February 19th: Advertising & Marketing in 2010 and Beyond.

by Eli Mandelbaum on February 19, 2010

MediaMath: MediaMath’s automated buying platform provides advertising agencies with access to tens of billions of impressions daily, and a simple workflow that manages the powerful analytics and rich data necessary to make best use of them. Headquartered in New York, the company was founded in 2007 by a team of seasoned entrepreneurs, marketers, technologists, and quants.

Attending: Rick Greenberg, VP Account

MyStudiyo: MyStudiyo is the place to create professional looking quizzes for your website, or blog. It takes just a few minutes to make a quiz and seconds to add it to your site. Any quiz you make is hosted on our site and is available to play for free anytime. It was founded by a group of Israeli – American entrepreneur-engineers. Our challenge was to deliver a complex next-generation engine that would flexibly drive a suite of business and marketing tools. It also had to be really EZ to use.

The goal was to enhance any web site by transforming content into engaging & interactive fun. We aimed for our tools to be very DIY (do it yourself). We wanted the results to be fresh online marketing that is fun, sticky, & friendly.

Attending: Gili Torovezky, VP Marketing,BD and Client Services

adMarketplace: adMarketplace brings the power of Search to the Content Space. Since 2003, adMarketplace has delivered proven Pay Per Click traffic to over 100,000 advertisers – while maximizing yield for more than 250,000 web properties.

The adMarketplace platform delivers customers from unique Pay-Per-Click inventory with Return on Ad Spend (RoAS) metrics that compare favorably with Search Engine traffic. The adMarketplace platform is offered as a managed service or via web services integration to large advertisers and agencies or as a self-serve service to small and medium sized advertisers.

Attending: Adam Epstein, President & COO

BigFuel: Big Fuel is a marketing and communications company that takes brands from Content to Commerce  . A unique approach using social media and branded content to deliver measurable (and guaranteed) consumer engagement.  We work with major brands like MySpace, FOX, AOL, Yahoo, NBC Universal, Neutrogena, Kimberly-Clark, Alcon, Poly-Fil, The United States Department of Justice, Stetson, Fisher Price, Chevrolet and Colgate-Palmolive.

Attending: Mike McGraw, COO & Managing Partner

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PluggedIn NYC: Mobile & Social Media Summit

by Eli Mandelbaum on February 15, 2010

For the month of January we took a somewhat different approach to the intimate roundtable format as we opened things up a bit and invited over 20 startups aloong with industry executives to participate in PluggedIn.

PluggedIn is the new brand and name for the Founders Roundtable as we have morphed into a company that produces summits and brings together hundreds of people to learn, network, and hopefully make deals from our events. The Founders Roundtable has been a huge success and  it has created a great basis for intimate networking in which people can actually get to know one over a 2 hour period as opposed to most events where it seems like your speed dating.

PluggedIn NYC has over 20 companies from Israel, California, NY, DC, and Canada present and I am happy to say that they all left happy and content.

MobileCommons

TweetMixx

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Arkadium: Arkadium creates game software for consumer brands, ad agencies, casino operators and online gamers. The company’s growing library of over 200 game engines are developed using Adobe Flash, do not require a download, operate on 99% of all computers and can be customized to meet any client’s specific needs. Arkadium’s games reach millions of people across all demographics through some of the most popular online destinations and corporate branded Web sites.

Attending: Kenny Rosenblatt, CEO & Founder

Conduit Labs: Conduit Labs’ are the creators of Loudcrowd. Loudcrowd is a music community that allows users to actively engage with and discover new music through play. Loudcrowd is developed by Conduit Labs, a social entertainment company founded by industry veterans in web startups and social gaming.

Attending: Josh Hubball, VP Business Development

Twitter: jhubball

Muse Games: Muse Games brings 3D, multiplayer games right to your web browser. Muse games feature competitive and cooperative multi-player. Current products include fast-paced action in Extreme Sledding, turn-based strategy in Elementia, and customizable avatars and real-time chat in The Apartments.

Attending: Sean Pfitzenmaier, Co-founder

Twitter: SeanPfitz

OMGPOP: OMGPOP (formerly known as iminlikewithyou) is a free online multiplayer game site that specializes in social games. The site has generated over 50 million plays for popular games like blockles, draw my thing and balloono.

Attending: Dan Porter, CEO

Three Screen GamesThree Screen Games is producing social games across all three screens (pc-mobile-tv). Their first game, released this August, will be FanGamb, short for Fantasy Gambling. FanGamb is a new online game for sports fans that creates a competition between friends to see who the best sports bettor is.

