Ryan Magnussen is an American businessperson and media entrepreneur. He was born in 1972. In 1995, he founded Zentropy Partners, which grew to become the fifth-largest interactive advertising agency in the United States. Magnussen started Hollywood-based Ripe Digital Entertainment in 2003 and closed it in 2009, after selling Zentropy to

Interpublic Group 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 ...

for $50 million in 1999, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Education

Magnussen graduated from the

University of Southern California , mottoeng = "Let whoever earns the palm bear it" , religious_affiliation = Nonsectarian—historically Methodist , established = , accreditation = WSCUC , type = Private research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $8.1 ...

Marshall School of Business The USC Marshall School of Business is the business school of the University of Southern California. It is accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. In 1997 the school was renamed following a $35 million donation fr ...

in 1995. During his time as an undergraduate at USC, he developed an award-winning business plan for a class project that would eventually grow to become Zentropy Partners, according to the Los Angeles Business Journal.

Business ventures

Magnussen formed Zentropy Partners, an interactive advertising and branding company, in 1995 just prior to the

dot-com boom The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet. Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Compos ...

. Under his leadership, the fledgling company hit $80 million in annual revenue in three years. Global advertising conglomerate

acquired Zentropy in 1999 for $50 million. In 2001, Zentropy was folded into the MRM Worldwide division of

McCann-Erickson McCann, formerly McCann Erickson, is an American global advertising agency network, with offices in 120 countries. McCann is part of McCann Worldgroup, along with several other agencies, including direct digital marketing agency MRM//McCann, expe ...

. In 2002, Magnussen founded Ripe Digital Entertainment, a media company that developed

video-on-demand Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos without a traditional video playback device and the constraints of a typical static broadcasting schedule. In the 20th century, broadcasting in the form of ...

television networks for cable, the Internet, and wireless devices. Ripe launched three on-demand networks —

Ripe TV Ripe Digital Entertainment (RDE) was an on-demand digital entertainment company with video on demand components on several platforms. RDE was founded by CEO Ryan Magnussen. Networks Ripe's 'networks', which consisted of Ripe TV, Octane TV and ...

, Octane TV and Flow TV. In October 2006,

Time Warner Warner Media, LLC ( traded as WarnerMedia) was an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate. It was headquartered at the 30 Hudson Yards complex in New York City, United States. It was originally established in 1972 by ...

Hearst-Argyle Television Hearst Television, Inc. (formerly Hearst-Argyle Television) is a broadcasting company in the United States owned by Hearst Communications. From 1998 to mid-2009, the company traded its common stock on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbo ...

, and other venture-capital firms invested $32 million in Ripe Digital Entertainment to fund additional networks. Magnussen's RipeTV targeted a young, male audience with short-form programming that was available on cable television, broadband, and mobile devices. As of October 2006, the on-demand network was broadcasting in 20 million homes via Comcast and

, and it drew an average of three to four million views per month, according to the Wall Street Journal. Pioneered by Magnussen and partners, Ripe Digital Entertainment's "immersive advertising" model allowed viewers to watch programs and ads simultaneously as commercial messages were embedded in each show. Big-name sponsors that advertised on Ripe Digital Entertainment networks include Chrysler's Dodge,

Cingular AT&T Mobility LLC, also known as AT&T Wireless and marketed as simply AT&T, is an American telecommunications company. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T Inc. and provides wireless services in the United States. AT&T Mobility is the th ...

, and

Procter & Gamble The Procter & Gamble Company (P&G) is an American multinational consumer goods corporation headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, founded in 1837 by William Procter and James Gamble. It specializes in a wide range of personal health/consumer he ...

's Old Spice. But once the $32 million invested was gone, Ripe Digital Entertainment's programming ended in June 2009.Ripe Digital Entertainment Shuts Down
Retrieved June 23, 2009

Education

Business ventures

References

External links