Advertising & Monetization: Turning Apps into Dollars

Jim joined Charles River Ventures as an Entrepreneur in Residence in 2007. His focus is on uncovering new investments in the consumer Internet, social networking and social media sectors, while working with the firm’s portfolio companies and evaluating opportunities for his own next start-up venture.

Jim is one of the early pioneers of the social networking phenomenon and was previously the head of business development and sales at the first social networking site, Friendster. There he created the concept of ‘engagement marketing’ within social networking sites, mobilizing the idea of enabling consumers to become brand advocates of engaging content and spreading the brands’ messages amongst their network of friends.

Prior to joining Friendster, Jim was a co-founder of Bebo and served as vice president of business development and sales. At Bebo Jim helped many great brands, including Disney and Coke, with their marketing efforts.

Jim is a seasoned speaker and is often called upon to talk on the subject of social networking and marketing. In recent times this has included events such as; Ad Tech in both San Francisco and London, Harvard Business School, Digital Hollywood and the IIA Annual Congress in Ireland. As one of the industry’s leading experts, Jim provides regular comment on engagement marketing and the future of social networking for wide range of publications including; the Economist, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Ad Week and e-consultancy, in addition to TV and radio.

Prior to his internet career, Jim practiced corporate and intellectual property law at a leading Silicon Valley law firm. He went on to serve as senior vice president of business development at NBC Internet, a $2 billion public company of NBC & GE before joining Bebo and Friendster. Scheinman is an attorney, entrepreneur and seasoned internet marketing executive. He has a BSc in Neuropsychology from Duke University and earned a JD at the University of California Davis School of Law.

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Seth is the Co-Founder and CEO of SocialMedia.com. He is also an angel advisor to a number of Web services companies such as Aggregate Knowledge, Lijit and Downfly. He was the first investor in Web 2.0 pioneer del.icio.us (now part of Yahoo!). In 1995, he created SiteSpecific, one of the first Internet advertising companies. He was Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Flatiron Partners from 1998-2000.

In 2002 Seth co-founded Majestic Research, a next generation Wall Street Research firm that provides leading hedge funds with proprietary data insights. In 2005 he created Root Markets, the first financial exchange for Internet mortgage leads.

He recently moved from New York City to Marin California with his wife and their two sons.

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Scott Rafer has been helping Internet publishers and users take advantage of the latest technologies and trends since 1995. Today, that means delivering services for social publishing and discovery. As CEO of Lookery, Rafer is creating an ad network and user-targeting service that supports the growth of social applications, starting with Facebook. He is also co-founder of Mashery, which manages API and developer programs for web services providers, and chairman of Winksite, which makes it easy for individuals as well as big publishers to share media across mobile and social networks. Earlier, Rafer was CEO of MyBlogLog until Yahoo! acquired the company in January 2007. Prior to MyBlogLog, he twice tried and failed to build blog search companies—in 1998 and 2003. Before the first dotcom boom, Rafer led the Internet products group at Kodak Hollywood, worked in investment banking, and graduated from the Management of Technology program at UPenn. For Rafer’s latest thoughts and activities, check out blog.lookery.com or rafer.tumblr.com.

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Troy joined VideoEgg as CMO in 2006 to build the company’s advertising offering and establish a leadership position in the online video advertising market.

Prior to VideoEgg, Troy was EVP, Chief Experience Officer at Organic, one of the world’s leading digital marketing agencies. In this capacity he provided strategic leadership to clients and teams across the Organic network. Troy joined the company as Managing Director in 1999. Over the years he was worked with dozens of leading brands including 20th Century Fox, DaimlerChrysler, Honda, CondeNast, Bell Canada, Janus and American Express.

Troy’s work in interactive media dates back to 1992, when he worked on the launch and management of Babylon, the first newspaper-owned online service in Canada. Troy later worked in marketing and sales at CTV, Canada’s largest television network. Prior to joining Organic, Troy was a Co-Founder and Managing Director of Vickers & Benson Direct, Interactive (now Arnold Worldwide), a pioneer in integration of online and direct marketing.

Troy has held board and advisory positions with several Internet and marketing firms. He is a graduate of the Queen’s University Business School.

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Murtaza Hussain is the co-founder and CEO of Peanut Labs, a leading provider of advanced market research services, integrated into 70+ online communities and platforms including MySpace, Facebook, and Google OpenSocial.

Murtaza has been heavily involved in social media, and is an expert in building online communities. He possesses a deep knowledge of Web 2.0 and ways to utilize social networks and the social graph to execute innovative business ideas and applications. Murtaza has appeared in Fortune, Forbes, TechCrunch, The Wall Street Journal, Red Herring, San Francisco Chronicle, and Business 2.0, among others.

Prior to Peanut Labs he was co-founder of XuQa.com, a leading online casual gaming community, which he built to 2M+ users and profitability. In 2001 Murtaza founded Gaming Ventura, an international entrepreneurship holding group, and has reviewed business plans for a range of companies and organizations.

Murtaza was pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology at Williams College before dropping out to start his company.

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