Joe Mohen
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Joseph T. Mohen (born July 19, 1956) works in holographic attractions. He has been CEO of Nylon Media, best known for having been founder and CEO and co-founder of election.com, which ran the Arizona Democratic Primary in March 2000, the world’s first legally binding election conducted on the Internet, according to the company. Mohen was also a force in creating the era of free legal music, as the founder of SpiralFrog, an ad-supported free music service, which even before
Spotify Spotify (; ) is a proprietary Swedish audio streaming and media services provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. It is one of the largest music streaming service providers, with over 456 million monthly active us ...
was able secure the rights to free music distribution from the major record labels in return for a share of the advertising revenues; SpiralFrog ultimately failed because it not create an iPhone APP, but the licensees that he negotiated paved the way for the streaming music era. In March 2016, Mohen published a guest blog predicting the collapse of baseball World Series television revenues unless its schedule is revamped.


Early life and childhood

Mohen was born in the New York City borough of
Queens Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...
, the oldest of twelve children of Joseph Conrad Mohen (1935-2017) and Virginia Ann (Kelly) Mohen (born 1935), both descendants of Irish immigrants. His maternal great-grandfather, James Morris, an immigrant from
Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...
, was one of the first full time staff of any motion picture studio, being hired by
Adolph Zukor Adolph Zukor (; hu, Zukor Adolf; January 7, 1873 – June 10, 1976) was a Hungarian-American film producer best known as one of the three founders of Paramount Pictures.Obituary ''Variety Obituaries, Variety'' (June 16, 1976), p. 76. He produ ...
in 1912, at
Famous Players Famous Players Limited Partnership, DBA Famous Players, is a Canadian-based subsidiary of Cineplex Entertainment. As an independent company, it existed as a film exhibitor and cable television service provider. Famous Players operated numerous m ...
, making sets for the silent films at
Chelsea Studios Chelsea Studios, also known as Chelsea Television Studios, is an American television studio and sound stage located at 221 West 26th Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. Hist ...
in Manhattan; Famous Players was later merged with a competitor and renamed
Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...
. In 1960, when Mohen was four, the family moved to Garden City on
Long Island Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United Sta ...
. There he attended a local Catholic School, St. Anne’s, and later an Episcopal Preparatory School, St. Paul’s; while in high school he attended
Boys State The American Legion Boys State and American Legion Auxiliary Girls State are summer leadership and citizenship programs for high school juniors, which focus on exploring the mechanics of American government and politics. The programs are sponsor ...
, and was captain of the Cross Country and Track teams. He was offered a track scholarship to the University of Ohio, which he declined, instead electing to attend
Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...
in Baltimore where he studied Mathematics and Biochemistry, and
Manhattan College Manhattan College is a private, Catholic, liberal arts university in the Bronx, New York City. Originally established in 1853 by the Brothers of the Christian Schools (De La Salle Christian Brothers) as an academy for day students, it was la ...
in New York City studying Business.


