Social Gaming Summit 2010

TERRY ANGELOS is the co-founder and Chief Product Officer of TrialPay, where he manages product strategy and development for monetization of virtual currency and digital goods.  As TrialPay’s co-founder, he leads the team that invented the "pay-by-offer" concept that every offer-based monetization platform uses today.  Prior to TrialPay, Terry led many product development teams at early stage e-commerce companies. Terry served as the Director of Products for Living.com, a Benchmark Capital and Amazon.com-funded online retailer, where he was responsible for product strategy and customer acquisition. Previously, Terry was a product manager at Trilogy Software, where he was responsible for e-commerce solutions for the Fortune 50. Terry has also worked as an engineer for Siemens and an investment analyst for Goldman Sachs. He holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from WITS University, an SM in Engineering Science from Harvard University and an MBA from MIT Sloan. Twitter: @terryangelos

W. JAMES AU is a writer/designer with massively social online game developer for ohai!, and publishes the Second Life/virtual world blog New World Notes (nwn.blogs.com).  He was recently a contributing editor covering games for the GigaOM network, and the author of The Making of Second Life (HarperCollins), based on his experiences with Linden Lab. Twitter: @slhamlet

 

JOEL AUGE is the CEO and co-founder of HitGrab Inc, a leader in social gaming. In March of 2008, HitGrab created MouseHunt, which is now one of the most successful (in terms of user engagement)  games on Facebook. Now a 22 man team, HitGrab is poised to deliver several new products in 2010.

 

ATUL BAGGA is currently the Senior Equity Research Analyst covering Gaming and Online Media Industry at ThinkEquity. He has regularly presented at a number of gaming industry conferences and is widely quoted and interviewed on TV and print media such as Economist, New York Times, Time, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, CNN, and USA Today. Previously, Atul worked as Equity Research Analyst with Smith New Court (now Merrill Lynch.) Atul received his MBA from Haas School of Business at University of Berkeley, Masters in Management from University of Bombay and Bachelors in Engineering from National Institute of Technology in India.

KAI BOLIK is CEO and co-founder of GameDuell. As a serial entrepreneur, he contributed the strategic vision and management experience that has made GameDuell one of the best monetizing, as well as one of the largest casual games communities worldwide. Prior to GameDuell, he founded the Lycos Eastern Europe GmbH and led the 300 people technical team of Lycos Europe (including Spray Networks, Multimania, Caramail, and Jubii). Prior to that, Kai worked as a strategic consultant at Bertelsmann Multimedia and The Boston Consulting Group. Twitter: @kaibolik

ANDREW BUSEY is the founder and CEO of Challenge Games, a new online gaming company creating exciting and challenging short-form games that don’t require huge time commitments to play and enjoy. Over the past 15 years, Andrew has pioneered some of the industry’s most important web technologies - including work on Mosaic, the first web browser (now part of Microsoft Internet Explorer); creating iChat, one of the first instant messaging applications; and building WebCenter, the first major web-based customer service technology (now part of Avaya). He most recently co-founded Pluck which enables social media on major sites such as TheStreet.com, USA Today, and Reuters. But his passion has always been gaming. In 2006 Andrew decided the time was right to pursue his dream and Challenge Games was born. Challenge Games launched their first game Duels in August 2007. Twitter: @andrewbusey

ARTHUR CHOW is is the Chief Operating Officer of 6waves, the leading international publisher and developer of gaming applications on the Facebook platform including Happy Harvest, My Fishbowl, Crazy Office, and Medical Mayhem. Arthur is responsible for overall strategy formulation and execution of the company as a distributor of social games. He is also in charge of the Finance, Product and Engineering team. He was previously the Executive Director, Business Development - Asia Pacific for Turner International Asia Pacific Limited, where he was responsible for covering Greater China, India, Japan, Korea, South East Asia, Australia and New Zealand, and before that he spent several years at Yahoo!, where he was most recently the Director, Alliance and Strategy Planning for Yahoo! Hong Kong.

