About Me
Elegance is simplicity on the far side of complexity - Matthew May
I create great products for Web 2.0 and beyond - optimized for power, value, and elegance.
Hyperaggregation: Panjea
Everyone will be famous for 15 minutes - Andy Warhol
With the explosion of digital media online, we need better ways to separate the wheat from the chaff. In 2006 I refocused the Panjea team to create the Panjea Player, making it easy for anyone to find videos from video sites across the web, add them to their personal video channel, and share that channel via their blog, website, or social networks.
Crowdsourcing: Chooser (in dev)
None of us is as smart as all of us - Ken Blanchard
Photo and media sharing websites have degenerated into slideshow drudgery as cheap bandwidth and storage allows everyone to upload content indiscriminately. In 2008 I created Chooser by applying crowdsourcing techniques to automatically present the cream of the crop in a fun, engaging style that keeps media collections fresh and relevant.
Build-to-Market: Jumpstart (in dev)
Rachleff: The only thing that matters is getting to product/market fit - Marc Andreessen
The key to new product success is to constantly adjust your development efforts based on your daily learnings about real market needs. I created Jumpstart in 2008 as a simple and effective way to "give the steering wheel" to the business team in a way that is powerful, familiar, and is based on my 12+ years' experience leading product teams to deliver better products faster.
Awards / Education
- 2007 DEMO Conference DEMOgod Award Winner - Panjea
- 2007 MIT Technology Review Young Innovators Under 35 Nominee
- 1995 Combined MIT MS/BS Computer Science, 4 years
Other Sites
- honk.com - my new startup
- socialpl.us+ - my personal design lab
- my business network- - I live in Venice, CA
Recommendation / Discovery: Anytune
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in seeing with new eyes - Marcel Proust
In 1997 I founded Anytune - the first online music distribution site offering custom CD compilations to music fans worldwide. How could we bring the personalized recommendations of an expert record store clerk to help audiences discover great new artists? I patterned the Genre Browser - the first online Music DNA system - after the way great DJs introduce new music while still allowing the user to guide and focus their discovery experience.
Webcasting: BYOBroadcast
The greater the diversity, the greater the perfection - Thomas Berry
BYOBroadcast was founded in 1999 to give everyone the ability to broadcast audio to listeners worldwide over the internet. I worked with the founders to define the concept and product definition as well as built and launched their initial beta site.
Metrics & Analytics: Mota
Power is not revealed by striking hard or often, but by striking true - Balzac
Mota is committed to helping used car sellers easily sell their car at the best price. In 2005 they needed an accurate way to predict the sales price for vehicles online, so I created their Market Intelligence Tool - a data warehouse organizing 600,000+ online transactions and able to predict online car sales prices to within 5%.
Social Networking: Aviri
In 1999 I had a realization: a lot of how we get things done in the world happens via our network of friends, colleagues, and acquaintances. Why isn't there some way to use the web to make this better? Founded with Bijoy Goswami in April 2000, Aviri was one of the first social networking websites and the only one to focus on scaling trusted relationships.