Early career

Mohen started his career working for Chase Bank on Wall Street, and became an officer at Citibank at 24 years old. Having worked as a software engineer for six years, Mohen became a Certified Computer Professional in Systems Development in 1985. The following year he founded Proginet Corporation of which he served as CEO until September 1996, and remained a Chairman through 1998. In 1987, Proginet created a complex software package called XCOM, which sold in 1992 to a predecessor company of
Computer Associates CA Technologies, formerly known as CA, Inc. and Computer Associates International, Inc., is an American multinational corporation headquartered in New York City. It is primarily known for its business-to-business (B2B) software with a product po ...
, and was one of the software products to span more than eleven computer operating systems. The renamed CA-XCOM was sold by Computer Associates through 2017. As CEO, Mohen secured equity stakes from both
Novell Novell, Inc. was an American software and services company headquartered in Provo, Utah, that existed from 1980 until 2014. Its most significant product was the multi-platform network operating system known as Novell NetWare. Under the lead ...
and
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
in Proginet; Proginet was later acquired by
Tibco Software TIBCO Software Inc. is an American business intelligence software company founded in 1997 in Palo Alto, California. It has headquarters in Palo Alto, California, and offices in North America, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa and South A ...
. Mohen also was a contributing editor and columnist for
eWeek ''eWeek'' (''Enterprise Newsweekly'', stylized as ''eWEEK''), formerly PCWeek, is a technology and business magazine. Previously owned by QuinStreet; Nashville, Tennessee marketing company TechnologyAdvice acquired eWeek in 2020. The print edi ...
, Data Communications Magazine, and Network World; in 1989, he wrote a widely quoted article, called "Seeking a Cure for the
Vaporware In the computer industry, vaporware (or vapourware) is a product, typically computer hardware or software, that is announced to the general public but is late or never actually manufactured nor officially cancelled. Use of the word has broade ...
Epidemic", writing "my own estimate is that at the time of announcement, 10% of software products don't actually exist ... Vendors that are unwilling to rove it existsshouldn't announce their packages to the press", blaming the press for not investigating claims by developers, saying "If the pharmaceutical industry were this careless, I could announce a cure for cancer today – to a believing press." In 1990-1992, Mohen was a committee member for setting standards for Open Systems Interconnections Protocols, with representatives from computer and telecommunications organizations from around the world.


election.com

Mohen co-founded election.com, with which in 1999 he was able to recruit
Jack Kemp Jack French Kemp (July 13, 1935 – May 2, 2009) was an American politician and a professional football player. A member of the Republican Party from New York, he served as Housing Secretary in the administration of President George H. W. Bu ...
and former Irish
Taoiseach The Taoiseach is the head of government, or prime minister, of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. The office is appointed by the president of Ireland upon the nomination of Dáil Éireann (the lower house of the Oireachtas, Ireland's national legisl ...
(i.e. Prime Minister)
Garret FitzGerald Garret Desmond FitzGerald (9 February 192619 May 2011) was an Irish Fine Gael politician, economist and barrister who served twice as Taoiseach, serving from 1981 to 1982 and 1982 to 1987. He served as Leader of Fine Gael from 1977 to 1987, and ...
to the board. election.com icis best known for administering the 2000 Arizona Democratic presidential primary Internet election. The company, originally called Votation.com, was started in part with equity investments from
VeriSign Verisign Inc. is an American company based in Reston, Virginia, United States that operates a diverse array of network infrastructure, including two of the Internet's thirteen root nameservers, the authoritative registry for the , , and gener ...
and
Accenture Accenture plc is an Irish-American professional services company based in Dublin, specializing in information technology (IT) services and consulting. A ''Fortune'' Global 500 company, it reported revenues of $61.6 billion in 2022. Accentur ...
. In February election.com acquired NewVoter.com with then internet entrepreneur and civil rights advocate
Mark Strama Thomas Mark Strama, known as Mark Strama (born September 10, 1967), is an American businessman and Director of the Annette Strauss Institute for Civic Life, and a Professor of Practice in the Department of Communication and Media Studies in the ...
(who was subsequently elected to the Texas State legislature in 2004), who joined election.com as Vice President. During the second week of March 2000, election.com administered the Arizona Democratic Presidential Primary, which was the first time in American history that a statewide election offered citizens the choice to cast their ballots over the web. The candidates were Vice President Al Gore, Senator Bill Bradley, and Dr. Heather Harder. Voter turnout was shocking: turnout was up more 500% versus the previous primary, and more than double the previous record turnout. Six months later, the Internet Corporation for Assigning Names and Numbers (ICANN), the technical coordination body for the internet, chose election.com to run their worldwide vote for its board of directors. Voters came from every continent. Mohen expanded the company to New York, Washington, Texas, London, Paris, Sydney, Australia, and Christchurch, New Zealand, and saw Election.com named to the Red Herring 100, as well as its top 50 Private Companies list. Mohen stepped down as CEO of election.com in 2001. Two years after Mohen left, the public sector elections business of election.com was acquired by
Accenture Accenture plc is an Irish-American professional services company based in Dublin, specializing in information technology (IT) services and consulting. A ''Fortune'' Global 500 company, it reported revenues of $61.6 billion in 2022. Accentur ...
.