Attending: Justin Goldman




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November 24th Event: The Mobile Economy and Ecosystem

by Eli Mandelbaum on November 17, 2009

Mojiva: Mojiva is a young and dynamic startup company with a mission to help monetize all mobile content across the globe. All of Mojiva’s products and solutions are built with simplicity in mind. We believe that the less time you spend managing, the more time you can spend selling. Mojiva is simple. Mobile. Advertising.

Attending: Dave Gwozdz, CEO

Medialets:  Medialets was founded in June 2008, Medialets develops technologies that enable mobile application developers to measure their audience and monetize their applications through advertising. The company offers a rich media advertising and analytics platform for applications built for the iPhone and Android, with support for BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Symbian and Palm Pre devices coming in 2009. Medialets allows brands to create targeted advertising campaigns leveraging the interactive capabilities unique to these devices in an environment that provides complete measurability whether a user is currently online or offline.

Attending: Eric Litman, Chairman & CEO
Twitter: @medialets @ericlitman

Snac :  Snac is a free mobile app that gives users faster, easier access to content they want most. From Facebook and Twitter to Gmail and Flickr, Snac delivers the latest news, sports, weather, email, social network updates and more via “Snacs” that are stored in a unique, live dashboard that serves up information at a glance. Snac supports nearly 300 phones, from low-cost, feature handsets, to the latest smart devices, enabling anyone to keep connected. Snac provides custom versions of the service that let companies connect with their mobile consumers every day.

Attending: Kevin King, VP Product & Operations

MeetMoi: meetMoi is the first location-based mobile dating service available across all major carriers in the United States. It works on all devices that can access the Internet. meetMoi changes the way online singles connect by matching up users who are in the same place at the same time in the real world. It is available at no cost to sign up and $9.99/month for subscription service. meetMoi is based in New York and backed by venture capital firms Acadia Woods Partners and ETF Venture Funds.

Attending: Andrew Weinreich, CEO / Alex Harrington, President
Twitter: @meetmoi@alex_h

Xtify: Xtify’s mission is to revolutionize location based services by proving websites with location data derived independently of the wireless operators. The software is designed to allow users to determine with whom they share their location information. Web applications can utilize Xtify’s free location lookups, or take advantage of the Company’s proprietary layer of business logic API’s. The Company is based in New York and backed by venture capital firms Acadia Woods Partners and ETF Venture Funds. Xtify works worldwide on most BlackBerry, Android, Windows and Symbian devices.

Attending: Josh Rochlin, CEO
Twitter: @xtify

Centrl: Centrl is a location-based social network that lets you share your location with friends, discover the world around you, and learn about money-saving offers. Access Centrl from the web or download our free mobile application for the iPhone, Blackberry or Android.

Attending: Murat Aktihanoglu, CEO
Twitter: @centrl@muratny

FlyScreen : Flyscreen is a dynamic mobile platform that provides always-on access and streaming content to the mobile phoneʼs sleep screen for the billion dollar mobile internet market. FlyScreen’s presence on this unique phone real estate gives users zero click access to the content they use most. FlyScreen eliminates unnecessary clicking and navigating, is extremely customizable and can support a broad range of web services.

Attending: Justin Oberman, SVP Product & marketing Strategy
Twitter: @flyscreen@justinoberman

BarvoTV Sonia Barlow, Manager Emerging Media

Sonia Barlow is a mobile marketing professional with 5+ years of experience producing and managing mobile content for companies like Bravo (NBC/Universal), the Tribeca Film Festival, and Alltel Wireless. She started her mobile career at Alltel Wireless (now Verizon) where she launched Alltel’s first streaming video application with MobiTV, as well as Alltel’s ringbacks platform. Currently she manages mobile content and emerging media initiatives at Bravo.

Twitter: @soniabarlow

Time Inc John Paris, Director Mobile Products

John Paris, Director of Mobile Products for Time Inc., is responsible for executing mobile products and services for Time Inc. brands through design, development, introduction and end stage management.

John was a CNN Radio news anchor in 1999 when he first became interested in the potential of handheld devices to deliver news and information.  Shifting gears after 15 years in broadcast news, John led design and development of the first CNN Mobile products and services.

Since joining Time Inc. in 2006, John has introduced a series of Time Inc. brands into the mobile space, including TIME, People, Sports Illustrated, CNNMoney and InStyle.