ROGELIO (RO) CHOY  is the CEO of Peerpong.com. Prior to Peerpong, Ro was the Chief Revenue Officer for RockYou, responsible for all business initiatives at the company.  He joined as RockYou’s 6th employee and helped manage its growth to over 140 employees. Before joining RockYou, Ro was a Director at eBay where he was responsible for managing eBay's online parts business and market development efforts, including operation of eBay's U.S. wireless efforts. Prior to his tenure at eBay, Ro co-founded Cima Systems, a leading VOIP software provider for auto dealers.
 

 

GEOFF COOK is now the CEO of his third multi-million dollar Internet enterprise, all grown from zero traffic and zero revenue to significant market-leading properties. In 1997, at age 19, Geoff founded EssayEdge.com and ResumeEdge.com from a Harvard dorm room. Each property dominated their respective niches: admissions essay and resume writing help. He then sold his companies to The Thomson Corporation where he led the Consumer Market Group for a Thomson Learning division, departing Thomson in 2005. Geoff has been featured in Wired, Rolling Stone, ABC News, CNBC, and USA Today. In 2005, Geoff became the CEO of myYearbook, joining forces with his siblings. Geoff was instrumental in raising $20+ million in angel financing, venture capital, and venture debt to build the young company into the largest US social media site. Geoff has an A.B. in Economics from Harvard University and lives in New Jersey with his wife Kerri and daughter Madeline. Twitter: @geoffcook

JAMES CURRIER is the CEO of WonderHill. James co-Founded WonderHill in 2008. Founded Tickle 1999, sold to Monster 2004. HBS. Early viral marketing proponent. Princeton. Exeter. Home in Palo Alto. Four boys. Co-founded Richter Scales a cappella in 2000. Henry Crown Fellow at Aspen Institute. Built a Hovercraft age 15. Built Wolverine claws from a tin can, age 12. Sold worms to fishermen, age 6. Sailing. Meditation. Star Wars.

SEBASTIEN DE HALLEUX is the Co-Founder of Playfish and Vice President Business Development & Strategic Partnerships, EA Interactive.  In his role within EA Interactive, Sebastien drives distribution, monetization, business development, and relationships with key partners across the division’s three business units, Playfish, Pogo and EA Mobile.  He was chief operating officer of Playfish leading up to the company’s acquisition by Electronic Arts in November 2009.

RENATA DIONELLO is currently the Chief of Staff to eBay's CEO. Prior to assuming this role, she led PayPal's efforts in business development and strategy for PayPal's initiative in the micropayments and digital goods space. Renata has over 10 years of experience in business development, strategy, product management and marketing. Prior to PayPal, she led marketing and product management at Pictage, the leading online services provider for professional photographers. Renata's experience also includes heading up strategy at Rent.com, corporate strategic planning at Disney, project management at Universal Music and strategy consulting at the Boston Consulting Group. Renata holds a BA and MEng from the University of Oxford (England) and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.

RICHARD FIELDS is the founder and Head of Product Strategy at MindJolt. MindJolt is the premier social gaming platform, and provides distribution of hundreds of casual and social games to players on Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Hi5, Friendster, Orkut, www.mindjolt.com and others. Richard was chief executive officer of MindJolt leading up to the company's acquisition by several of the co-founders of MySpace in March 2010. He previously worked as a consultant and Technical Lead on enterprise level client projects while at Scient Corporation. Additionally, Richard has founded and built several successful e-Commerce companies, outside of the gaming space. He holds a BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from UC Berkeley.

DAVID FOX is co-founder of iWin, Inc., where he helped guide development of best-selling casual games such as Jewel Quest, Mah Jong Quest, Family Feud for Facebook, as well as the casual virtual world Hotel iWin. David is also the author of several best-selling books about Web technologies and culture, and his writing has appeared in publications such as Salon.com, Gamasutra, and Game Programming Gems III.