Automating Catholic Church finance

In late 2001, Mohen founded ParishPay, a Fintech company which automated handling of money for churches around the United States. The company replaced the envelope system, whereby donations were placed into envelopes each Sabbath, with a system in which parish members could have their donations automatically debited from their bank or credit card accounts each month. Shortly after its launch, the system was featured in a front page story in the ''New York Times'', after signing the Catholic Dioceses of Chicago, San Jose, and Orlando, and ParishPay received Venture Capital financing in late 2002. Mohen sold his interest In ParishPay to start SpiralFrog, although ParishPay grew substantially and was later merged with SmartTuition; ParishPay was sold to Yapstone in April 2012.


Digital music and SpiralFrog

Mohen started SpiralFrog, Inc. in an effort to create a market-driven solution to digital music piracy. In 2004, a focus group in New York City was held to determine how to solve the problem of young people stealing music. One of the attendees in the focus group responded "Why don’t you just give away the music"….and show advertising during the downloads. Most doubted the four major record labels would ever go along with the idea, especially the largest music company –
Universal Music Group Universal Music Group N.V. (often abbreviated as UMG and referred to as just Universal Music) is a Dutch– American multinational music corporation under Dutch law. UMG's corporate headquarters are located in Hilversum, Netherlands and its ...
, Mohen set out to recruit directors from music and advertising to obtain the needed licenses. Among those recruited included former CEOs Jay Bernman (IFPI), Frances Preston (BMI), and Robin Kent (
Interpublic The Interpublic Group of Companies, Inc. (IPG) is an American publicly traded advertising company. The company consists of five major networks: FCB, IPG Mediabrands, McCann Worldgroup, MullenLowe Group, and Marketing Specialists, as well as a n ...
Universal McCann). Finally, on August 28, 2006, the ''Financial Times'' reported in its lead story, that it had granted SpiralFrog the first ever license to give away its complete catalog of music to consumers for free, in return for a share of the advertising revenues. "This is really promising that the labels are going to finally stop kvetching and start thinking intelligently about where their money's going to come from in the 21st century," said Aram Sinnreich, of Radar Research, being quoted in the ''Los Angeles Times''. "SpiralFrog is one small step for the record labels, one great leap for music kind." While SpiralFrog service was one of the earliest free internet music services to be supported by advertising instead of charging users, predating Spotify and YouTube music by several years, it used a temporary download model, which was not compatible with Apple or Android devices. The launch of SpiralFrog was delayed, due to technical and licensing delays, and an internal control fight. Robin Kent, the British advertising executive who had been recruited by Mohen the year before, attempted a spectacular corporate takeover in December 2006, which was widely reported in the press. Mohen emerged the winner in what was later known as the "Boxing Day Massacre", but most industry observers believed that SpiralFrog.com would never launch. Mohen continued to insist that he would overcome these obstacles and launch the site. He went on to sign all remaining major music publishers, and performing rights societies, financed the company with exchangeable debt, and SpiralFrog.com finally launched on September 17, 2007. In June 2008, Mohen concluded an agreement with the British music company
EMI EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British transnational conglomerate founded in March 1931 in London. At the time of its break-up in 201 ...
, whose catalog was added to SpiralFrog prior to the
Coldplay Coldplay are a British rock band formed in London in 1997. They consist of vocalist and pianist Chris Martin, guitarist Jonny Buckland, bassist Guy Berryman, drummer Will Champion and creative director Phil Harvey. They met at University Col ...
Viva La Vida tour. However, the collapse of the stock market in September 2008, and the ensuing credit crisis, combined with contraction of the advertising markets, left SpiralFrog unable to meet its collateralized note agreements. SpiralFrog was particularly vulnerable to the credit crisis because it was debt-financed as opposed to equity-financed, and its backers were hedge funds who were themselves facing huge redemptions. Its loans were called and SpiralFrog was forced to close. Retrospectively, while other free ad-supported music services that came later did succeed like Spotify, the SpiralFrog download (rather than streaming) model limited the number of devices on which SpiralFrog could be used, and ultimately prevent its long term success.


