Jon Radoff
| Jon Radoff | |
|---|---|
 Photograph of Jon Radoff circa 2008 |
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| Born | September 17, 1972 United States |
| Occupation | CEO, Disruptor Beam, Inc. |
Jon Radoff (born September 17, 1972) is an American entrepreneur, author and game designer. His work has focused on online communities, Internet media and computer games.
Radoff dropped out to found NovaLink, an early internet service provider.[1] In 1991, while at NovaLink, he created Legends of Future Past, one of the first commercial MMORPGs.[1]
In 1997, he founded Eprise Corporation, a creator of Web content management software.[2][3] Eprise went public on the NASDAQ stock market in 2000[4] and was acquired by Divine Inc. in 2001.[5]
On September 21, 2006, Radoff founded GamerDNA, a social media company working on creating a player-focused community for people who enjoy games.[6] New York-based Crispy Gamer, an online video game review site, acquired GamerDNA, which built a community website that used real-time game play information to generate video game recommendations for community members.
In March 2010, it was revealed that Radoff was working on a new social game company that would be focused on roleplaying games from websites such as Facebook. [7][8]
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[edit] Writing
Radoff wrote Game On: Energize your Business with Social Games, which was published by Wiley in 2011. The book discusses social games, which Radoff views as a 5,000 year-old phenomena, and how games can be applied to businesses to make them more engaging and profitable. Radoff is generally critical of the gamification trend, and explains to businesses that they must incorporate story and immersion into their businesses if they really want to take advantage of the unique engagement offered by games.
[edit] Early career
Radoff lived in Northborough, Massachusetts and was a 1991 graduate of Algonquin Regional High School. During his high school years, he developed Space Empire Elite, a bulletin board system strategy game for Atari ST BBS systems.[9] Also while in high school, Radoff purchased the rights to port the Atari ST BBS software StarLink, which supported FidoNet, to the Commodore Amiga; Radoff named the ported software Paragon BBS. After a brief time studying at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Radoff dropped out to form his first company.
[edit] References
- ^ a b Online Company SparkForge Formed, Coins 'MSOGs', GamaSutra, September 22, 2006
- ^ Ed Scannell, InfoWorld, Feb. 11, 2000, "Eprise CTO guides businesses through Web maze," http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/00/02/14/000214hnctospot.html
- ^ Jan Stafford, VARBusiness, May 23, 2000, "Eprise CTO Jon Radoff: Content Rules," http://qa.varbusiness.com/article/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=EWVN4KK5M2VEKQSNDLUCKHA?articleId=18809992
- ^ Eprise Expected To Rocket On Offering, Forbes, March 22, 2000
- ^ http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=77801 Divine closes acquisition of Eprise Corporation, Divine Inc. press release, December 5, 2001
- ^ GamerDNA company website
- ^ Rodney Brown, Mass High Tech, Radoff surfaces at Facebook game maker Disruptor Beam
- ^ Scott Kirsner, Boston.com, Vidgame couple build new venture around 'social gaming' trend
- ^ SRE: Design Notes, Amit Patel (Designer of Solar Realms Elite)
