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Ben Ziskind's Professional Career

I work at Rovi Corporation where I am a Director of Product Management. I manage the technology portfolio for DivX Protected Content, one of the largest video digital rights management (DRM) ecosystems in the world, consisting of 600M+ consumer electronic devices (DVD players, mobile phones, Blu-Ray players, PlayStation 3, digital televisions, etc.) and 500M+ Windows and Mac computers.

Consumers can buy and download the latest Hollywood blockbusters from Warner Bros., s, Sony Pictures, Disney, and Lionsgate, protected in the DivX format from online stores in Europe (Free, Media Markt, WarnerVideoLive, MediaMax, VideoLand, FilmOn) and the US (CinemaNow, WBShop). The consumer value proposition is simple: digital content you buy in DivX format will play on any DivX certified device as well as your Windows and Mac computers. And because it is a DivX file, you can make as many copies as you like, back them up, copy them to a flash drive, or burn them to DVD - legally.

In addition to the DivX Protected Content ecosystem, my team also manages Rovi's media recognition and automotive solutions.

Before joining DivX in 2008, I've been primarily a technology entrepreneur, having founded two startups and worked at a number of others:

I have also provided expertise in usability and product management to Fortune 100 companies including a CRM/SFA platform (customer relationship management / sales-force automation) for Time Warner Cable Road Runner, and adding social networking functionality and applications to a Motorola handset targeted at the teen market.

I double-majored in Information & Decision Systems and Human-Computer Interaction and Carnegie Mellon University where I focused on software usability, databases, and web-based applications. I currently attened USC Marshall School of Business where I am working on an Executive MBA with an expected graduation in 2013.

I started out life as a software engineer designing and developing web-based applications running the gamut from eCommerce, shopping carts, threaded discussion software, mailing list systems, content publishing tools, grant applications, and consumer web sites.

From a technology perspective I have extensive expertise in content ingestion (video, audio), content aggregation (web crawlers, metadata), social networking (Facebook applications, mobile applications, viral distribution), localization and multilingual software (designing, deploying, managing), mobile (text messaging, premium SMS billing, J2ME, Symbian S60, Windows Mobile), and real-time communication (instant messaging, SMS) and I also know my way around a SQL database.

More About Ben Ziskind

You can find out more about my career on my LinkedIn profile.

Feel free to contact me about opportunities in product management and software usability.