Will Kreth

Prior to LifeSet.com, Will was Strategist of Marketing and Content at Agillion - a start-up company in Austin, TX. Before that, he was the Senior Director of Content and Marketing Strategy at Road Runner - Maine, headquartered in Portland, ME. Road Runner is a joint venture between Time Warner and Media One that uses high speed cable modems to deliver news, information and entertainment to residential and business customers. He is also the founder and executive director of The WebPort Foundation, a non-profit organization that promotes the Greater Portland, Maine-area as a software development locale, through its website and conferences like NetDemo Northeast; secretary and member of the Board of Directors for the Maine Software Developers Association (MeSDA); and is the founder of MaineCHI - the prospective Maine chapter of the ACM-SIGCHI - an organization working for the advancement of human-computer interface technologies.

From July 1995 to September 1996, he was the Senior Director of Content and Technology Integration for the Prodigy Services Corporation. At Prodigy, he was instrumental in pushing the aging online service towards embracing the Internet as a platform for future content creation. One of the results of this was STIM, a website for a 18-35 demographic (an age group previously ignored by Prodigy). Before STIM, he headed up Prodigy's Advanced Design Group, leading a team of 15 people out of Prodigy's New York City offices.

In April 1992, he became the first employee at WIRED magazine - working on the early infrastructure of the company (recruiting new hires, building databases, etc.), and as the in-house point person on the pre- and post-launch media campaign. He went on to co-found HotWired, WIRED magazine's groundbreaking outpost on the World Wide Web, where he become Section Director of HotWired's PIAZZA section and a contributing writer. Prior to helping start WIRED, he worked for companies such as PF.Magic, Apple Computer's Discovery Studio and the Apple Multimedia Lab.

Between 1992 and 1995, he was the host of the WIRED conference on the online community known as The WELL. He was also involved with the marketing and research and development of HotWired, as well as a force behind WIRED being offered on America Online (AOL).

A freelance writer for the past ten years, his writing has appeared both in print and online in: Road Runner, WIRED, HotWired, Nick At Nite magazine, Suck, Netly News Network, STIM, MacUser UK, Film/Tape World, WARD Music Monthly, OPTION, and in the Internet distributed electronic journal: SPEED- Version 1.1 "Myths of Electronic Living." He was also part of the editorial team of "The Happy Mutant Handbook" - which was published by Riverhead Books in November 1995.

In April 1996, he was interviewed on RAI (the Italian Television Network) on the future of the Internet, and interviewed on the same subject for MC Micro, the largest computer magazine in Italy. He has been invited to speak on the future of independent video multicasting via the Internet at the 1993 ACM-SIGGRAPH conference; on the potential roles of both independent musicians and recording labels in using the Internet at the College Music Journal (or CMJ) 1993 Music Marathon in New York; about online advertising to the Interactive Services Association; and about authorship and copyright in electronic publishing before the National Writer's Union.

Other past speaking engagements include hosting a panel at the annual E3 Conference (Electronic Entertainment Expo); Kagan Seminar's "Interactive Multimedia Forum 3;" Resolution's "Shelburne Farms Conference III;" Jupiter Communication's 1994 and 1995 "Online Developer's" conferences; Modern Times bookstore's "Cyberspace Literacy" series; Landmark Theaters "Cyberfilm One" series; the 1994 Gavin Convention,; the NARAS (the Grammy Awards organization) 1994 and 1995 "Music and Multimedia" seminars; and the Wildcat Words speaking series. He is also a co-founding member of the Bay Area Internet Literacy -- (or BAIL) educational workshop series.

Will Kreth

Founded (or co-founded):
LifeSet.com
HotWired
The WebPort Foundation
MaineCHI - the Maine chapter of ACM-SIGCHI
Bay Area Internet Literacy (BAIL)

First and co-founding employee:

Wired Magazine (hired 4/01/92)

Member of:

CHI-Austin - Vice Chair (1999-2000)
MeSDA - Maine Software Developers Association
(Secretary - '98/'99)
ACM
ACM-SIGCHI

Books:

Co-editor of The Happy Mutant Handbook - Riverhead Books, Nov. 1995.
Contributor to Suck - Worst-Case Scenarios in Media, Culture, Advertising, and the Internet - Wired Books, Oct. 1997
Contributor to Readings for the 21st Century, Fourth Edition, ed. by William Vesterman and Josh Ozersky, to be published by Allyn and Bacon, Summer 1999.

Magazine articles (in-print and online):

Road Runner - Southern Maine
WIRED
HotWired
Nick At Nite magazine
Suck
Netly News Network
STIM
MacUser UK
Film/Tape World
WARD Music Monthly
OPTION
The Daily Cal (UC Berkeley)
and in the Internet distributed electronic journal:
SPEED- Version 1.1 "Myths of Electronic Living."

Interviewed for books:

Careers in Multimedia (ZD Press)

Interviewed for articles:

MC Micro Magazine (Italy)
Mainebiz Magazine

Appeared in articles in:

InfoWorld ("From the Ether" - Bob Metcalfe's column)
Portland Press-Herald, Portland, ME
New York Times
Wall Street Journal
S.F. Examiner
Interactive Week
PC Week
Publisher's Weekly
Folio
Asahi's Understanding Internet Magazine (Japan)

Appeared in television news segments:

Maine Public Broadcasting's (PBS) "e-maine"
RAI (Italian Television)
Discovery Channel's "The Next Step" - hosted by Richard Hart
CNN's "Future Watch"

Speaking engagements:

SXSW 2001 - Moderator of two panels (Personalization and Privacy) - Austin, TX.
SXSW 2000 - "Killer Broadband Applications" panel member, in addition to arranging and moderating a special marketing panel featuring "Cluetrain Manifesto" author Christopher Locke - Austin, TX
Jupiter Communication's "Online Developers" Conferences - S.F./NYC
IDG's "E3 - Electronic Entertainment Expo" - L.A.
Kagan Seminar's "Interactive Multimedia Forum" - NYC
Gavin Convention - S.F.
CMJ Music Marathon - NYC
NARAS (the Grammy Awards org.) "Music and Multimedia" - S.F.
ACM-SIGGRAPH - L.A.
National Writer's Union - S.F.
Newspaper Association of America -New Media Business Development Task Force Meeting - Portland, ME
Penn. Newspaper Assoc. "New Media World" - Hershey, PA
CHI-Austin - moderator and organizer of "The design and product life cycle of online communities" - Austin, TX
Modern Times Bookstore's "Cyberspace Literacy" series - S.F.
Landmark Theatres' "Cyberfilm One" series - S.F.
Wildcat Words speaking series - S.F.
Resolution's "Shelburne Farms Conference III" - Burlington, VT
Maine Businesses for Social Responsiblity - Portland, ME
Universtity of Maine - Orono, ME
Central Maine Technical College - Auburn, ME

Education

New School University, New York, NY
Adult B.A. Program - Spring 1996

University of California , Berkeley, CA (Extension)
School of Journalism
Magazine Publishing Program - Fall 1991 & Spring 1992
Certificates in Periodical Marketing and Circulation Management

Bay Area Video Coalition, San Francisco, CA
Courses in SMPTE time code and Super 90 Convergence video editing systems - Spring 1987

University of Oregon, Eugene, OR
Telecommunications and Film Program - 1982-1983