Monday, June 29, 2009

Lime Wire Adds Digital Media Exec (aka Me) to Oversee Product


I have been a bit cagey over the past few weeks about what was next for me in a professional sense. Those you that follow what I am up to have probably noticed that my work on Playtapus has dropped off considerably, and I have been talking about moving to NYC. Well, today the cat comes out of the bag.... and I am very excited about it. I am moving up to Brooklyn tomorrow and will start my first day at Lime Wire the following day (July 1).


As you can imagine, there is a lot of exciting stuff going on over there, a massive worldwide audience and huge opportunities to do even more great things. I am honored to be able to join the team over there...



Lime Wire Adds Digital Media Exec to Oversee Product: "NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire - June 29, 2009) - Jason Herskowitz has joined Lime Wire as Vice President, Product Management, it was announced today by George Searle, Lime Wire CEO. In this newly created position, Herskowitz will oversee Lime Wire's integrated product strategy, planning, design and management. Lime Wire's product teams will report to Herskowitz. Herskowitz reports to Lime Wire CEO, George Searle."

Herskowitz comes to Lime Wire from TotalMusic, where he held the position of Vice President, Product Management, managing a team of product managers, UX architects, designers, and QA engineers in the creation and management of music platform, products and services. Prior to TotalMusic, Herskowitz was Vice President at Strands, where he managed the Social Media business unit in the creation of holistic content discovery recommendation engine and critically acclaimed content sharing experience at Strands.com. Strands.com, music.Strands.tv, mystrands.com and the Strands Tracker software were all defined, launched and/or managed by Herskowitz.

Prior to Strands, Herskowitz was the Director of Music Products for America Online (AOL). While there, he defined and managed the product releases, and roadmaps and strategies for a range of AOL's digital media products and services. He directed product teams in the strategic and tactical definitions for a wide range of digital media products and services including AOL Music Now, AOLmusic.com, AOL Radio, SHOUTcast, and Winamp. Additionally, he spearheaded integrations of these experiences across a wide range of other AOL products including AIM, AOL Search as well as a host of connected media devices via partnerships with major consumer electronics and networking device manufacturers.

Prior to AOL, he was with Analog Devices. He joined as Director of Market Development of the company's Audio Rendering and Technology Center, and then was named Director of Product Marketing for their Media Platforms and Services Group. Earlier in his career, he helped launch DigiScents, a biotechnology offshoot that developed hardware and software platforms for incorporating scent into all forms of digital media including movies, music and video games. Prior to launching DigiScents, he was with video gaming giant, InterAct Accessories, which he joined as Director of Product Marketing and was subsequently promoted to Vice President-Strategic & Product Marketing.

He was President and founder of Prodigal Sun Records, one of the first record labels to provide streaming audio clips of artists online.

Herskowitz holds a Masters of Business Administration from the University of Georgia and a Bachelor of Science from Virginia Tech. He is currently relocating from Potomac Falls, VA to Brooklyn, NY, with his wife, Karen, and two children.

About Lime Wire LLC

Founded in 2000 by Chairman Mark Gorton, Lime Wire LLC (http://www.limewire.com) is a leader of innovative peer-to-peer software development and solutions in the file sharing industry. The company currently employs the largest number of expert Java developers at the forefront of the file sharing revolution. Its signature products, LimeWire BASIC and LimeWire PRO, run on the decentralized Gnutella Network and are the world's most popular peer-to-peer file sharing applications with over 70 million unique monthly users. The programs are downloaded 350,000 times every day and boast approximately 5 million active users at any moment. It is reported that up to 18% of the computers worldwide have LimeWire on their computer. LimeWire Store sells high-quality, DRM-free MP3 downloads a la carte and through low-cost subscription plans. Intelligent product placement, unique editorial content, and links within Lime Wire's ecosystem are utilized to market and merchandise its licensed music. Additional titles from established and developing artists are produced and sold exclusively through LimeWire Store. The Lime Wire team enjoys a dynamic work environment at company headquarters in New York City.







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Thursday, June 04, 2009

Good Riddance, Shiny Plastic Discs

Compact DiscImage via Wikipedia

I have been going through a spring cleaning/purging for the past few weeks... a neighborhood garage sale helped me get rid of the numerous old PCs, routers, tape decks, video game consoles, cell phones and MP3 players I had accumulated over the years. But, one of the biggest space-hog culprits in my house has been the boxes of CDs (with jewel cases).

I went through the extreme pain of ripping all of my CDs probably 7 or 8 years ago (over the span of a couple weeks), and I have not bought a physical CD since that time. I don't know why I held onto the CDs for so long... I don't read the jackets and I don't look at the artwork. My CD player (along with my dual cassette deck and turntable) have been disconnected from my stereo for a few years. So, when it came to (spouse-mandated) de-cluttering, I started to do some research on the best way to get rid of them. To me, these CDs were no longer anything more than non-biodegradable packaging for the music that now lived on my hard drives and network. I didn't want to just throw them away... with them spending an eternity in a landfill somewhere. I gave some away to anyone that would come and take them but, given the choice, most of my friends would prefer to have them as MP3s on a thumbdrive. I could drag them to a record store that buys/sells used stuff... but to be honest, I don't even know where one of those is around me. The thought of listing them all on eBay, individually or even as "collections" (e.g. 80's Hair Metal), just seemed like way too much work.

Google led me to SecondSpin.com, a used CD/DVD/video game retailer (online and physical) based in California. So, I bit the bullet and went through and manually entered the UPCs for each CD (to see what each was worth). I then filtered out all the ones that were worth less than $1 (a lot of stuff is only valued at less than what it would cost to ship) and the cut-outs (those are accepted on an "as-needed" basis). I then had to do some re-configuring.... putting the "valuable" ones in jewel cases that weren't cracked and falling apart. After all of that, I ended up shipping around 250 of them (media rate via USPS was only about $15). A couple of weeks later, I got an email from SecondSpin saying that they have accepted about 2/3 of them - they rejected ones that I had written on the disc (a requirement if you have ever lived with roommates!).

All said-and-done, it was a lot of work to get $175... but if nothing else, it is a greener way to dispose of CDs than putting them in a landfill. And that $175 will go right towards more digital purchases. What about the CDs they didn't accept? I didn't ask... it is SecondSpin's trash to dispose of now.







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