Fashion Media and Nylon Magazine

In May 2014, Mohen was part of a group, also including Dana Fields, that purchased ''Nylon Magazine'', a fashion magazine for young women that focused on gritty street fashion, which was merged with digital media company FashionIndie. Following the merger, he became interim CEO of the combined company, and served as an adviser afterwards. The Nylon Media transaction was significant because it laid the foundation for the transformation of a traditional media print business into one that was primarily digital, facilitated in part by the young demographic of its audience, part by the merger with the fashion blogger company, and because of the focus of the new management team.


Holographic Tourist Attractions

Mohen led a
metaverse In science fiction, the "metaverse" is a hypothetical iteration of the Internet as a single, universal, and immersive virtual world that is facilitated by the use of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) headsets. In colloquial usage, ...
systems management software development team to create a technology platform to stream holograms that do not require glasses to see. It was the world's first platform dedicated to managing holographic tourist attractions, fashion shows, retail locations, and television; it also acquired music meta databases and began repurposing them to manage holographic music media assets. The company also pioneered blockchain media research for this sector. In 2019 he spoke at the Light Field and Holographic Display Summit.


Awards and miscellaneous

Mohen gave the keynote address at the Interop Conference in Washington in 1993, and an address to the South African Technology leadership in Pretoria in 1990 on transition after
Apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...
. He won the Long Island Software Awards in 1997, 2000, and 2008. He is a former member of the
National Association of Corporate Directors The National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) is an independent, not-for-profit, section 501(c)(3) founded in 1977 and headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. NACD's membership includes the entire boards of 1,700+ corporations as well as ...
Blue Ribbon Commission on Corporate Governance, and of Legatus, the organization of Catholic Chief Executive Officers. Mohen was also selected to speak onstage with
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
CEO
Steve Ballmer Steven Anthony Ballmer (; March 24, 1956) is an American business magnate and investor who served as the chief executive officer of Microsoft from 2000 to 2014. He is the current owner of the Los Angeles Clippers of the National Basketball Associ ...
when Microsoft announced that it had broken the previous record for the TPS benchmark for scalable systems in September 2000. He served on the Interactive Advertising Bureau's Broadband Committee in 2006. In June 2011, the Montreal based technology accelerator program, FounderFuel, selected Mohen among its Entrepreneur Mentors, along with David Cancel, David Hauser, and Jean-Sebastien Cournoyer, among others. In 2013, Mohen published two controversial and provocative Op Ed pieces on digital media in ''Computerworld'' and Ad Age. The former chastises text book publishers for failing to make all the text books available in electronic form, while the latter states that vendor claims about a new advertising technology were over-hyped. Mohen has been active in the charity organized by
Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...
for keeping minority and underprivileged youth active in sports. He ran the Long Island, New York, chapter of
Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities (RBI) is a youth baseball program operated by Major League Baseball. This youth initiative is designed to provide young people from underserved and diverse communities the opportunity to play baseball and softba ...
(RBI), through Garden City Bombers Baseball non-profit organization, of which he was one of the founders; this organizations combines young people from minority and affluent neighborhoods on the same baseball teams, and combines the teaching of baseball skills, with academic support, and other life lessons. In 2006 and 2007, he organized a number of baseball tournaments in the Dominican Republic, and in July 2010 he helped organize the first Governor's tee ball game at the Executive Mansion in Albany, New York.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mohen, Joe American chief executives in the media industry Living people 1956 births American technology chief executives Johns Hopkins University alumni Manhattan College alumni Businesspeople from Queens, New York