ROBERT GOLDBERG is the Senior VP of Business Operations at Zynga, which includes revenue management, sales, marketing, business and corporate development, partner management and studio services. He brings over 25 years of senior management experience at industry leading media, e-commerce, enterprise software companies and venture capital firms, including Idealab and NBCi. Twitter: @robertgoldberg

JIM GREER founded a casual gaming startup in May 2006. Jim has extensive experience in PC and web game development. His most recent experience was at Pogo.com where he worked until May 2006. Pogo is Electronic Arts' casual games brand. Club Pogo has over 1.2 million subscribers, plus a host of fun community features like challenges and collectible badges. Twitter: @jimgreer

VIKAS GUPTA co-founded Jambool, Inc. in 2006 with current CTO Reza Hussein. The company launched several popular Facebook applications in addition to the company's flagship product, Social Gold™, an industry-leading virtual economy platform for online games, applications and virtual worlds. Social Gold enables developers to create and manage their own white-labeled virtual currency, provide an unparalleled payments experience to their users, and optimize their virtual economy using robust analytics. As CEO, Vikas Gupta provides expertise in managing virtual economies and leads the management team with a focus on product vision and development. Prior to co-founding Jambool, Inc., Vikas spent 7 years at Amazon.com where he led the Payments group and Web services products - building one of the busiest transaction processing systems in the world. Vikas was also the lead inventor for Amazon.com's Flexible Payments Service product. In 2004, Vikas co-founded Amazon.com's India office in Bangalore, and oversaw the engineering teams. Vikas holds a Bachelor of Technology in Computer Science and Engineering from IIT Kanpur and a Master of Science in Computer Science from Georgia Tech.

DANA JONGEWAARD has been writing about games and the gaming industry for nine years, working full-time for publications such as Computer Gaming World, Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine, and GameTap. She has also written for publications including CNN.com, Yahoo, MSN, Gamasutra, 1UP.com, Electronic Gaming Monthly, PSM, and PC Gamer, and she has been interviewed as an industry expert for outlets including USA Today, CNN Headline News, G4, MediaWeek, and Sirius Satellite Radio. Dana joined IGN two years ago to steer the company's game coverage for expanded audiences, and has overseen the launch of several sites, including IGN's social game initiative GameVille and MSN video game site Game On. She swears that the best training she had for this career was her two years of teaching junior high. Twitter: @djongewaard

ALBERT LAI is co-founder & co-ceo at Kontagent, a viral analytics platform venture. Albert sold his first internet company, the MyDesktop Network while in his teens to JupiterMedia (JUPM) for 7 digits in cash. Before that he pioneered the first CD-ROM yearbook (think: a crazy attempt at building a Facebook without the internets) in the early 90s. He also produced one of the first "viral" AdvertGame (on floppy disks) in Canada in the mid 90s. Most recently he was the founder/CEO of BubbleShare, a critically acclaimed photo-sharing company sold to Disney/Kaboose in 2007. He helped start and host the first DemoCamp, a tech "unconference" which takes place around the world, been invited to speak at TED, and also likely drinks more carbonated water than you do. He is now hard at work on Kontagent, a viral analytics platform, which is his 5th internet startup. Twitter: @albertsupdates

JEREMY LIEW is a Managing Director at Lightspeed Venture Partners. He invests primarily in the Internet and mobile sectors, with a particular interest in social media, commerce, gaming and methods for increasing monetization. He joined Lightspeed in early 2006. 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.

PATRICK LIU is the Founder of Rekoo, the top social game company in Asia, including both China and Japan. Patrick founded Rekoo in December 2007, before that in November 2003 he co-founded eFriendsNet, one of China’s first and biggest SNS platforms, which was acquired by a French public company in 2006. Patrick got his undergraduate in Beijing University, China. Later in the United States, he obtained M.Sc. from University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and MBA from Kellogg School of Management in Northwestern University.

