Expo Hires David Becker
Along with our site relaunching this week, we announced the hiring of David Becker. You can read the official corporate babble, but the reality is that this was a huge hire for us. David was the President / COO of two major internet companies: Uproar, which was an enormous casual gaming site in the late ‘90s and BeliefNet, which is the largest spirituality site. He brings a deep understanding of web marketing and web consumers.
The other thing David brings us is a sense of style that maybe some of our employees have individually (I don’t want to get flamed by my coworkers) but hasn’t marked us as a corporation. To be fair, trying to be ‘hip’ hasn’t been part of our mission statement. We’re tying to bring authentic consumer experiences to life and an focusing on style would have been out of keeping with the mission.
But (as the whole point of this sub-blog implies….) we’re playing at the intersection of commerce and media. Historically the most prominent resident at that intersection has been advertising. And advertising - regardless of what else we might say - cares an awful lot about being cool. Furthermore, the rest of mass media has been largely devoted to entertainment. So the truth for anyone playing in the emerging space between commerce and media is that we’re going to have to reconcile authenticity with entertainment. No mean feat. There isn’t a risk that the “market” will get it wrong…in this environment, the consumer will be served. But most of the companies that try will get it wrong. The path is too foggy, too many opportunities to fail, the stakes too high. David’s going to help us figure it out. Welcome on board!!
Add comment April 28th, 2007