Twitter: @JohnParis

JumpTapEvan Krauss, SVP Advertising Sales & Biz Dev

Evan Krauss is JumpTap’s Global Senior Vice President of Advertising Sales & Business Development. Prior to joining JumpTap, Mr. Krauss served as President and CEO of Cuts, Inc a critically acclaimed online video editing service. Before Cuts, Evan spent six and half years at Yahoo! in a number of senior management roles including ad sales and general management of Yahoo’s mobile efforts.

Since 1995, Mr. Krauss has built and managed some of the earliest and most successful Internet advertising teams at Excite, AOL, and Looksmart. Throughout his career, he has been directly responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue and the creation of new Internet advertising products and models.

Millennial MediaEthan Ross, VP Sales

Ethan Ross joined Millennial Media in December 2008 as Vice President of Sales, bringing more than ten years of sales and business development leadership, including experience in digital and entertainment industries. In his role at Millennial Media, Ethan oversees a sales team responsible for generating revenue from agencies and brands for mobile display from several verticals including CPG, Auto, Telecom, Pharmaceutical, Travel & Entertainment among others. Ethan comes to Millennial Media from Track Entertainment where he served as VP, Sales & Business Development. Track is an Entertainment/Marketing agency that owns several consumer destination sites including www.clubplanet.comwww.nochelatina.com, &www.wantickets.com.

Before Track, Ethan held senior roles in several online ventures including MusicVision and UGO.com (recently sold to Hearst Interactive).

Vaux les VenturesMiles Spencer, Venture capitalist

Miles Spencer is a prolific angel investor, new media entrepreneur and explorer.

He is best known for his role as co-host and co-creator of MoneyHunt, a reality based show where entrepreneurs pitch their ideas to a panel of experts. MoneyHunt was distributed to PBS stations in the US beginning 1997 and overseas beginning 1999.

Spencer’s investing career has centered on consumer products, media, online and mobile activities under the name Vaux les Ventures. Past and present portfolio companies have included Register.com, Operative, Cellufun, Retail Sense, Mojiva, and Trust Cloud.

Greenhill SAVPSteve Brotman, Managing Director

Steve Brotman is a Managing Director of Greenhill & Co, and co-founder and co-head of Greenhill SAVP. Prior to founding SAVP in 1998, Steve was the founder, CEO and Chairman of AdOne Classified Network, one of the nation’s leading classified ad web sites which was acquired by Hearst, Scripps and Advance-Newhouse.

Steve currently serves on the boards of Mobile Commons, ReachForce, Critical Mention and Knovel (Observer) and has previously served on the boards of Medidata (Observer), DataSynapse (Observer) and UGO (acquired by Hearst in 2007).

Twitter: @stevebrotman

internet market. FlyScreen’s presence on this unique phone real estate gives users zero click access to
the content they use most. FlyScreen eliminates unnecessary clicking and navigating, is extremely
customizable and can support a broad range of web services.

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October 29th Event: How are companies using Twitter

by Eli Mandelbaum on October 21, 2009

Tweetmixx: Tweetmixx is a byproduct of Mixx and allows one to focus on the subject matters they are interested in, by finding the relevant links on Twitter.

Attending: Chris McGill, CEO
Twitter: @tweetmixx

Stocktwits: StockTwits is an open, community-powered idea and information service for investments. Users can eavesdrop on traders and investors, or contribute to the conversation and build their reputation as savvy market wizards. The service takes financial related data – using Twitter as the content production platform – and structures it by stock, user, reputation, etc.

Attending: Philip Pearlman, Angel investor and Director of Community
Twitter: @ppearlman

TweetPhoto: TweetPhoto is a photo sharing platform for the real-time web. It allows you to share photos on Twitter, Facebook and through your favorite desktop and mobile clients.

Attending: Dan Caulfield, Investor
Twitter: @tweetphoto

SavvyAuntie: SavvyAuntie.com is the first and only community for Aunts. It enables and empowers Aunts to exchange ideas, get advice, find gifts and connect with other Savvy Aunties.

Attending: Melanie Notkin, Founder & CEO
Twitter: @savvyauntie

TweetFeel: TweetFeel gathers real-time Twitter data about whatever search term the user has entered, and then evaluates those tweets for positive and negative feelings. TweetFeel monitors a large and growing set of indicators. The service roams Twitter to uncover any relevant chatter and determine whether that chatter is positive or negative.

