The NEW MEDIA TASTEMAKERS SUMMIT arrives on May 2nd


THE NEW MEDIA TASTEMAKERS SUMMIT for May 2nd

A first-of-its-kind gathering of 300 of the most important Digital Media, Traditional Media, Online Video and Web producers, platforms and startups specifically focused on the lucrative & highly influential Lifestyle categories of: FOOD & WINE, FASHION & DESIGN, AND REGIONAL/CITY SITES

More information is at www.NewMediaTasteMakers.com

Participating speakers include:

TasteTV Events include:

This blog from the contributors, producers and correspondents at TasteTV at TasteTV.com. technorati tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Speaker Bio: Kara Walsh, Metromix.com

Kara Walsh, Metromix.com

Kara Walsh is Chief Executive Officer of Metromix LLC, a joint venture between Tribune Interactive (TI) and Gannett Company created to form a national network of local entertainment websites under the Metromix brand. Walsh served as General Manager of Metromix for Tribune Interactive in 2006-07.

Prior to joining TI and Metromix, Walsh was VP of online at Village Voice Media (VVM) where she served as general manager of villagevoice.com and led strategy and business planning for VVM’s network of 17 alternative news and entertainment websites.

Entertainment listings play a central role in the products that Walsh has worked with over the last ten years. Before joining VVM, she served as director of new business marketing at TV Guide and head of customer loyalty marketing at British Sky Broadcasting.

Walsh’s earlier experience includes brand management at The Coca-Cola Company as well as strategy and technology consulting. She has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a B.S. in Mathematical Sciences from Clemson University. She lives in Chicago, where Metromix LLC is based.

Speaker Bio: Gordon Gould, ThisNext.com


Gordon Gould, ThisNext.com

Chief Executive Officer Gordon Gould believes that in order to live better people need to buy better. Through ThisNext, Gould envisions a product graph that connects people to products, products to products, and people to people and transforms the way consumers interact with the most unique, diverse products in the market. Gould is a true Internet visionary, founding and leading several ahead-of-its-time companies.

Prior to ThisNext, Gould founded Upoc.com in 1999, the leader in mobile community, marketing and premium services in the United States for the teen community. He served as CEO for the company’s first two years. While at UPOC, Gould raised two rounds of venture capital and was instrumental in selling the company to Dada Mobile.

Gould served as CEO of the blog platform company Blogsmith, which is the underlying blog platform that powers the Weblogs Inc Network, and oversaw Blogsmith’s acquisition by AOL.

Gould started his executive path as President and COO of New York’s Silicon Alley Reporter/Rising Tide Studios. RTS/SAR published The Silicon Alley Reporter and Digital Coast Reporter, as well as about a dozen email newsletters and produced several high-profile industry conferences during the Web 1.0 boom. RTS also published VentureReporter, an industry business information service now owned by Dow Jones.

Gould has a BA in environmental studies from Pitzer College, served as a founding board member of MOUSE (Making Opportunities for Upgrading Schools and Education) and is the former co-chair of the Los Angeles branch of New Democrats Network.

Speaker Bio: Kristin Hawley Dossetti, Bhootan

Kristin Hawley Dossetti, Bhootan

Kristin Hawley Dossetti is Vice President, Programming of Bhootan, one of the largest digital out-of-home networks. She oversees all aspects of the company’s programming, including content acquisitions, creative development and proprietary production.

Prior to joining Bhootan, Hawley Dossetti founded EKLA Studios where she counseled clients working in the entertainment space on all aspects of the business, including acquisitions and development, production and distribution, merchandise licensing, marketing/promotions, sponsorship and advertising. Among the clients she worked with were ADV Films/The Anime Network, the premier anime producer and distributor in North America; Studio B Productions, a leader in the field of kids’ entertainment; and Pioneer Entertainment, the entertainment division of the electronics giant.

Prior to founding EKLA Studios, Hawley Dossetti developed her career in the entertainment and digital technology industries and achieved progressively higher roles in such companies as Internet start-up Candydates.com, The Harvey Entertainment Company, and Nelvana.


A cum laude graduate of the American University of Paris with a Bachelor of Arts, Hawley Dossetti is fluent in French and English and retains dual US/EU citizenship. She also received her Master of Fine Arts Degree in Motion Picture Producing as a student in The Peter Stark Producing Program at USC’s School of Cinema-Television. She has won numerous awards for public speaking and is an experienced film director, producer and editor.

Organic Taste Makers and Marketing Costs

As far back as, gasp, 2005 and 2006, some had predicted the influence of the New Media Tastemakers. John Borland of CNET News.com wrote about the organic quality of the trend:

Like the Web itself, the impact of such grassroots opinions has grown geometrically to change the way hits are made in movies, music and television. Their significance goes far beyond the realm of entertainment, fundamentally recasting the way opinions are shaped in a society whose sensibilities have been saturated by mass-media campaigns for generations.


The undeniable influence of these organic taste makers has been made possible by the rise of blogs, tags, collaborative bookmarks and other so-called social technologies that are fulfilling some of the utopian objectives espoused in the early days of the Internet, when it was hoped that the Web would empower the individual and dismantle communication barriers across the globe. Many of those altruistic goals were vastly overshadowed by mass commercialization. But, in the years since the dot-com meltdown, they’ve been resurrected with a new generation of digerati who are developing and exploiting the social aspects of the medium.

Buying Mini-Vineyards

The Wall Street Journal talks about what could be a great compromise between being a winemaker, a tourist, and going to Crushpad: Mini-Vineyards

Mr. Abihaggle isn’t overseeing the construction of a luxury polo estate; he’s the project manager of the 2,000-acre Santa María de los Andes, a development that sells parcels of small, ready-made vineyards.

While an acre of good vineyard land in California’s Napa Valley can go for $50,000 to $300,000, an acre of Mendoza land runs from $4,000 to $16,000, says Juan Carlos Pina, manager of the Bodegas de Argentina, a winery trade group.

Buyers are unlikely to make money simply by growing grapes and trying to sell them to winemakers, says David English, an American real-estate scout whose Mendoza-based company, English & Associates, has placed clients in the Los Amigos, Armani and Vines of Mendoza projects. “Being a grape farmer is not a moneymaking proposition. People make money by making wine and selling it overseas,” says Mr. English. “People purchase at these projects because they want a turnkey solution and don’t want to make a lot of decisions. And they pay a premium for it.”

TasteTV Events include:

This blog from the contributors, producers and correspondents at TasteTV at TasteTV.com. technorati tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , ,