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the next generation of online social networks

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Community Next Speakers

Below you’ll find extensive profiles on each speaker. Simply click a name to be taken to their information.

 


Jonathan Abrams

Socializr
“Founder, CEO”

Jonathan Abrams is the founder, CEO, and Junior Computer Programmer at Socializr, an online service for sharing event and party information with your friends. Jonathan is an award-winning serial entrepreneur who created the pioneering social networking service Friendster in 2002. Jonathan is the inventor of a United States Patent for a “System, method, and apparatus for connecting users in an online computer system based on their relationships within social networks.”

Previously, Jonathan was the founder & CEO of bookmarking community HotLinks, and worked as a software engineer at companies such as Netscape and Nortel. Jonathan holds an Honors B.Sc. in Computer Science from McMaster University, which he received after flunking out of engineering school.

Jonathan was named a “Breakout star of 2003″ by Entertainment Weekly, and as one of Advertising Age Magazine’s “Entertainment Marketers of the year.” Jonathan has also been honored as one of the world’s top young innovators by the MIT Technology Review, and nominated in the software designer category for the 2004 Wired Rave Awards. Jonathan was named as one of the ten sexiest Canadian Jewish Internet entrepreneurs in San Francisco by his friend Lenny.

Jonathan is the co-owner of San Francisco’s new modern speakeasy Slide, and an investor in Vintage 415’s restaurant Mamacita. Jonathan has also co-hosted parties in San Francisco with organizations such as GenArt, Hands on Bay Area, Delicious Karma, Mixed Elements, Donovan, and Martel & Nabiel.

Jonathan is a member of the advisory board of the Silicon Valley Association of Startup Entrepreneurs, and has been extensively involved in the silicon valley entrepreneurial community, including past roles such as co-chair of the SDForum Venture Finance SIG, and a judge for the Stanford Entrepreneur’s Challenge business plan contest, the UC Berkeley Business Plan Competition, and the Stanford-Berkeley Innovators’ Challenge.

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Jim Calhoun

Popular Media
“CEO”

A true Silicon Valley veteran, Jim has helped a broad range of companies grow their business through technology and marketing – from startups like Glam Media, Inc. to global leaders like HP and IBM. Before founding PopularMedia, Jim was a co-founder of CustomerClick LLC, a multi-million dollar direct marketing firm whose customers include Yahoo!, UnitedHealthGroup, and ABC Television. Previously, Jim served as Vice President of Products at NetObjects, Inc. He is a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism.

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Tom Conrad

Pandora
“CTO”

Tom Conrad leads the Pandora product organization, which includes product management, user interface design, software development, and network operations. Over the years, Tom has led numerous engineering and product design teams across a wide range of applications – from operating systems and enterprise software to video games and consumer web sites. Before joining Pandora, Tom was the Vice President of Engineering at Kenamea, Inc. where he led the teams responsible for the design and development of an award-winning Internet-scale messaging system. Tom previously was the Technical Director for the successful video game series “You Don’t Know Jack.” Past experience also includes engineering management positions at Berkeley Systems, Relevance Technologies, Documentum, Pets.com, and Kenamea. Tom began his career at Apple Computer developing user interface elements for the Mac OS. Tom holds three U.S. patents and a B.S. in Computer Engineering from the University of Michigan.

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Leah Culver

Pownce
“Lead Developer, Co-Founder

Leah Culver founded Pownce with her friends as a way of sending messages, links, files and events to each other. Within 24 hours of private beta launch, 15,000 people had requested an invite for the service. Leah is the web developer for the site and spends most of her time working on feature development, fixing bugs, and scaling the website.

Leah’s past projects include recruiting ad sponsors to help her purchase a MacBook Pro laptop. Each sponsor had their logo laser etched on the front of the laptop. Leah also writes a blog about her experiences as a software developer at leahculver.com.

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Jason Feffer

SodaHead
“Founder, CEO”

Jason Feffer has an exciting eight-year history of Internet startup experience leading up to his most recent startup, SodaHead.com. Mr. Feffer helped start MySpace in 2003, which sold to News Corp for $580M. During his three years at MySpace, Mr. Feffer served on the executive committee and as Vice President of Operations as the membership grew to 100 million. Mr. Feffer oversaw advertising operations, revenue reporting, policy enforcement, government relations and several other departments at MySpace.

