Defending Web 2.0 From Virtual Blight

Jonah Stein is the founder of Its The ROI, a San Francisco Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing company. In 2007, he coined the term Virtual Blight to help web publishers understand the impact of Spam, scammers and other parasitic marketers on the value of web properties.

Jonah has been responsible for planning, designing and executing the web vision of companies ranging from venture funded start ups to Fortune 500 companies. Through two business cycles of venture capitalists pouring money like chum into the feeding frenzy, he has focused on creating functional web businesses with measurable ROI. Its The ROI currently assists companies with all aspects of Search Engine Marketing and Jonah serves on the advisory boards of several start up companies.

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Matt Cutts joined Google as a Software Engineer in January 2000. Before Google, he was working on his Ph.D. in computer graphics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has an M.S. from UNC-Chapel Hill, and B.S. degrees in both mathematics and computer science from the University of Kentucky.

Matt wrote SafeSearch, which is Google’s family filter. In addition to his experience at Google, Matt held a top-secret clearance while working for the Department of Defense, and he’s also worked at a game engine company. He claims that Google is the most fun by far.

Matt currently heads up the Webspam team for Google. Matt talks about webmaster-related issues on his blog.

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Steve Huffman is the Co-Founder of Reddit and spends his days fighting people trying to game their system.

Jonathan Hochman is the founder of Hochman Consultants where he has 20 years experience as a business development, marketing and technology consultant. He is also the chairman of SEMNE, an association of professional search marketers in New England. In 1990 Hochman received two degrees in Computer Science from Yale. Hochman’s credentials include Qualified Google Advertising Professional, Yahoo Search Marketing Ambassador, and Microsoft adExcellence Member. He has spoken at the Web 2.0 Summit, Search Marketing Expo (SMX) and Search Engine Strategies (SES) conferences. He writes for Search Engine Land, Search Marketing Standard, and Internet Evolution.

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He is the founder and CEO of Pramana. Mr. Sehgal has over 12 years of executive management and entrepreneurial experience in enterprise software, system sales, marketing and operations. Prior to Pramana, Mr. Sehgal founded or co-founded three companies, AMI, (sold to LSI Logic for over $220M), iVivity, and Scentric, all category-leading companies in their respective markets. He has led business critical efforts in a startup environment, including building a successful sales organization, raising venture and strategic funding, product development and launch, establishing and managing partner relationships, and overseeing company acquisition

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