Village People

During the five years I worked for Jack Myers I helped turn The Myers Report into the industryamp8217s daily mustread amp160In return Jack taught me how the industry really worksAfter covering media from the outside in at Adweek and Ad Age Jack gave me the opportunity to cover it from the inside out bringing me behind the scenes with some of its biggest players amp160My first day on the job with Jack was at NATPE 1996 the big programming conference where Jack had emerged as one of its most powerful players representing a studio backed by a Whoamp8217s Who of televisionamp8217s biggest advertisersI had covered NATPE many times but instead of poking around for scoops outside meeting rooms I was inside them taking pitches from legendary producers like Norman Lear Stephen Bochco and Brandon TartikoffWhile presenting to us Tartikoff paused pointed to me smiled and said amp8220Hey I know youamp8221 as in amp8220Whatamp8217s a trade reporter like you doing on the other side of the tableamp8221 amp160I shrugged my shoulders and smiled backThe next five years would alter the landscape of media and disrupt its business models especially advertising amp160Jack brought me in on projects involving many of them including the unbundling of media services the restructuring of Madison Avenueamp160and advising the most important players from AtoZ amp160Literally AOL to Zenith with many in betweenSome of the most interesting projects for me involved working with pioneering attempts to trade media through digital exchanges amp160We even worked with Enron on the creation of a system for trading media the way the energy giant traded electricity on the gridMost of those early pioneers failed with the dotcom crash but they unleashed market forces that would lead to biddable media marketplaces powered by Google realtime audience exchanges and ultimately FacebookIt was just before the crash during the dotcom rally that I worked on one of my most interesting projects with Jackamp160amp160A media trade information portal called Spigot amp160It was my idea and Jack was backing it with all of his resources including a stateoftheart Web site being created by the top Web development agency of the era AgencycomSome of the logic for Bidr began with Spigot especially the idea that we were shifting from an age of media scarcityamp160to one of overabundance where the most valuable asset isnamp8217t media contentamp160but the time people spend consuming itThe idea for Spigot was that users could use a digital interface a website to turn their tap on off or somewhere in between to control the flow of information they accessed through it amp160It never launched due to the crash but it started me on a path that ultimately led to Bidr and after years of being a source then a boss then a friend and a mentor Jack became one of my investors and advisorsWhen it came time to launch Bidr and sign people up to participate in the consumer trial Jack offered to send an invitation to the readers of MediaVillagecom amp160So I asked if I could write a regular column about the people that helped shape it including hopefully some of youIamp8217m starting with Bidramp8217s angels and key advisors amp160People like Joe Marchese whom I wrote about in my first column amp160So I figured Iamp8217d write about Jack in this one to explain the reason for this column and what I hope to achieve amp160Mainly it will just be profiles of people and anecdotes of events that have been key to the development of BidrI hope you will be curious enough to sign up install Bidr and start trading amp160But mostly I just want to socialize the ideas that helped inspire and influence it amp160And I canamp8217t think of a better way than telling you about the people who had themIf you have a unique perspective about Bidr please share it with me at joebidrcom and maybe Iamp8217ll write about it too because that is part of my publishing goals for Bidr to write about the people who use itClick the social buttons above or below to share this story with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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