Jump to content

Adam Curry

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Gary (talk | contribs) at 17:54, 11 December 2005 (References). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

File:Adamcurry1.jpg
Adam Curry

Adam Curry (born September 3, 1964) is a broadcasting and Internet personality well known for his stint from 1987 to 1994 as a video jockey on the music video channel MTV. In the mid-1990s, Curry was a World Wide Web entrepreneur and one of the first celebrities to personally create and administer a Web site. In the 2000s, he helped pioneer podcasting.

Early radio and TV career

Curry was born in Arlington, USA, but lived in Amsterdam from 1972 to 1987. There he got his first break in broadcasting as the host of the weekly pop-music television program Countdown. He also hosted several other radio and television programs for the Netherlands broadcast station Veronica.

In 1986, Curry became a VJ for MTV. Besides making spot appearances between music videos, he was also host of the programs Top 20 Countdown and Headbangers Ball. While working for MTV, he also did radio work, including: drive-time host for the New York City radio station WHTZ, and host of the national program HitLine USA.

The Web and MTV.com

In the late 1980s, before the World Wide Web, in the days of Gopher, Curry began experimenting on the Net. He registered the then-unclaimed domain name "mtv.com" in 1993 with the idea of being MTV's unofficial new voice on the Internet. Although sanctioned by MTV Networks, when Adam left to start his company OnRamp, MTV sued him for the domain name, which led to an out-of-court settlement.

Curry left MTV in 1994 and founded OnRamp, Inc., a Web design and hosting company. He eventually grew the company to 40 employees and sold it to THINK New Ideas, Inc., another company that he co-founded. He became Chief Technology Officer of THINK. In 1996, as the Internet was undergoing its legendary "bubble," the company made an initial public offering on NASDAQ under the ticker symbol THNK. It subsequently grew to employ over 400 people and have offices in seven countries, and was absorbed into Answerthink, Inc. in a later merger.

Podcasting

As of June 2005, Curry hosts a show on Sirius Satellite Radio, entitled "Adam Curry's PodShow," running from 6 to 10 p.m. EST on weekdays. Also in June of 2005 he started the iTunes podcast PodFinder, a guide of podcasts for new listeners.

There was some minor controversy caused by four edits Curry made to Wikipedia's podcasting article during 2005, which appeared to boost his role in the creation of podcasting by removing mention of early work by others [1]. Curry later apologised, saying he had not understood how to use Wikipedia editing functions and had been unaware of some of the prior work done by Kevin Marks. [2]

References