In 1999, Mr. Feffer joined his first dot-com startup, Creative Planet (acquired by United Entertainment Media and Entertainment Partners), where he lead the technology efforts of two dozen web sites that generated advertising revenue from a loyal readership of several hundred thousand film and television professionals. Prior to his dot-com companies, Mr. Feffer worked at Davidson & Associates (acquired by Vivendi Universal Games) and then Activision on online and offline entertainment and educational projects.

Mr. Feffer holds a bachelor’s of fine arts degree from the University of Southern California’s school of Cinema-Television. Mr. Feffer, a second-generation Angelino, has a wife and three children.

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davef

Dave Feinleib

Mohr Davidow Ventures
“Partner”

David Feinleib is a Partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures. Prior to MDV, David ran a profitable online advertising business. He founded Centeris, a venture funded company providing interoperability software for mixed Windows and Linux environments. Before Centeris, David was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Ignition Partners, where he co-founded and was VP of Product Management at Consera Software (HPQ). Prior to Consera, David co-founded and was CEO of onDevice (KEYN), a wireless software company.

David led marketing and development teams at Microsoft. He managed the Out of Box Experience team for Windows and worked on television and Internet access services. David’s first entrepreneurial endeavor was in junior high school when he developed and sold ShareWare programs.

David maintains a blog at www.vcdave.com and sourced MDV’s investments in Fliqz, Genius and PBwiki. He holds a B.A. from Cornell University, and an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He is proud to be a sponsor of CommunityNext and Super Happy Dev House.

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Timothy Ferriss

The 4-Hour Workweek
“Serial Entrepreneur, Ultravagabond, Bestselling Author”

Timothy received his BA from Princeton University in 2000, where he studied in the Neuroscience and East Asian Studies departments. He developed his nonfiction writing with Pulitzer Prize winner John McPhee and formed his life philosophies under Nobel Prize winner Kenzaburo Oe.

He is 29 years old, and first first book, The 4-Hour Workweek, became a #1 Wall Street Journal and New York Times bestseller with no traditional advertising or PR.

Among others, Timothy’s accomplishments include:
* Cage fighter in Japan, vanquisher of four world champions (MMA)

* First American in history to hold a Guinness World Record in tango (video)
* Advisor to more than 30 world record holders in professional and Olympic sports
* Glycemic Index (GI) researcher Political asylum researcher and activist
* MTV breakdancer in Taiwan
* Hurling competitor in Ireland

* Actor on hit TV series in mainland China and Hong Kong

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Joe Green

Facebook Causes
“Founder”

Joe Green is the co-Founder of Facebook Causes, a deeply integrated Facebook Platform Application that uses the strength of the social graph to raise awareness and funds for social causes. Previously, Joe founded essembly.com, a non-partisan social network that allows politically interested individuals to connect with one another, engage in constructive discussion, and organize to take action.

Joe graduated from Harvard College in 2005 with a BA in Social Studies.

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Martin Green

Meebo
“VP Business Development”

Martin Green is Meebo’s business vice president, responsible for community engagement, revenue strategy and corporate partnerships. He started his career at Morgan Stanley and in 1996, joined an emerging client of Morgan Stanley, CNET. Martin spent 10 years at CNET Networks in a variety of strategic, financial and operations roles, most recently serving on the executive committee and serving as senior vice president of lifestyle and community. Martin grew up in England and Canada and lives in San Francisco with his wife and two children.

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Joe Greenstein

Flixster
“Co-Founder, CEO”

Joe Greenstein is co-founder and CEO of Flixster.com – an online community for movie fans.

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Justin Kan

Justin.tv
“Online TV Star”

Justin Kan is the star of the overnight sensation, Justin.tv.

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Jeremy Liew

Jeremy Liew joined Lightspeed Venture Partners in 2006 as a Partner.

Previously Jeremy was with AOL, first as SVP of Corporate Development and Chief of Staff to the CEO, and then as General Manager of Netscape. He joined AOL from InterActiveCorp (originally USA Networks) where he was VP of Strategic Planning. While there he was responsible for acquisitions and investments in TV Networks, consumer internet companies and online travel companies. Jeremy started working in the consumer internet industry as an early employee of CitySearch in 1996 where he held a variety of sales management, operational and business development roles. He was also a management consultant at McKinsey and Company.

Jeremy holds an MBA from Stanford and a BA/BSc(Hons) from the Australian National University in Linguistics and Pure Mathematics.

