Sunday, January 7 2:30 PM - 3:30 PM DH15: Session A: E-Books - Content, Electronic Delivery and the Publishing Revolution on the Net The emergence of E-Books in the past six months has completely revolutionized the way everyone, from the publishing and technology industries to the public at large, view the future of authors, agents, publishing, and the personal act of reading books. It is such a hot idea, it has already made the cover of Time magazine! While no one is quite certain as to how the E-Book revolution will roll itself out, there is no question that the public is ready to respond and that the foundation of a new industry has been laid out. In this session we will explore the various E-Book business models and permutations, from the online plans of mainstream publishers to the aggregating self-publishing business model, to the changing nature of the author/publisher relationship and more. Brian Fielding, SVP Content, Business & Legal Affairs, Audible Bob Carter, Vice President, Business Development, Gemstar eBook Brian Hecht, CEO and President, eNews.com Bill Gladstone, President, Waterside Productions David Gray, CEO, WizeUp Digital TextBooks David Bass, Vice President of Business Development, Reciprocal Publishing Amazon.com, speaker to be announced Alice O’Rourke, Executive Director, New York New Media Association, Moderator David Gray, CEO, WizeUp Digital TextBooks: Mr. Gray discovered the path to e-publishing while still a law student in Chicago. Frustrated by the unwieldy and dense subject matter -- and the voluminous amount of paper materials he had to sift through -- he founded The Numina Group Corporation in 1990 to produce the first software study aides for law students. A pioneer in moving from a paper-based education market to a market for primarily digital products, Numina converted a paper-based product to an electronic product by licensing text content from publishers and developing a proprietary software product for use and distribution purposes. The success of these products resulted in an exclusive, in perpetuity distribution agreement with the largest producer of legal study supplement content, Harcourt Brace Legal and Professional Publishing. Today the companies produce the CasebriefsÒ software line, and dominate the law student study supplement software market. Through this experience, Mr. Gray gained deep insight into the educational publishing industry. With a good reputation among publishers, and superior technology from Enigma Systems, he established WizeUp.com to convert the $6.5 billion college textbook market from printed products to entirely digital sales and delivery via the Web. Prior to running his own company, Mr. Gray was an investment banker with John Nuveen & Company. At Nuveen, Mr. Gray was the only Associate brought in to assist in the newly formed Structured Finance Group. Mr. Gray holds a B.S. in Economics from the University of Florida. He was keynote speaker at the 1999 American Library Association conference, and has also spoken at the 1999 Waterside Conference on Technology & Publishing and the 2000 Alley to the Valley Conference. Brian Hecht is President and CEO of enews.com, the leading magazine retailer on the Web. The company offers subscriptions to nearly 1000 major titles. Hecht took the helm of Enews.com in 1996. Under his leadership, enews.com has secured portal deals with Yahoo!, Excite, and Lycos, partnered with leading e-commerce destinations such as barnesandnoble.com, and developed an affiliate program with nearly 50,000 members. In turn, Enews.com has achieved extraordinary sales growth, secured a $20 million investment from Madison Dearborn Partners, Inc. in August 1998. Most recently, enews.com established important equity relationships with barnesandnoble.com and Hachette Fillipacchi Magazines. A pioneer in the Web publishing industry, Hecht was the founding editor-in-chief of Tripod, one of the Internet’s first and largest community sites. He has also served as the online editor of The New Republic, and has worked at ABC News in New York and NBC News in London. An alumnus of Harvard University, Hecht is 29 and lives in Washington, DC. ROBERT CARTER, Vice President of Business Development, Gemstar eBook: Robert ("Bob") Carter works closely with publishers to acquire and market their books, periodicals and newspapers for the Gemstar eBook platform. He originally served in the same position at NuvoMedia Inc., a startup eBook company acquired by Gemstar-TV Guide International, Inc. in January 2000. The Gemstar eBook is a dedicated electronic reading device that offers publishers standard-setting copyright protection and readers an unparalleled reading experience and ease-of-use. In addition to the exclusive content agreements with every major publishing house, Carter’s efforts also allow for daily and weekly download of the leading daily, weekly, bi-weekly and monthly periodicals. The Gemstar eBook is currently sold under the RCA brand, and available in major consumer electronics outlets such as Best Buy, Circuit City, and OfficeMax and online retail sites such as RCA.com. The Gemstar eBook utilizes a device-specific security system that protects against the vast damage that may be caused by unauthorized content duplication and piracy. Publishers’ confidence in the Gemstar eBook system results in it having the widest selection of quality consumer content anywhere. Prior to his time in the eBook arena, Mr. Carter spent the bulk of his career working for media companies (Showtime, USA Networks, Sci-Fi Channel, The Travel Channel) helping them enter new markets including international expansion into Asia. In the early 90s, Carter worked for a Korea-based media company where he negotiated joint ventures with ESPN, CNN, Warner Music, Saatchi & Saatchi. He co-founded a start up venture, Healthcare Satellite Broadcasting, which put satellite dishes on the nation's hospitals, and brought an ad-supported movie channel to patients and information to doctors through a dedicated monitor in the physicians' lounge. He is graduate of Bucknell University and the Yale School of Management. He lives with his wife and two children in New York City. Brian Fielding, SVP Content, Business & Legal Affairs, Audible: Brian is the Senior executive with extensive experience in new media and television content programming, acquisition, production and marketing. At Audible, he is part of the core senior management team responsible for creating and implementing Audible&Mac226;s overall strategic vision and day-to-day management. He is responsible for the acquisition of Audible's content and managing Audible's relationships with content providers. And as part of the core senior management team he has negotiated most of Audible strategic corporate partnerships. Prior to joining Audible he held various senior business affairs and programming positions in CBS&Mac226; Sports Division for 10 nears, including the #2 executive in charge of CBS&Mac226; Olympic Unit for the 1992, 1994 and 1998 Winter Olympic Games. He was an executive with CBS/Fox Home Video and began his career as an attorney in private practice in NYC where he specialized in intellectual property, entertainment and sports law. He has a JD from New York Law School and was graduated from the University of Michigan. In his spare time, he is an accomplished jazz pianist and composer. David Bass, Vice President of Business Development, Reciprocal Publishing: As Vice President of Business Development, David Bass is responsible for driving the strategy behind the Publishing Division’s revenue growth, and has done so largely through the development of strategic partnerships with leading providers in the DRM, digital distribution, and technology infrastructure markets. In addition, Bass works closely with other Reciprocal business and management executives to target company wide initiatives with both existing and new partners. Bass is a seven-year veteran of the electronic multi-media and Internet publishing industry. Prior to Reciprocal, he held senior and executive level marketing and business development positions with Thompson Publishing, Prompt Software, and Dynamic Health Concepts. An excellent speaker, Bass has been featured at BookTech West and the Washington Software Association. Bass holds a B.S. from Rutgers University, and lives and works in San Francisco.