DAVID MARCUS is the founder and CEO of Zong, the leading mobile payment service used by online gaming and social networking web sites. Zong is featured in hundreds of top applications on popular social networks like Facebook and MySpace as well as leading virtual worlds and other online gaming sites, such as Gaia Online, IMVU and Outspark. An experienced entrepreneur, David has created a number of successful venture-backed businesses, including the first alternative telecom carrier in Switzerland, GTN telecom, which he launched in 1996.  Under David’s leadership, GTN became one of the top three alternative carriers in Switzerland and was acquired by World Access in 2000. In 2003, David co-founded VOX telecom, a leading VoIP and wholesale carrier which services over 60% of the largest incumbent carriers globally. David also spearheaded the creation of echo6 in 2006, now one of the most successful mobile entertainment companies in France. In March 2008, David co-founded Twitterfone, the popular and free service that converts a voice message into Twitter updates from any mobile phone. Twitter: @davidmarcus

KARL MEHTA is the co-founder and CEO of PlaySpan. Karl brings over 16 years of experience to PlaySpan in founding and building high-tech businesses in the US and international markets. Prior to co-founding PlaySpan Inc., Karl was part of the founding team at MobileAria Inc. (acquired by Wireless Matrix) and co-founder/ CEO of OmniLabs Inc.. Prior to that, he held executive positions at Hughes leading new business and technology development. Karl is Charter member of TiE-Silicon Valley and board member of Ecosystem Ventures. Twitter: @karlmehta

 

JASON OBERFEST is VP Social Applications at  blog.ngmoco.com. Jason oversees the Plus+ Developer Platform, the premium social play network for iPhone and iPod Touch.  Jason is also responsible for bringing ngmoco:) games to social networks and developing and discovering social games that can be adapted to iPhone and mobile devices. ngmoco:) has released 12 games to the Apple App Store, among them the critically acclaimed Rolando, Eliminate (#1 Free App and Top 10 grossing app), Star Defense and Touch Pets Dogs. The company is backed by leading investors including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Norwest Venture Partners and Maples investments.

Twitter:@joberfest

MITALI PATTNAIK is the General Manager of Social Games at PlayFirst, Inc., where she is responsible for bringing the company’s award-winning products to the social gaming arena. Before joining PlayFirst, Ms. Pattnaik held various executive positions at Electronic Arts, including leading marketing and monetization efforts for social games, online marketing efforts for the launch of The Sims™ 3, and introducing a virtual goods business model for The Sims games with the launch of The Sims™ 3 Store. Prior to her time at EA, Ms. Pattnaik served as Senior Marketing Manager at Yahoo!, where she led the successful launch of Yahoo! Video. Twitter: @mitali

DONNA POWELL is the co-founder, president and chief operating officer of Los Angeles-based Meteor Games, a maker of deep, rich but accessible games for the Web and social networks.  As President and COO, Powell manages the daily operations, marketing execution and overall business strategy for Meteor Games. Prior to launching Meteor Games, Powell created and co-founded Neopets in 1999 with her husband, Meteor Games’ CEO and Creative Director, Adam Powell.  The first web-based multi-player game of its kind, Neopets is recognized as the online phenomenon that helped start the social networking and web-based gaming craze. Neopets was sold to MTV Networks, a division of Viacom, in 2005 for $160 million and remains one of the largest and most popular destinations for kids and teens on the Internet.

CHRISTA QUARLES oversees Playdom's financial management and forecasting, and helps drive the company's strategic planning. Christa comes to Playdom from Thomas Weisel Partners, where she served as managing director for four years and a senior equity research analyst for almost a decade. In 2009, while covering market leaders from Google to Yahoo, Financial Times ranked Christa the #1 Internet software and services analyst for earnings estimates in the United States. Prior to joining Thomas Weisel, Christa held an assistant vice president position at Merrill Lynch. Christa graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Carnegie Mellon with degrees in economics and German, and earned an MBA from Harvard Business School. Much like her Wild Ones character, Christa always hits her targets.
Twitter: @cquarles

KEITH RABOIS leads business development and 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 and Policy for PayPal. He is currently serving on the Board of Directors of Yelp and Xoom, and was an early investor in YouTube and LinkedIn. Keith is the only person who owns equity in every VC-financed consumer Internet company founded by former PayPal employees. He is also a Sequoia Technology Partner at Sequoia Capital. Twitter: @rabois