Attending: Jean Davis, Co-Founder
Twitter: @tweetfeeldotcom@JeanMarie50

TalkingSocial: TalkingSocial™ is focused on developing and bringing useful and engaging voice related apps to mobile and social media platforms. It is a privately funded startup located in New York City. It’s core service,  Blurts™ app adds the power of voice–texture, tone, emotion and authenticity— to any Twitter conversation. It allows Twitterers to record audio and post to Twitter in text or voice format. Anyone with a mobile phone can quickly create short, 20-second soundbytes or Blurts™ (at anytime from anywhere) that are instantly posted to their Twitter account as voice Tweets.

Attending: Jeffrey Stier, CEO and Founder

KodakEliezer Lubitch: VP Business Development
Eliezer Lubitch is a Vice President at the office of Kodak’s Chief Business Development Officer. Mr. Lubitch joined Eastman Kodak in 2004, as part of the acquisition of Scitex Digital Printing. Mr. Lubitch joined Scitex in 1991 as software engineer, and held various positions in R&D, algorithms research and product management. In 1996, Mr. Lubitch joined the corporate team to lead investments in imaging and information companies. In 1999, Mr. Lubitch joined Scitex America, to develop new markets, strategic accounts and partnerships. Mr. Lubitch has a long and successful track record of identifying technology -driven products and taking them through successful commercialization.
Twitter: @EliLubitch

360iDavid Berkowitz, Sr. Director Emerging Media & Innovation
Senior Director of Emerging Media & Innovation for agency 360i. A frequent speaker and media pundit, he has been published hundreds of times in MediaPost, Ad Age, eMarketer, and elsewhere.

Blog: www.marketersstudio.com
Twitter: @dberkowitz

OTXTom Harbeck: SVP Strategy & Marketing
Tom is SVP Strategy & Marketing for global consumer research and consulting firm OTX. He’s been the CMO and Creative Director (usually simultaneously) for brand enlightened companies across diverse media and packaged goods categories.

Most recently CMO Applegate Farms, and prior as CMO/ Executive Creative Director of $500MM book and magazine publisher, Rodale. Tom lead strategic marketing and the maverick creative teams of leading cable TV networks (TNT, TBS, Nickelodeon, Nick Jr., TV Land, Sundance Channel) for 12 years before joining start-up iFilm to lead  programming/Marketing. Tom’s career started at Atari in 1981, followed by eight plus years in advertising at Chiat/Day and Ogilvy & Mather where he began as an account person and morphed into a commercial producer.

Twitter: @OTXResearch

Roger Ehrenberg, Angel Investor
Roger Ehrenberg is an active NY-based angel investor through IA Capital Partners, LLC, and has made over 30 seed-stage investment since 2005 including TheLadders.com, bit.ly, Buddy Media, Clickable, Covestor, Domdex, Invite Media, Stocktwits, TweetDeck.

Roger spent 17 years on Wall Street in M&A, Derivatives and Trading, leaving in late 2004 to focus full-time on seed-stage investing and incubation. Roger also pens the business and technology blog Information Arbitrage, and is a recognized thought-leader in the areas of hedge funds, regulation and market structure. Roger also runs own quantitative trading firm, Kinetic Trading Strategies.

Blog: www.informationarbitrage.com
Twitter: @infoarbitrage

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September 30th Event: Social Media and its Impact on Businesses

by Eli Mandelbaum on September 18, 2009

Our topic for this month’s roundtable is ‘Social Media” and how companies are embracing it. The roundtable will cover what companies may or may not be doing in regards to social media and how they can leverage it to best benefit them. We will be touching on many issues from best practices, user engagement, relationship building, brand building, consumer communication, mobile, and customer acquisition.

We have a great group of companies and people for this event as they comprise successful startups, industry executives and investors. You can see a complete list with brief bios below.

Trendrr: Trendrr captures and illustrates accurate, real-time market intelligence in an easy-to-use, digestible format. Users can track pre-set data sources or review others’ graphs to discover trends as they happen.

Attending: Mark Ghuneim, Founder & CEO
Twitter: @trendrr

Foursquare: Foursquare is a location based social network that incorporates gaming elements. They are all about helping people find new ways to explore the city. It allows you to meet up with friends and allows you to earn points and unlock badges for discovering new places, doing new things and meeting new people.

