Jonathan Taplin is a Professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California. Taplin’s areas of specialization are in international communication management and the field of digital media entertainment. Taplin began his entertainment career in 1969 as Tour Manager for Bob Dylan and The Band. In 1973 he produced Martin Scorsese’s first feature film, Mean Streets
In 1984 Taplin acted as the investment advisor to the Bass Brothers in their successful attempt to save Walt Disney Studios from a corporate raid. This experience brought him to Merrill Lynch, where he served as vice president of media mergers and acquisitions. In this role, he helped re-engineer the media landscape on transactions such as the leveraged buyout of Viacom. Taplin was a founder of Intertainer and has served as its Chairman and CEO since June 1996. Intertainer was the pioneer video-on-demand company for both cable and broadband Internet markets. Taplin holds two patents for video on demand technologies. Professor Taplin has provided consulting services on Broadband technology to the President of Portugal and the Parliament of the Spanish state of Catalonia. He is also an Advisor to the President of Business Edge Solutions.
Mr. Taplin graduated from Princeton University. He is a member of the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and sits on the advisory board of the Democracy Collaborative at the University of Maryland and Public Knowledge. Mr. Taplin was appointed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to the California Broadband Task Force in January of 2007..
27 responses so far ↓
Stephen Verona // December 25, 2007 at 3:52 am
Great blog. Will be tuned in for more in 2008. Much love, Verona
Ohadi Langis // January 12, 2008 at 10:32 am
Great stuff. Please get an RSS feed set up for it. Thanks.
Joey Hayles // January 12, 2008 at 11:11 am
Keep up the good work! I’ll second Ohadi’s suggestion of getting an RSS feed live.
Joey Hayles // January 12, 2008 at 11:13 am
DOH! I just saw the RSS on your Front Page–maybe make it a bit more prominent? Thanks!
WhoreChurch // January 13, 2008 at 9:37 am
…and he looks like Adam on Mythbusters.
JTS // January 14, 2008 at 10:31 am
I also love the blog (after being tuned in through BB)! But I couldn’t get the syndication link to work. Am I mental? Are their issues in Safari? Anyone else still having trouble?
rhbee // January 14, 2008 at 4:07 pm
Sorry about that Mr. Taplin that comment was supposed to post to your post on Goldberg.
Matt Rosenzweig // January 14, 2008 at 5:43 pm
Just dropping a line to let you know I’m linked in to your blog and enjoying the material you’re posting. I hope all is well at USC!
Houston // February 14, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Jon: Thanks for the great reading. I’ve been tuned in to every post ever since the BoingBoing coverage. When I miss a day, I make sure to catch up. Thanks for the freshness, the frankness, and the un-flaky-ness. –h
Jon Taplin // February 14, 2008 at 5:18 pm
Thanks Houston, we just started in January so its taken off pretty quickly. What I like is that everyone is both smart and civil.
A lot of bloggers warned me that the response pages could turn into flame contests. So far this hasn’t happened at all and in fact the discussion keeps getting smarter.
wen mew // February 18, 2008 at 6:40 am
great blog! bill, rush limbaugh, o’reilly , hannity all should take meds.
http://www.wenjaz.blogspot.com
wen in santa monica
Rick Turner // February 24, 2008 at 2:33 am
Jon,
Care to comment on McCain’s people positioning him as “the agent of change”? Hmmm… That would take a repudiation of the last seven years of W…wouldn’t it? How will McCain come off as a reforming Republican? And one who is OK with another 100 years of us in Iraq…? Can he spell “non sequetor”? Can I? Google likes a lot of spellings for that, and they’re all wrong in spell-check!
Dax // February 26, 2008 at 8:08 am
Jon, there’s an update to your Dr. Robert Jarvik post. The commercial was pulled:
http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695256376,00.html
(the readers’ comments at the bottom are interesting as well)
bibomedia // February 29, 2008 at 3:21 am
Daniel // March 2, 2008 at 10:34 am
The blog Snapped Shot was served with a cease and desist letter last week by the AP. What are your thoughts? Is it fair use to make critical comments about AP content?
Mr. Cheeseburger 9000 // March 10, 2008 at 8:32 am
Dear Jon,
I love your blog. I mean no offense by this but I feel that I have to comment: you look just like Adam Savage from my favorite t.v. show, Mythbusters (Discovery Channel).
Cheers.
Rick Turner // March 12, 2008 at 6:28 pm
I’d love to see a thread on the Geraldine Ferraro fiasco. Is she on McCain’s secret payroll or has she just lost her ever-lovin’ mind? She’s coming off like the Anti-Christ of the Clinton support street team. Must be dementia kicking in or something…
john Van Hamersveld // March 15, 2008 at 8:08 pm
Carlyle Group and the Federal Reserve guys are running the show and the war goods as well, while this election process in going on. This kind of day must go right up into W’s eyesballs and blow his mind as the puppet with a smile… Where is Chaney, is he in the hospitol I guess!
Bush family touched by subprime crisis
The severity of its liquidity problems indicates that the unfolding financial crisis is taking major parts of the US financial and political elite down with it. Carlyle Capital Corp Ltd, a subsidiary of one of the most influential US private equity funds and closely tied to the Bush family, is in default on several of its securities. Carlyle is an offshore subsidiary of the Washington-based Carlyle Group, one of the most politically powerful private equity firms of the past two decades.
Among the leading partners of the Carlyle Group in recent years have been George H W Bush, father of President George W Bush; James Baker III, the Bush family’s attorney and fixer; and former British prime minister John Major.
Xiaofan // March 16, 2008 at 2:07 pm
Really love this blog, I’ve been subscribing to this since last year.
madmonq // March 17, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Thanks for addressing my question. Amazing you used to work with Scorsese.
Azmanon // March 17, 2008 at 4:31 pm
consider me fire retardant for the flame wars. all your efforts are worthwhile in my book.
also, my roommates and I were big fans of the “until the end of the world” soundtrack in college. The film was a bit overly ambitious but I still liked it.
Chris Weekly // March 30, 2008 at 8:12 am
Just a quick word of encouragement; yours is now the first blog I turn to when I open my feed reader. Thank you for sharing your consistently well-informed and insightful thoughts.
Martin Perlich // March 31, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Great stuff, Jon!!
all best
m
satijournal // April 12, 2008 at 10:30 am
The Last Waltz is probably the greatest concert film ever made! You da man!
grant czerepak // April 17, 2008 at 11:46 pm
Nice to see such a beautiful mind accessible online.
Mike & Kim Hayward // April 23, 2008 at 9:20 am
You have created a wonderfully intelligent blog, Jon, that tackles today’s political & media issues. We’ve included on our plochmann.blogspot.com blog & networked with others to get the word out. Great job & we’ll continue to check it.
Dan Petruk // April 27, 2008 at 11:01 am
Mr. Taplin,
I have a story that may interest you. Folks living in American’s Home Town, Plymouth, MA, are about to vote on a measure to give 50 million tax dollars to David Kirkpatrick, a former Paramount executive, to build a film studio. He’s got a huge astroturf campaign behind this. I can’t think of how this could succeed financially, despite tax rebates for film productions. (Kirkpatrick has said on CBN that he thinks God brought him to Plymouth!) If you want more info, please drop me an email. Folks here in Plymouth could use your insight.
Cheers,
D. Petruk
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