SiliconSurfer

The SiliconSurfer is John K. Bates. John is currently consulting for several cutting edge Internet companies: John represents Entropia Universe in the US, he is a part owner and the Director of Venue Acquisitions for Goldstar Events, he is also a partner in FileDBA.com. John has been active on the Internet since 1987 and has been an active Entrepreneur since 1994. In 1987 he learned how to use a Macintosh in under 10 minutes and got his first job working with computers on the Internet half an hour later. John graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of California at Los Angeles where he received a B.S. in Sociology/Social Psychology from the UCLA Honors Collegium. The SiliconSurfer, John’s blog, serves as an online forum for the best of John’s discoveries.

Let the waters settle
You will see moon and stars
Mirrored in your being.            -Rumi

More about John K. Bates:

John Bates has over 20 years of Internet, marketing and communications experience. An Internet veteran since 1987, John began his career installing and managing complex computer networks for the University of California at Los Angeles.

John is a professional speaker and is uniquely qualified to address subjects ranging from the Internet, Virtual Worlds, business, memetic marketing and brand advocacy to Entrepreneurism to the Environment. He also consults for his brother’s company Hotwaxmedia.com, a world class integrator of Internet technology, business process and branding, and is the driving force behind FileDBA.com.
During the dot com days John was co-founder and Chief Evangelist for BIGWORDS.com. There, John helped to raise over $68M and helped craft and lead the college and guerilla marketing charge, which put BIGWORDS far ahead of their closest competitors for a fraction of the marketing budget.

Before co-founding BIGWORDS, John was famous as the Director of Online Services for Virtual Vegas, the first online entertainment Web site in the dot com domain. Virtual Vegas participated in many groundbreaking beta tests: the release of VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language for the Web), RealAudio, and many more. John also co-founded RadioNet, the first radio show with a home page.

John Bates has lectured all over the world at hundreds of conferences such as the Harvard Business School Cyberposium, Web Attack, Jupiter conferences, the Vanderbilt Business School Distinguished Speaker’s Forum, the St. Gallen Business School World Leaders Symposium, and in hundreds of University classrooms for student groups all over the US and Europe. He has also written about digital culture for magazines ranging from Wired to Surfer. When he isn’t surfing the Internet John loves to surf the oceans of planet Earth.