11:15 AM - 12:30 PM
Session A:
E-Commerce and V-Commerce in Streaming Media Environment
With every major information and entertainment site adding streaming media to its content format, adding E-commerce or, as it’s called now, V-commerce features to the site is the next order of business. Just as developing the content for streaming media has its own set of rules, so does the addition of the monetizing experience. As companies introduce and test various V-commerce plans, case histories with invaluable information is building up that can help the rest of us. In this session, we bring together companies active in the process of V-commerce in the streaming environment.
Erica Ress, Esq., SVP Business Development, North America, AllCharge
Pallavi Shah, Market Development Manager, Streaming and Video Infrastructure, Sun Microsystems
Peter Sickle, Director of US Business Development, Orca Interactive
Cathy Hetzel, Senior Vice President Sales, Concero
Marc Randolph, Executive Producer, Director & co-founder, NetFlix
George Aposporos, co-founder & Chairman, Friskit, Inc.
Robert Landes, CEO, Guidance, Moderator
Pallavi Shah, Market Segment Manager, Digital Video Infrastructure, Sun Microsystems: Pallavi Shah is responsible for recruiting and managing strategic partners for Sun in the digital video infrastructure market. Since joining Sun in 1995, she has been involved in bringing key components of Sun's advanced digital media technology to market. She chaired ISO's MPEG4-Java standards group and formed multi-company alliances to promote Java and protect Sun's strategic interests. Prior to Sun, Ms Shah was with the Sarnoff Corporation (RCA research lab). She represented the HDTV Grand Alliance during the development of HDTV and pioneered the world's first E-Commerce application of interactive HDTV at NAB-95. She has served as a panelist/speaker at several industry conferences, published papers and has several pending patents. She hold M.S. from Utah State University.
ERICA RESS, Esq., SVP Business Development, North America, AllCharge: Erica Ress has built some of America’s biggest brands. Her award-winning work as a strategist and creative director has impacted brands as diverse as Diet Coke, Habitrol, Johnson’s Baby Powder and Continental Airlines. As a worldwide creative director at Grey Advertising, she was responsible for creating Procter & Gamble’s only major success of the 1990’s, Pantene Pro-V. Her campaign too a dying brand and turned it into the number one shampoo/treatment conditioner line in the world, with 20% of the 20 billion dollar market in the U.S. alone. After implementing her campaign in 34 countries around the world, Erica left advertising to attend Tulane Law School, fulltime. While studying for her JD, Erica was convinced by a number of former clients to help reposition their Fortune 100 brands. Among her portfolio of recent success stories are Clairol’s Revitalique - "For The New Age Of Beauty" and Datek - "The Rules Are Changing." Prior to joining AllCharge, Erica was the SVP Marketing and Sales at APBnews.com. During her tenure, she hired a 20 person department, managed all marketing, advertising, sales and business development initiatives, tripled traffic and managed to create several monetization platforms which have applied for patents. She worked closely with the investment bankers and strategic partners, such as NBC and Prentice Hall, to try to close the Series C financing. Erica is firmly committed to working on the Web. She sees herself as a pioneer and would not trade the experience for anything. In fact, the Web is the main reason she may never practice law.
Marc Randolph, Executive Producer, Director & co-founder, NetFlix: Marc Randolph has served as Executive Producer since 1998, as President and CEO from 1997 to 1998 and as a member of the board of directors since NetFlix's inception. As Executive Producer of the NetFlix site, Marc is responsible for content, features and customer interface. In addition, Marc oversees all customer communication, research and analysis for the company. In 1996, Marc was Vice President of Marketing for IntegrityQA. In 1997, IntegrityQA was sold to Pure Atria, where Marc became Vice President of Corporate Marketing, working with Reed Hastings. From 1994 to 1996, Marc served as Vice President of Marketing for Visioneer, manufacturer of the PaperPort brand scanners. During Marc's tenure, Visioneer successfully completed its IPO, raising more than $43 million. In the late 1980s, Marc co-founded MacUser magazine (which was sold to Ziff-Davis in 1986) and MicroWarehouse. From 1986 to 1992, Marc served as Vice President of Direct Marketing, Vice President of Corporate Marketing and General Manager of Borland International's Consumer Products Group, where he had P&L responsibility for a $100-million-per-year software division. Marc holds a B.A. from Hamilton College.
