Bona Fide: How Forums can Work with Marketers to Create Authentic, Fun and Mutually Beneficial Experiences

Brian Solis is globally recognized as a thought-leader in new media. A digital analyst, sociologist, and futurist, Solis has influenced the effects of emerging media on the convergence of marketing, communications and publishing.

David is the founder and COO of AVSForum.com he has not only made a name for himself in the Consumer Electronics industry through the tremendous growth of AVSForum, but has also helped other companies and forums accelerate growth and revenue through community building. David also founded TiVoCommunity.com and owns several community based companies.

Famous Rhodes is the parts & accessories director of eBay Motors, the Internet’s largest marketplace for buying and selling all things automotive. Rhodes is responsible for the strategic direction, technical execution and overall success of the automotive parts & accessories category.

As the community manager on Google’s Picasa team, Brian Rose oversees the Picasa forum to share product news, provide support, escalate issues, and connect Picasa's fans. He loves photography and brings his camera with him everywhere.

Todd is the CEO of Lijit Networks which he founded in 2006. Prior to his leadership role at Lijit, Todd co-founded Raindance Communications where he also served as CTO and Chief System Architect.

Adrian began working in online communities and forums six years ago with a focus on online relationship nurturing. He currently works in business development for vBulletin, the most popular forum and community software on the web, overseeing the marketing, communications, customer service and assisting in future strategic direction and product planning.

Alvin Fong launched, integrated acquisitions, and grew the Auto Enthusiast Network of ~100 sites into one of the leading divisions at Internet Brands. His role includes managing the Lodging division and Ad Operations team. Prior to Internet Brands, Alvin spent 5 years at Yahoo and Overture (acquired by Yahoo) focused on monetization and international expansion into emerging markets.

John is the Head of US Community Development at eBay, Inc. a leadership position responsible for Community, Social Media and customer advocacy strategy. He is currently responsible for leading The Voices of the Community program, eBay’s Customer Connect Camp, Facebook Fan page, online community strategy, influencer management, communication, planning and management.

Oliver brings over 15 years of software experience to the company. Prior to VigLink, he was the Principal Group Program Manager (Director) at Microsoft in charge of product for various media properties including XBOX Live Video Marketplace, Zune Marketplace and MSN Entertainment.

Dan is a graduate of Stanford University, 9 time All-American gymnast, and former international competitor for the US National Team. Starting his career in enterprise software, Dan held key positions in Sales, Business Development, and Marketing. Stars aligned in 2007 when his oldest brother Ted, a career engineer and technologist approached him with the concept behind Huddler.

Winter founded Quoord Systems, the company behind the popular Tapatalk Forum App for iPhone and Android smartphone. Winter graduated in University of Toronto with a bachelor of Computer Science with over 10 years of Software Engineering experience. Prior to Tapatalk, he was the Program Manager at Hewlett Packard, Software Engineer at IBM.

Justin Choi is founder of PostRelease, an innovative ad platform and new ad unit designed to enable advertisers to insert authorized sponsored posts into forums. PostRelease has executed 200+ campaigns for eBay Motors, Pioneer Electronics, Nitto Tire North America and more. Prior to PostRelease, Justin co-founded Cie Studios, an award-winning digital agency specializing in custom mobile, web and social applications. Cie Studios recently generated the spin-off, Cie Games, creator of the popular Facebook game Car Town.

Nadia Aly is armed with a Masters of Digital Media. She is a social media guru who is constantly thinking of news ways to reach audiences, generate demand and create buzz using social media tools. She has been using social media as a marketing tool for years and loves creating all sorts of social media campaigns.

Serial entrepreneur and forum owner since 2003 Nicolas owns and runs a number of forums including Luxury4play, West Menlo Ventures, eGarage.com, Gold Rush Rally, gR2kX.com and Speak with Me Inc.

Raymond joined VigLink via Driving Revenue, which he co-founded served as CEO. Raymond joined VigLink via Viglink’s acquisition of Driving Revenue, which he co-founded and led as CEO. Prior to Driving Revenue, Raymond spent 5 years at Leapfrog Online (the 11th largest interactive marketing firm – Adage), where his efforts propelled them to be the 6th largest SEM firm in the country.

Matthew Prince is a leading expert in web performance and security. As CEO of CloudFlare, Matthew is bringing the tools previously reserved for Internet giants to the rest of the web. Today, CloudFlare's network protects and accelerates tens of thousands of websites and powers more than 1.5 billion monthly page views.

Andy Gilchrist founded askandyaboutclothes.com and has written for ModernMan.com, AMansLife.com, Men's Health, Greg Norman's website Shark.com, and have been published in Money, Forbes, and GQ Magazines, Classic Style Magazine, and The Wall Street Journal.

Chase is a leading veteran in the field of collaboration and marketing intelligence working at JP Morgan-Chase, Oracle and founded several startups. He was awarded the Marketing Sherpa Viral Hall of Fame award and top honors from Ad-Tech deploying advanced social campaigns for F 500 brands.

Jerry is a career digital media business developer who is responsible for leading VerticalScope’s aggressive growth through his work on acquisitions, strategic partnerships, marketing and sales development. VerticalScope’s wholly owned network now includes more than 300 forum communities, and several major content portals covering the auto, powersports, sports, and technology verticals.

Prior to joining VigLink, Jack co-founded Driving Revenue Inc. Jack spent the previous 10 years in internet application development, having worked with companies such as American Airlines, Home Depot, Sears, Exelon Corp, and the US Department of Housing & Urban Development.

Now working with SocialGO, the worlds leading "business grade" niche social network maker, Richard has over twenty years experience in marketing, branding, communications, video, web-media and events for many of the worlds best known brands, including Virgin, Four Seasons, Hilton, HP, Intel, Apple, Cisco, Kodak and FedEx."

Jamie has been involved in building forum communities for more than 13 years and is the founder of VWvortex, one of the largest and longest running automotive discussion forums. Jamie has been involved in the creation of a vast number of websites including VWvortex.com, Fourtitude.com, Swedespeed.com and Kilometermagazine.com

Since Co-founding in 2001, Andrew has built Attack! into one of the largest guerrilla marketing and event staffing firms in the country. As a progressive force in the experiential industry, he’s authored several articles in trade publications such as PROMO Magazine and Chief Marketer.

In this role he designs and manages all manner of innovative social media projects. He lives, works and plays in San Francisco, always on the lookout for good coffee, camping and conversation.