Attending: Dennis Crowley, Co-founder & CEO
Twitter: @foursquare@dens

Appssavvy:  Appssavvy connects web publishers and developers with the world’s largest and most visible brands, specifically around widgets and applications. It provides advertisers with contextually-relevant targeted media opportunities reaching an audience of more than 50 million unique online consumers enjoying social media application

Attending: Michael Burke, Co-founder & President
Twitter: @appssavvy

Affinitive: Affinitive is a Word of Mouth (WOM) and social media marketing and technology

company. It engages, empowers, and connects passionate consumers by giving them the tools to express their passion for the brands, products, services, and causes they love, thereby cultivating conversation, long-lasting loyalty, and sustained awareness.

Attending: Bob Troia
Twitter: @affinitive@bobtroia

MTVNJoshua Dern, Former SVP & GM Social Media

Joshua is a senior digital media exec, artist, and designer. He has spent over 15 years creating digital experiences for some of the best known media brands. Most recently he was SVP & GM of Social Media for MTV Networks.

Barnes & NobleKevin Ryan, VP Social Media

A social media strategist with deep roots in all facets of content and social commerce, Kevin Ryan leads customer engagement communities for Barnes & Noble, including the company’s online book clubs, the My B&N reviews and recommendations platform, its blogs, and its presence on Facebook and Twitter.

He started the First Look Book Club, a forum that generates early buzz for pre-release books, and established the search-and-share feature that commerce-enabled the company’s discussion boards. Before Barnes & Noble, Kevin built and managed content programs at a number of consumer websites.

Twitter: @KevinSRyan

Hachette Filipacchi MediaTodd Anderman, SVP, Digital Media

Todd Anderman, named Senior Vice President, Digital Media, for Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S. in January 2008, is responsible for the company’s web sites, mobile business as well as other emerging platforms. Over the course of Anderman’s career, he has successfully built and expanded a number of brands in the digital space.

Hearst Magazines Digital MediaMatthew Milner, VP, Social Media

Matthew is the VP of Social Media for Hearst Digital Media. He received his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern, and his BA in literature from Cornell University. Prior to graduate school, Matthew worked in marketing and business development in the music business. After completing his studies at Kellogg, he worked in Sales & Trading on Wall Street, most recently at Lehman Brothers. He left Wall Street to write a romantic comedy called Guy Critical, and soon launched a site to market his novel. That site, originally called GuyCritical.com, “Where Women Can Ask Guys Anything,” eventually grew to become a social media platform called Answerology. Answerology was acquired by Hearst Digital Media in 2008.

OutbrainYaron Galai, Angel Investor,Co-founder and CEO,

Yaron is the Co-Founder and CEO. Prior to founding Outbrain, Mr. Galai was Co-Founder, SVP of Quigo, Inc. (www.quigo.com), a provider of performance-based marketing solutions for advertisers and premium publishers. He previously served as the CEO of the company for three years. Quigo was acquired by AOL in December 2007. Previously, Mr. Galai was Co-Founder & VP Business Development at Ad4ever, a developer of rich-media advertising technologies for the web which was later acquired by Atlas (a division of aQuantive – www.aquantive.com). Earlier, he was the Founder of NetWorks Web Design – an SEO and web design firm. At NetWorks he oversaw the production and search engine optimization of over 30 websites.

Blog: www.webx0.com
Twitter: @YaronGalai

Bessemer VenturesSarah Tavel, Associate

Sarah Tavel is an Associate at Bessemer Venture Partners. She focuses on the software, eCommerce and Internet sectors and has been closely involved in the Diapers.com, Metalogix, Yodle, Cornerstone OnDemand, Onestop, and CPower investments.  She also is involved with Bessemer’s investments in Intego, OLX and Parallels.

Sarah joined BVP in 2006. Earlier, she was a consultant for The Kerdan Group, a startup strategy consulting firm.

Twitter: @adventurista
Blog at www.adventurista.com

EDventure HoldingsEsther Dyson,  Angel Investor

Esther is a long-time catalyst of start-ups in information technology in the US and other markets, including Russia. Since selling her company, EDventure Holdings, to CNET Networks in 2004, she have taken on newer challenges in private aviation and space as well as in health care (as a director of 23andMe, a consumer genetics company). Esther’s IT investments have included Flickr and del.icio.us (both sold to Yahoo!), and  Medstory (sold to Microsoft), as well as Meetup, Eventful.comBoxbe and Voxiva. Esther is also an active investor in air and space, with holdings in Space Adventures and Zero-G Corporation, as well as XCOR AerospaceConstellation Services InternationalCoastal Technologies GroupDopplr.comAirship Ventures and Icon Aircraft.

Twitter: @edyson

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