People everywhere are getting together via the Internet in unprecedented ways. Millions create content, inform each other about global issues, and build new communications channels in a connected, always-on society. Mass collaboration disrupts control-based enterprises, and shakes up mainstream media and related traditional businesses. In this exciting and interactive panel, we explore the emerging world of My Media and how it provides context, rules, implications, applications and resources for participation which is shaping the future of news and information.
Leading architects of open-source publishing explore these issues.
The rise of user generated journalism is generally attributed to blogs. Users and readers want to be heard. They want to influence what they are reading. How do you control this potential mob? The short answer is you don’t. If you give users control, they will use it. And if you don’t give them control they will leave. The tools of the internet are about people making connections and enabling those connections.
Bambi Francisco
Columnist & Correspondent, MarketWatch, Inc.
Bambi Francisco is a columnist and correspondent for MarketWatch. She writes a twice-weekly syndicated commentary column on Internet trends and investing in public and private companies. Her column also goes out to more than 300,000 subscribers. She regularly appears on MarketWatch Weekend, a business magazine show aired on CBS. Prior to her role, she was the morning business anchor for KPIX, the CBS affiliate in San Francisco. She also appeared daily on Viacom’s cable channel Spike TV, and was a producer at CNNfn. She’s received recognition for her financial reports by both The Journal of Financial Reporters and Adweek. She is currently pursuing her Masters in Theology at Westminster Theological Seminary.
Jim Debth
Internet General Manager, The American-Statesman
Jim has been the Internet General Manager for The Austin American-Statesman since December of 2004. He is a new media pioneer and has been involved in publishing and interactive communications for more than 15 years, with more than 10 years in the Internet industry. Before joining statesman.com, Jim was the New Media Director for cjonline.com and The Topeka Capital-Journal where they won a 2004 Eppy (Editor and Publisher award) for Best Internet News Site. His new media career began in Cedar Rapids, IA, where he was VP and General Manager of Interactive Media Inc.(the interactive subsidiary of Gazette Communications), which served their newspaper, TV station, radio station and statewide farm publication. – in the early (1994) beginning of the Internet. He then joined Real Media (now 24/7 – Real Media), the Internet ad network and ad-delivery software company, as Group VP, Strategic Development. He developed partnerships with clients including USA Today, Times Mirror and GolfOnline and with newspaper groups including Hearst, Belo and Gannett.
Susan DeFife
Chief Executive Officer, Backfence.com
Susan has been a leader in the local technology community as the founder and CEO of womenCONNECT.com, an internet portal for women in business; as CEO of StreamingText; and as an executive of the NPD Group. Susan lives in McLean and was a longtime McLean Little League and McLean Youth Soccer mom; her children, Paul and Gina Fioravanti, graduated from McLean High School and the Madeira School, respectively. She has been active in many local community and business groups, ranging from serving as Vice Chair of the Northern Virginia Roundtable to being Den Mother for her son’s Cub Scout troop and Cookie Mom for her daughter’s Girl Scout troop.
Jeff Jarvis
Blogger, BuzzMachine
Jeff Jarvis is former TV critic for TV Guide and People, creator of Entertainment Weekly, Sunday editor and associate publisher of the NY Daily News, and a columnist on the San Francisco Examiner. He was until recently president & creative director of Advance.net, the online arm of Advance Publications. Now he is working as editor of a new news startup, still in stealth. He is working with The New York Times Company at About.com on content development and strategy and consulting for Advance and Fairchild. In 2006, he will become associate professor and director of the new media program the City University of New York’s new Graduate School of Journalism. He is a columnist for Media Guardian. He says he is at work on a book.
Roger Simon
Chief Executive Officer, Pajamas Media
Highly acclaimed mystery novelist and screenwriter Roger L. Simon conceived and co-founded Pajamas Media in 2004 with fellow blogger Charles Johnson. Simon’s charter as the Chief Executive Officer is to realize the vision of coalescing the Internet’s brightest minds and most compelling content into a single source that will, in turn, redefine journalism in the 21st century and beyond. Simon’s award-winning Moses Wine detective novels have been published in the U.S. and 13 other countries and have been described by the Los Angeles Times’ Charles Champlin as “a deliberate work of social history.” Additionally, Simon has written for the major Hollywood studios for over 20 years.
SIIA Information Industry Summit
Register now for the Software and Information Industry Association’s annual Information Industry Summit, January 30-31, 2007 in New York at Cipriani.
