Chris DeWolfe

Chris DeWolfe

Chris DeWolfe in 2015
Born 1966 (age 49–50)
Portland, Oregon [1]
Alma mater University of Washington (B.A., 1988)
University of Southern California (MBA, 1997) [1]
Occupation CEO of Jam City, Inc
Known for co-founder of MySpace

Chris DeWolfe (born 1966) is an American entrepreneur, and one of the creators of Myspace (along with Tom Anderson), of which he is also the former CEO. He has the sixth account ever made on the site. During DeWolfe's tenure, MySpace became the top social network, with over 135 million worldwide unique visitors a month.[2] Under DeWolfe, music became a defining feature of MySpace, which was credited with challenging and reinventing the music label industry [3] with the MySpace Music section, which allowed unsigned artists to post their music for free and launched the careers of several famous musicians, among them Lily Allen and Sean Kingston. Currently, DeWolfe is the CEO of Jam City, Inc.

DeWolfe got his vision for MySpace while taking a course titled, "The Impact of Tech on Media and Entertainment," during the final year of his college. In the final project for his class, DeWolfe created "Sitegeist" which had elements of CitySearch, Match.com mixed with the function of IM. DeWolfe got an "A" on his project and used it as inspiration in creating MySpace.[4]

DeWolfe was integral to the sale of MySpace to News Corporation in 2005 for $580 million and remained as its CEO until March 2009, at which point, MySpace was larger than its competitor, Facebook.[5][6][7] On April 22, 2009, News Corp. announced DeWolfe would step down as CEO and will be a strategic adviser to Myspace and serve on the board of MySpace China. The former Facebook executive Owen Van Natta replaced him.[8]

In 2010, DeWolfe won backing from Austin Ventures to purchase MindJolt, a social gaming platform, with former MySpace colleagues Aber Whitcomb and Colin Digiaro. In 2011, MindJolt became one of the few multi platform game developers when it acquired two additional companies—Jam City, Inc, a mobile games company, and Hallpass Media, a free online gaming network.[9] Jam City, Inc went on to acquire video game developer Mob Science in June 2013.[10] In July 2015, Jam City, Inc announced an investment of $130 million from Netmarble Games, the number one mobile games publisher in South Korea.[11]

DeWolfe went to Lincoln High School,[12] then graduated from the University of Washington in 1988, where he was a member of Beta Theta Pi Fraternity. DeWolfe also has an MBA from the University of Southern California. He was honored by the school as Alumni Entrepreneur of the Year in 2006.[13] He won the prestigious E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year award in June 2015.[14] He has been profiled in many major publications such as The New York Times,[15] USA Today,[16] Fortune,[17] and BusinessWeek, [18] and also is an investor in the travel site, GoGoBot. In 2006, DeWolfe was named one of TIME’s 100 most influential people in the world.[19] In 2007, he was chosen by Barbara Walters as one of her 10 most fascinating people[20] and won the Producers Guild of America's Vanguard Award in 2009. DeWolfe also served on the board of trustees of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art[21] and is currently on the board of directors for Woven Digital.[22]

References

  1. 1 2 "Entry: Chris DeWolfe", NNDB
  2. ↑ Szalai, Georg (2007-02-23). "FIM makes Strategic acquisition". Hollywoodreporter.com. The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2011-11-09.
  3. ↑ Levine, Robert (2006-09-04). "MySpace Music Store Is New Challenge for Big Labels". nytimes.com. The New York Times. Retrieved 2011-11-09.
  4. ↑ Kozlowski, Lori. May 15th, 2012. "New Life: How Myspace Spawned A Start-Up Ecosystem." http://www.forbes.com/sites/lorikozlowski/2012/05/15/how-myspace-spawned-a-startup-ecosystem/
  5. ↑ Arrington, Michael (2009-04-22). "It's Official: MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe Steps Down". techcrunch.com. TechCrunch. Retrieved 2011-11-09.
  6. ↑ Schonfeld, Erick (2009-06-25). "Facebook Finally Catches Up To MySpace In The U.S.". techcrunch.com. TechCrunch. Retrieved 2011-11-09.
  7. ↑ "News Corp in $580m internet buy". BBC. BBC News. 2005-07-19. Retrieved 2011-11-09.
  8. ↑ Garrahan, Matthew (2009-10-22). "MySpace abandons race with Facebook". FT.com. The Financial Times. Retrieved 2009-11-10.
  9. ↑ Rao, Leena (2011-04-18). "Chris DeWolfe's MindJolt Expands Gaming Empire; Buys SGN And Hallpass Media". techcrunch.com. TechCrunch. Retrieved 2009-11-10.
  10. ↑ Faughnder, Ryan (June 13, 2013). "Chris DeWolfe's SGN gaming company acquires Mob Science". Los Angeles Times. Tribune Company. Retrieved October 25, 2013.
  11. ↑ Zimmerman, Eilene (2015-07-23). "Netmarble Takes Stake in SGN, Extending Asia's Reach Into U.S. Mobile Games". The New York Times.
  12. ↑ Angwin, Julia (2009). Stealing MySpace: The Battle to Control the Most Popular Website in America. Random House. ISBN 1-4000-6694-8.
  13. ↑ "USC Marshall » Lloyd Greif Center Alumni Entrepreneur of the Year". classic.marshall.usc.edu. 2012. Retrieved 12 June 2013.
  14. ↑ http://www.ey.com/US/en/About-us/Entrepreneurship/Entrepreneur-Of-The-Year/LA_Winners15#videosection
  15. ↑ Rusli, Evelyn (2011-04-18). "A Myspace Founder Builds Again, Buying Game Companies". New York Times. New York Times. Retrieved 2011-11-07.
  16. ↑ Swartz, Jon (2010-07-13). "Life after MySpace: the next project for social network's co-founder". USA Today. USA Today. Retrieved 2011-11-07.
  17. ↑ "Portraits of power | Chris DeWolfe". Fortune. Cable News Network. 2006. Retrieved 2009-11-10.
  18. ↑ Bartiromo, Maria (2008-05-21). "Facetime with Chris DeWolfe". BusinessWeek. The McGraw-Hill Companies. Retrieved 2009-11-10.
  19. ↑ Foo, Sharin (2013). "Tom Anderson & Chris DeWolfe". time.com. Retrieved 12 June 2013.
  20. ↑ "The 10 Most Fascinating People of 2007". abcnews.go.com. December 6, 2007. Retrieved 12 June 2013.
  21. ↑ Wyatt, Edward (March 6, 2007). "Big Corporate Gift Expected for Los Angeles County Museum of Art". The New York Times. New York City: The New York Times Company. Retrieved October 25, 2013.
  22. ↑ "Former Myspace CEO Joins Woven Digital Board (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2016-04-04.
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