 

PETER RELAN is Chairman of Crowdstar. Peter is the Executive Chairman of CrowdStar, the second largest social gaming company on Facebook; Aurora Feint, the provider of OpenFeint, the leading social gaming network for iPhones; and Sibblingz, the cloud based game engine for simultaneous play on social networks, the web and smartphones. CrowdStar, OpenFeint, and Sibblingz, were incubated by YouWeb, Peter’s “Entrepreneur in Residence” program for consumer and mobile Internet services sectors. Peter has spent the last 25 years in Silicon Valley in the networking, software, consumer and mobile services industry, both as product development executive at Oracle, where he led the creation of Oracle’s Application Server in 1995, and Hewlett Packard where he was the Principal Architect of OpenView. In addition, Peter sits on the Advisory Boards of CytoBank, a collaborative SaaS solution for scientists engaged in cancer research, and Billeo, an online solution for consumer bill payments. Peter lives with his wife and two children in Atherton, CA. He is an avid tennis player, children’s basketball coach and percussionist in Indian Classical Music. He holds a BS from UCLA and a MS from Stanford University.

JEFF REVOY is vice president of social networking for GameHouse, the casual games division of RealNetworks®, Inc.  In this position, Revoy is responsible for driving Real’s success in social platforms and games.  Revoy has more than 20 years of search, social media and technology experience from both early stage and Fortune 500 companies.  Most recently, Revoy was president of the Interactive Services division at CenturyLink, a Fortune 500 telecommunication company.  Prior to that, Revoy spent six years at Yahoo!, where he served  as vice president of search, local and social media with global responsibility for Yahoo! Answers, one of the most successful social media sites on the Internet.  Revoy also served as director of international communication products at Yahoo!, which included Yahoo! Mail, Messenger and Voice services.  Revoy has held other product and business roles in Fortune 500 and start-up companies including AT&T, AT Kearney and InterTrust Technology.  Revoy has a Master of Business Administration from the University of Virginia and a Bachelor of Business Administration in finance from the University of Wisconsin. 

DENNIS RYAN is EVP, Worldwide Publishing for PopCap. Dennis joined PopCap in 2005 and runs global marketing, sales, business development, social business operations, and product localization. Prior to PopCap, Dennis was a General Manager and Vice President at Click Commerce, Inc., where he ran a business unit for on-demand collaborative commerce software. Previously, he was CEO of Allegis Corporation for five years when it pioneered software-as-a-service delivery of channel management software. He was also CEO at Net-It Software, which developed intranet document management software, and Vice President at EO, Inc, which created early smartphone devices for AT&T. In 1987, Dennis was a founding team member of Claris Corporation (now FileMaker, Inc.) where he was group manager for information management products, including the ever-popular FileMaker database product line. Prior to Claris, he was a product manager at Apple Computer, Inc.

SEAN RYAN - Innovative prepaid card provider Zeus Research was founded by Sean Ryan, a digital media veteran who previously co-founded profitable virtual world site Meez, virtual goods platform TwoFish (sold to Live Gamer) and online karaoke site SingShot (sold to Electronic Arts).  Prior to those companies, Sean was the CEO of Listen.com, the company behind the award-winning Rhapsody music service, and worked in various roles at Sega of America and its online division, SegaSoft Networks.   Sean holds an MBA from UCLA’s Anderson School and BA from Columbia University.

DANNY SHADER is the CEO of Kwedit. Prior to Kwedit, Mr. Shader was CEO of Jasper Wireless and the Corporate VP of Motorola which acquired his former company, Good Technology. Prior to Good Technology, Mr. Shader served as a Vice President and General Manager at Amazon.com, which he joined upon the company’s acquisition of Accept.com, a company he co-founded and led as CEO. Accept.com was the first consumer-to-consumer, Internet-based, payment services provider. Twitter: @dshader