Mary Lou Song

Mary Lou Song is a Korean-American entrepreneur and was eBay employee number three. She joined the company, formerly AuctionWeb, in 1996 after being recruited by its founder Pierre Omidyar and Jeffrey Skoll.[1] Song is credited with concocting the myth behind eBay's origins, which involved a conversation between Omidyar and his now wife, Pam Omidyar, who sought to find a way to collect more PEZ dispensers.[2][3]

Career

Song graduated from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism with a B.S. in Journalism and a M.A. in Media Studies from Stanford University.[4]

eBay

In his book "The Perfect Store: Inside eBay," Adam Cohen recounts the conversation between Song and Skoll, who she met at a Stanford Business School party. At the time, Song was working for a public relations firm, but agreed to have lunch with Skoll and Omidyar.[5] Song agreed to come on-board and was tasked with "bringing mainstream media attention" to the site.[6] Additionally, she managed the company's public relations and community and product management teams.[7][8] During the early days at eBay, Song is also credited with building the platform's community, tools and strategy to grow from 15,000 members to 20 million.[9] There are several books that cite or credit Ms. Song during her time at eBay.[10]

Friendster

Song joined Friendster, a social networking company, after a six year stint at eBay. She was brought on as their Director of Community Development and responsible for managing their user base.[11][12]

Tokoni

Labeled as a story sharing platform, Tokoni was founded in 2007 by Song and her husband, Alex Kazim. The company closed its doors in 2010.[13][14]

FuelX

Song co-founded FuelX, a San Francisco-based video advertising start-up, with her brother Paxton Song.[15][16]

References

  1. Gitlin, Martin (2011-01-01). eBay: The Company and Its Founder. ABDO Publishing Company. ISBN 9781617840937.
  2. Karp, David (2005-01-01). EBay Hacks: Tips & Tools for Bidding, Buying, and Selling. "O'Reilly Media, Inc.". ISBN 9780596100681.
  3. "Debunking The Creation Myths Behind 5 Huge Companies". Consumerist. 2011-03-30. Retrieved 2016-11-19.
  4. "Mary Lou Song - Medill - Northwestern University". www.medill.northwestern.edu. Retrieved 2016-11-19.
  5. Cohen, Adam (2008-12-14). The Perfect Store: Inside eBay. Little, Brown. ISBN 9780316054645.
  6. Bissonnette, Zac (2016-03-15). The Great Beanie Baby Bubble: Mass Delusion and the Dark Side of Cute. Penguin Publishing Group. ISBN 9781591848004.
  7. "Mary Lou Song - CEO @ FuelX | crunchbase". www.crunchbase.com. Retrieved 2016-11-19.
  8. "Wanderful Guest Speaker: Mary Lou Song | it's a Wanderful blog". wanderful.com. Retrieved 2016-11-19.
  9. "Mary Lou Song | The Huffington Post". www.huffingtonpost.com. Retrieved 2016-11-19.
  10. "Google". www.google.com. Retrieved 2016-11-19.
  11. "MerchantCircle.com | Biographies - Advisors". www.merchantcircle.com. Retrieved 2016-11-19.
  12. "How to Kill a Great Idea!". Inc.com. 2016-06-01. Retrieved 2016-11-19.
  13. Kincaid, Jason. "Ex-eBay/Skype Execs Let You Share Stories With Tokoni". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2016-11-19.
  14. "Tokoni | crunchbase". www.crunchbase.com. Retrieved 2016-11-19.
  15. "FUELX". angel.co. Retrieved 2016-11-19.
  16. "Mary Lou Song - Founder at Tokoni". relationshipscience.com. Retrieved 2016-11-19.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/24/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.