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Eric Marcoullier

MyBlogLog
“Co-Founder”

Eric Marcoullier has been working on the internets since 1994, when he helped launch Sun.ONE, the NYT’s early foray into online newspapers. He dropped out of college to launch web sites for Imagine Media and soon after co-founded IGN.com in the summer of 1996. He road out the bust making videogames in New England, eventually launching serious games company Minerva Software, which he still chairs. In 2005 he co-founded MyBlogLog, where he still works after selling to Yahoo! in 2007. In his free time, Eric enjoys 80’s movies, post-punk music, ultimate frisbee and spending time with his wife and son.

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Dave McClure

500 Hats
“Entrepreneur”

Dave McClure has been geeking out in Silicon Valley for over fifteen years as a software developer, entrepreneur, startup advisor, angel investor, and internet marketing nerd. He is currently an advisor or investor for Mint Software, Spock Networks, Mashery, Simply Hired, HealthUnity, and Canopy Financial. Dave is also a board member for microfinance accelerator Unitus, and advisor to non-profit Kiva.org, and leads user groups and conferences on technology, entrepreneurship, venture capital, & microfinance.

From 2005 to 2006, Dave launched & ran marketing for job search engine SimplyHired.com, and its evil twin SimplyFired.com. From 2001 to 2004, Dave worked at PayPal (acquired by eBay in 2002) as Director of Marketing, where he founded & ran the PayPal Developer Network program. Prior to PayPal, Dave was a database consultant & programmer for several companies, including Microsoft and Intel. In 1994 he founded Aslan Computing, an internet & e-commerce firm that was later acquired by Servinet/Panurgy in 1998.

Before coming to Silicon Valley, Dave barely graduated from the Johns Hopkins University with a BS in Mathematical Sciences Engineering and a minor in frisbee, billiards, & foosball. His interests include microfinance and economic innovation, entrepreneurship and venture capital, ultimate frisbee, cartoons and animation, and an ever-growing collection of funny-looking hats.

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Eric Nakagawa

icanhascheezburger
“Entrepreneur”

Eric is the co-founder the site on which three million people spend their breaks (icanhascheezburger). Eric is a Tech Consultant based out of Honolulu, HI. He is interested in developing user communities that provide a fun and collaborative environment and make participants feel good about their involvement.

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ben pashman

Ben Pashman

Gigya
“Entrepreneur”

Ben Pashman has 15 years of media marketing experience; the last 10 years spent focused on sales and business development on the Internet. Previous work experience includes: Sales and Product Management roles at Doubleclick, Advertising Director at Condenet (digital arm for Conde Nast Publications) and Director of Advertising Sales at Travelzoo where he helped the company go from $15mm to $70mm in advertising revenue in three years. Start up experience includes heading up sales at Sequoia funded Insderpages (recently acquired by IAC’s Citysearch) currently heading up business development with Gigya is a Benchmark and Firstround funded company.

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Keith Rabois

Slide

“Lead Business Development”

Keith leads business development & strategy for Slide. Prior to Slide, Keith ran business development and advertising sales for LinkedIn. Earlier in his career, Keith served as Executive Vice President of Business Development & Policy for PayPal. He serves on the Board of Directors of yelp, Xoom, Vendio, and was an early investor in YouTube. He consults for Google as well as advises Wize and FanIQ.

Keith graduated from Stanford University and earned a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He also practiced law at Sullivan & Cromwell and clerked for the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Keith is the only person who owns equity in every VC-financed consumer Internet company founded by former PayPal employees.

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Adam Rifkin

Booze Mail
“Boozer”

Adam Rifkin has been boozing for a lot of his life, and now he’s
bringing booze to the masses with a Facebook application called
Booze Mail by Renkoo. When he’s not drinking, he’ at work making
Renkoo the world’s greatest application that helps friends arrange

where and when to get together. Actually, he works on that when he’s
drinking sometimes, too. Before Renkoo… actually, does it matter?

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todd sampson

Todd Sampson

MyBlogLog
“Co-Founder”

Todd Sampson is a professional entrepreneur andtechnology strategist with more than a dozen years experience in the online sector. Through Cloudspace – an online consultancy he co-founded in 1996 with his brother John Sampson & wife Elisabeth – and related ventures, Todd has helped hundreds of companies succeed online.

In 2005, Todd co-founded MyBlogLog with his grade school friend Eric Marcoullier. MyBlogLog is notable for a number of firsts, including being the first distributed online social network. Todd, Eric and Scott Rafer – who joined the startup as CEO – sold MyBlogLog to Yahoo! in early 2007.

Today, Todd continues to lead technology for MyBlogLog as a Director at Yahoo! He also serves as Chairman of the Board for Cloudspace, a member of the Board for TheDJList.com, and as an active adviser to a number of organizations & entrepreneurs.