Peter Sickle, Director of US Business Development, Orca Interactive\: Peter is a grad
uate of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government where he studied International Security Policy. Peter left his public sector service with the U.S. Department of State in 2000 to join Orca Interactive as Director of Business Development for the United States. Traveling frequently between the States and Orca’s headquarters in Israel, Peter cultivates and maintains strategic relationships with Orca’s resellers and its technology, infrastructure and content partners based in the U.S. Orca leads the market in extended-video-on-demand applications that fully integrate on-demand MPEG2 streaming with advertisement, subscriber, reports and commerce management for delivery to TV, PC and mobile devices.Cathy Hetzel, Senior Vice President, Sales, Concero: Cathy Hetzel manages the dev
elopment of service offers, alliances and business development targeted at entertainment, media, cable companies and application providers for Concero. She joined Concero in March 2000 from Digital Cable Radio Associates/Music Choice where she was a member of the senior management team and most recently held the position of Senior Vice President. Digital Cable Radio (DCR) is a partnership of General Instrument Corporation, Sony Music, Warner Music, EMI and five top cable operators; Adelphia, Comcast, Cox, Media One and Time Warner Cable. DCR, through its Music Choice service, is the leading music provider to residential and commercial cable network markets. While at Digital Cable Radio, Cathy was responsible for the management of the Operations and Engineering departments, in addition to leading the Sales, Marketing and Sponsorship Sales functions. Prior experience includes positions at The Disney Channel, a cable television video network wholly owned by the Walt Disney Company, and Rainbow Programming Services, a cable television distribution and marketing company wholly owned by Cablevision Systems Corporation. Cathy Hetzel participates in a number of industry organizations and institutions including the Cable Television Administrative and Marketing Society, the Women in Cable and Telecommunications industry group, and the National Cable Television Center and Museum.Robert Landes, CEO, Guidance: Robert Landes’ contagious energy and visionary leadership have stretched the boundaries of e-business and transformed Guidance into a market leader in online business development. In 1996, Robert founded the online teen entertainment portal, CelebritySightings.com. This official fan club and entertainment Web site utilized cutting-edge technologies and innovative e-commerce strategies appealing to teens. Guidance’s first Web project, CelebritySightings was recently sold to Alloy Entertainment. Robert was previously the executive vice president and chief marketing officer for L.A. Gear in Santa Monica, CA., where he launched L.A. Lights, the most successful new product in the history of children’s footwear. Earlier, Robert served as national sales manager for Dansk, a leader in the tableware design industry. In 1995, he formed RHL Marketing, a consulting firm providing marketing strategies to new media companies such as R Vision and Adelson Entertainment. Robert continually contributes his insight and expertise by serving as a board member for eNutrition.com, eProperty.com and StreetZebra.com.Robert earned a Bachelor of Science degree in sociology from Holy Cross College in Worcester, MA. He also played professional basketball in the European professional league.He resides in Pacific Palisades, CA., with his wife Wendy and their three children.
George Aposporos, co-founder and Chairman, Friskit, Inc.: served as Vice of Business Development at Amazon.com from May 1997 to June 1999. He was charged with developing and negotiating many of the company's strategic partnerships including transactions with AOL.com, Yahoo, Excite, Netscape, Alta Vista, and Geocities. During his time at Amazon, the company evolved from a domestic bookseller with 330,000 customers and annual revenues (1996) of $16 million, to an international company selling books, music, and videos, with 10 million customers and annual revenues (1999) of $1.6 billion. Prior to joining Amazon, Mr. Aposporos was the founder and CEO of Digital Brands, a New York-based internet consultancy. At Digital Brands, he developed internet strategies and negotiated business development deals for clients including Starbucks, American Express, and Rodale Press. Since leaving Amazon, Mr. Aposporos has been working with start-ups and has been an active internet investor.