"Feeder Businesses" are small, sometimes tiny, new businesses and services that feed off online mega-sites like eBay, Google, Match.com, Amazon, and MySpace. They often create a win-win situation, making it easier for consumers and businesses to use a key service that, thanks to its popularity, reach and depth, has become so sophisticated that getting the most out of the service requires help from specialists.
For the business entrepreneur, MySpace will be the birthplace of many next generation businesses. "Feeder Businesses" are just one aspect of MySpace that will be discussed. Join us as we explore the opportunity and potential of this remarkable new area of business.
MYSPACE BOOT CAMP – Weekend Crash Course
DATE: August 19, 2006 – Saturday
TIMES: 8:30 am – 3:00 pm
WEBSITE: www.davinciinstitute.com/page.php?ID=142
LOCATION: DeVry University, 1870 W. 122nd Avenue, Westminster, CO 80234
CLASSROOM: 300
DIRECTIONS: Click here for map
INSTRUCTORS: Ruth McCartney, Dave Taylor, Darby Frey, and moreCOST: $149 – ($99 for DaVinci Institute Members) – Register here.
COMBO PACKAGE: Membership combined with MySpace Boot Camp: $199 – Register here. *
PHONE: 303-666-4133
Growing up in Liverpool, England, as an after-school job Ruth McCartney was able to earn some spending money by helping her step-brother Paul and John Lennon answer some of the fan mail that was coming in. For the Beatles, the volume of fan mail was not just a few letters here and there, it was literally coming in by the truck load.
Building on this childhood experience and knowing how important it was to manage your fan base, Ruth and her team at McCartney Multimedia in LA developed a system for doing just that, giving birth to an online service called iFanz which currently boasts over 2.7 million “fans” in its member client databases.
Ratchet forward a couple years and social networking sites are all the rage. MySpace.com becomes the dominant site, among the top 10 sites on the Internet in 2006, accounting for a staggering 4.5% of all website visits, and recently purchased by the media industry’s dominant player, Rupert Murdoch. A key issue arises around the MySpace policy for any material uploaded to their servers, essentially stripping the owners of control over their re-use, broadcast and distribution rights.
Spotting this problem, Ruth McCartney worked with her software development team, headed up by Darby Frey, to create a solution. What they came up with was a unique online MP3 player, called iPlayer, that allows musicians to globally stream music AND protect their copyrights and download options. In addition, the iPlayer allows its owner to track hits, plays and downloads on a global view of Google Maps. This is a business that fits into the catagory of "Feeder Businesses".
INSTRUCTOR: Ruth McCartney
Ruth McCartney is the CEO of McCartney Multimedia Inc. She is a respected music industry veteran, communications expert and strategist with a strong marketing, cross-promotions, and entrepreneurial background. She has provided consulting and production services for Fortune 100, corporate, high-tech, higher ed. and entertainment companies.
As co-founder of McCartney Multimedia, Inc, Ruth has developed working relationships with significant organizations around the world including The United States Navy, Capitol Records, Texas Instruments, The State of Nevada, MGM/Mirage/Mandalay, Park Place Entertainment, Sony Home Entertainment, American Express Travel, Warner Bros and China Netcom. Her work has ranged from new media strategies and technology consulting to development of database management solutions and affinity marketing programs. In addition, Ruth has also served as advisor to projects for non-profit and higher education organizations including the original web presence for the Duchess of York’s Chances for Children, WheelsForHumanity.org, Jesse Biel’s Make The Difference Network, The Feminist Majority and Loyola Marymount University.
Founded in 1995 in Nashville, TN, MMI is a Digital Agency which has designed custom Flash, HTML , eCRM and e-commerce presences for clients such as Clint Black, Richie Sambora, David Cassidy, Paula Abdul, America, Andrew Gold, Steve Tyrell, Oleta Adams, REO Speedwagon, Jessica Biel and others.
An early developer of rich-media communications, the NetSpot® is one of the products of Ruth’s imagination. The NetSpot is a streaming, TV-like commercial delivered straight to a recipient’s email in box and can be personalized, linked to e-commerce locations, tracked, reported and forwarded.
In addition, Ruth’s brainchild is the online Customer / Fan acquisition and retention, tool iFanz® iFanz.com® technology provides online data management, eCRM, email broadcasting, tracking, data collection and privacy compliance to both MMI clients and others including the Arizona Diamondbacks owner Dale Jensen’s group of companies, The Estate of Tupac Shakur , John Cleese, Sailing legend Dennis Conner, Author Ted Dekker, Indiana Pacers’ Asst. Coach Cedric Hardman, Edgar Winter, Texas Instruments’ DLP Division and more.
Educated in England at West Kirby County Grammar for Girls, the North West Stage School and the Royal Ballet, being trained in the theatre, Ruth saw a need to combine communication and entertainment. In her formative years in Liverpool, UK, she assisted at home in sorting, filing and replying to fan correspondence addressed to her step-brother Sir Paul, as well as helping her mother Angie create The Wings Fun Club in 1972. She devised “iFanz.com”, a sophisticated data management, PHP platform and reporting software which allows users to manage their customer or fan base directly online.
Formerly, Ruth was a singer/songwriter and recording artist on BMG/Jupiter Records and has headlined tours in Russia, Lithuania, Armenia, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Siberia for a total of 9 times. The tours sold millions of tickets and Ruth donated all of her proceeds to aid the 40,000 Armenian Earthquake victims left homeless by their devastating quake in 1989. As a songwriter, Ruth penned a gold single for Randy Crawford and has songs in several movies starring Julia Roberts, Faye Dunaway, Christina Applegate, Jonathan Schaech and Molly Ringwald.
Dave Taylor has been involved with the Internet since 1980 and is widely recognized as an expert on both technical and business issues. He has been published over a thousand times, launched four Internet-related startup companies, has written eighteen business and technical books and holds both an MBA and MS Ed. Dave maintains three weblogs. The Intuitive Life Business Blog is focused on business and industry analysis, the eponymously named Ask Dave Taylor devoted to tech and business Q&A and APparenting.com, discussing topics of interest to parents. Dave is a highly-rated speaker, sought after workshop facilitator and frequent radio guest.
Darby Frey works on one of Hollywood’s top website development teams. Some recent projects include sites for John Cleese, 20th Century Fox, Penn & Teller, REO Speedwagon, Jessica Biel, LeAnn Rimes, Clint Black, Omni Hotels, Cushman & Wakefield, The Nevada Film Office, The Sports Car Club of America and many more.JOIN Our Mailing List – www.davinciinstitute.com/mailinglists.php
MEMBERSHIP in the DaVinci Institute is only $150 and allows you to attend both the Startup Junkie Underground and the Night with a Futurist for free. Student memberships are still just $119. If you’d like to join as a member, please go to www.davinciinstitute.com/member.php.
We hope to see you there.