Todd has homes in San Francisco, California and Orlando, Florida where he lives with his wife and son.

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Hiten Shah

Crazy Egg
“Founder”

Hiten Shah graduated from UC Berkeley in 2003. Since then he has been engulfed in the Internet marketing world. He first started off with offering SEO services by co-founding Advantage Consulting Services andhelping to write ACS’s company blog, Pronet Advertising. Soon after he saw the need for better Internet marketing tools and started creating web applications including Crazy Egg, Siteblimp, and Serph. More recently along with his partners at ACS, he has been focusing on providing Social Media Marketing solutions for companies of all sizes.

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Jia Shen

Jia Shen

RockYou
“CTO & Co-Founder”

Jia is the Chief Technology Officer and co-founder of RockYou, and has focused extensively on graphic design and usability throughout his professional web development career spanning over 10 years. Prior to RockYou, Jia has held management roles leading the user interface and technical solutions teams at Open Harbor, and managing the majority of engineering at Iconix. Jia started working on scalable consumer applications at shopping tools internet provider Bluedog, a Stanford based startup, and was part of the original team at Bell Laboratories which developed the VoiceXML format into the W3C standard. In addition, Jia’s experience has spanned enterprise sales and professional services functions, as he closed transactions and integrated with large multi-national corporation customers like Mitsubishi, Tyco, Flextronics, and DHL. Jia has a double major in Computer Science and Computer Engineering from Johns Hopkins University.

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Clint Smith

Emma
“Founding Partner”

Clint Smith is the co-founder of Emma, the Web-based email marketing and communications service. Launched in 2002, Emma powers the email newsletters and campaigns of more than 5,000 organizations around the world, providing small businesses, non-profits and agencies with simple yet sophisticated tools to create stylish email campaigns, send with confidence, and track the response in real time.

Prior to starting Emma, Clint was an editor with CitySearch.com and the vice president of product for Smallbusiness.com. He is a graduate of Vanderbilt University with a degree in history and resides in Nashville with his wife and two sons. He is unreasonably good at air hockey.

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jim

Jim Squires

Ning
“VP of Products”

Jim Squires is the VP of Products at Ning, a social networking service with a twist–it empowers people to create their own social websites and social networks. Prior to Ning, he was a senior manager at Yahoo. He joined Yahoo in 1999 with the acquisition of Broadcast.com, an early video start-up based in Dallas, TX.

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Joe Suh

MyChurch
“Co-Founder”

Joe Suh founded MyChurch.org, the social network for Christian churches. Since its launch in 2006, more than 6000 churches have created online communities on MyChurch. Joe got his BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from UC Berkeley in 2000. He and his co-founder and wife Carol, attend The River Church in San Jose. They dreamed up MyChurch.org when they realized they weren’t well-networked within their own church community.

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Jeremy Toeman

LIVEdigitally

“Marketing Specialist”

Jeremy Toeman is an expert in digital media and consumer technology. Over the past ten years he has designed, built, and marketed numerous award-winning products in the “convergence” space. Jeremy is currently a consultant advising companies on both product design and deployment as well as non-traditional marketing (such as community-driven marketing) strategies.

Most recently, Jeremy worked at Sling Media as the Vice President of Market Development. In that role, he was the company evangelist and was responsible for building grassroots/viral marketing programs. This included developing the company’s online presence with regards to various Web communities and blogs, promoting Sling Media’s highly visible word-of-mouth marketing efforts. Jeremy also acted as a company spokesman at consumer, trade, and industry events, being an accomplished speaker and presenter.

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David Weekly

PBwiki
“Founder & CEO”

David Weekly is the founder of the California Community Colocation Project (CCCP), a project of the Online Policy Group. The CCCP provides over 100 individuals and non-profit organizations with free, donation-based colocation services to best enable their use of the Internet in their activities. David has been programming since he was 5 years old and is currently starting his own company Coceve after years of working as a professional software developer. He graduated from Stanford with a degree in Computer Science and now lives in Silicon Valley.

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Ramu Yalamanchi

hi5
“Co-Founder, CEO”

Ramu Yalamanchi, is the Founder and CEO of hi5, one of the largest social networking sites in the World. Since launching hi5 in 2003, Ramu has guided the evolution of the hi5 service to 60 million members across the globe, and he brought the service to profitability within the first year of operation. As CEO, Ramu oversees key partnerships, business and product strategy, and helps manage the overall growth of the organization. Ramu holds a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Illinois – Urbana, Champaign.

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