: As the director of developer relations at Liberate Technologies, Erik Smith is responsible for growing the development community for the enhanced TV market. Smith works closely with content providers, production houses, software developers and OEMs to further the quality of content available via enhanced TV. Smith also champions Liberate's involvement with Internet and broadcast standard bodies to ensure open standards for the enhanced TV market. Prior to Liberate, Smith developed Sun Microsystems' Java developer program. In three years, the developer program grew for zero to one million plus developers. Smith was responsible for developing and implementing market strategy based upon Java applications, for the Enterprise and Intranet markets. His emphasis was on solutions in the Financial, Manufacturing, Health Care, Telecommunications and Retail/Wholesale markets. Before Sun, Erik was responsible for development of the vertical markets strategy at Taligent, Inc. Smith holds a B.A. from San Jose State University. Vincent (Vinnie) Grosso, Chief Executive Officer, Into Networks: Vincent Grosso is a telecommunications and entertainment industry veteran. An early proponent of interactive television at AT&T, he has been widely recognized as a pioneer on the forefront of new media for more than two decades. At Into Networks, Grosso is again breaking new ground, delivering on the promise of broadband content for high-speed Internet subscribers. Under his leadership, Into Networks has launched its’ PlayNow‘ interactive software service, and is securing distribution agreements with broadband partners around the world. Most recently, Grosso was Vice President and General Manager of NBC Interactive. As general manager of NBC Television Network’s Interactive Neighborhood, Grosso extended NBC’s leadership into the local Internet marketplace by creating a network of more than 100 local affiliate Web sites. Previously, he was with AT&T for nearly two decades in a variety of executive positions, most recently, as president of AT&T’s Downtown Digital Solutions division, where he developed leading-edge software applications, programming, and custom Internet hosting. Grosso is credited with initiating the first two-way interactive television trials in Chicago in 1990. Later, he led AT&T’s interactive television trials with Viacom, GTE and PacTel. Grosso received a Bachelor of Arts degree in communications from Loyola University in New Orleans. Susan Bratton: Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing, Excite@Home: Susan Bratton manages media sales, account management, operations and trade marketing for Excite@Home’s media business. Bratton focuses on one of the two critical growth areas for the Company – media revenue. Her expertise is in building broadband and narrowband advertising revenues and inventing next-generation advertising models that span existing and future Internet platforms.Bratton held the previous role as vice president of Market Development handling the marketing integration of acquisitions including MatchLogic, Enliven, Blue Mountain Arts and Webshots in the post-merger organization. In her nearly five year tenure at Excite@Home, she initially pioneered the market of broadband advertising as director of the Interactive Advertising Group for the @Home Network and was responsible for deploying the first interactive multimedia advertisements on the internet using @Home’s broadband capabilities. Bratton’s advertising background includes 20 years of high technology publishing and sales experience during which she has specialized in building new advertising products and properties and developed sales teams for successful deployment of new businesses. Before joining @Home Network, Bratton worked for Knowledge Industry Publications, Inc. where she was vice president and associate publisher of AV/Video and Multimedia Producer magazines. Prior to that she was the founder of Media Associates, a publisher’s representation firm in trade publishing. Bratton has served on the Board of the Internet Advertising Bureau as Vice Chairman and was also appointed to the FAST (Future of Advertising Stakeholders) Forward Steering Committee from 1997-2000. She was recognized by Advertising Age magazine as one of the top 25 most influential professionals in the online media space. Bratton is also an oft-featured speaker at industry-wide conferences fulfilling nearly forty engagements covering the future of online media. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Phoenix. She is married to a dot-com founder; the couple has a daughter and lives in Los Altos, California.