This panel will focus on legislation and policies relevant to the entertainment and media industries of Asia. How are the industries shaped and controlled by the rules and regulations? What is possible and what is not? Where are the investment opportunities? What is acceptable content in each region? What legislative changes can we expect in the near future? How do Westerners formulate strategies and adapt to each region based on these regulations?

Speakers:

Terry Thoren, CEO of Rocket Fish Studios

Keizo Tsuchiya,Chief Executive Director of JETRO, Los Angeles

Maura Kawai, Senior International Trade Specialist at the United States Department of Commerce

Anni Sarah Lam, CEO/Head of International Department at Parc Landon, Inc.

Asia’s film and television markets are continuing to grow, and Hollywood products are continuing to lose market share. How can foreign producers or distributors get more exposure in Asia when local studios, equipped with better knowledge of their own market and consumers, are now filling up the screens with their own domestic productions? How do Westerners adapt to this changing environment and successfully sell or distribute their film or TV shows in Asia territories?

Speakers:

Kacy Andrews, CEO of Bigfoot Entertainment

Peter Shiao, CEO of Ironpond

Cindy Bond, COO of Promenade Pictures

Michael Song, President and CEO of Visure Corp.

Asia is a vast untapped resource rich with new ideas, stories, locations and creative talent. Hollywood’s interest in Asia is evident by their love affair with remaking East Asian films and locally producing in Asia. What are the inherent differences, cultural subtleties and overall creative power behind the productions of Asia films and TV shows that makes the region unique? How did Asia content close the quality gap in comparison to Hollywood products in the span of just a few short years?

Speakers:

David Alpert, Partner at Circle of Confusion

Jeanie Han, Senior Vice President of Paramount Pictures

Lifeng Wang, Founder and President of Eastar (Xing Xing) Digital Corp

Janet Yang, President and Producer of American Sterling Productions and The Manifest Film Company

IPTV is seen as the next major Pay TV service that offers more content choices and interactivity, much of which is through video-on-demand (VOD). Currently, Asia is home to some of the most significant IPTV deployment efforts seen in the world today, and with telecoms, media companies and governments all across Asia amplifying their efforts for faster IPTV development, it is not difficult to believe that it will soon become the future of entertainment content delivery in the region. What are the market prospects for Asia? What can we expect in the next few years? How are Asian governments helping development? Is content-on-demand the killer app for IPTV?

Speakers:

Marty Shindler, CEO/Partner of The Shindler Perspective

HJ Ahn, Vice President of Media Division of KT Corporation

Reed Manville, Consultant; former Managing Director, Asia of NBC Universal Global Networks

Nadav Neufeld, Senior Product Manager of Microsoft TV

User-generated content (UGC) sites like MySpace and YouTube attract millions of users, but with the exception of online advertising, they have yet to find another significant profit generator. Asia on the other hand, with extremely high broadband reach in regions like South Korea or Japan, is clearly leading in this space with some UGC sites bringing in nearly $300,000 daily from virtual item sales alone. What can Westerners learn and take from Asia?

Speakers:

Han Kim, General Partner at Altos Ventures

Jeremy Ross, Director of New Product Development at TOKYOPOP Inc.

Brent Weinstein, CEO of 60Frames Entertainment

Anthony Greenberg, CEO of RampRate

Bringing mobile TV services to the more than 1 billion mobile phone users in Asia can be considered the next logical step for consumers, operators and content providers. But with several camps spread across Asia each supporting its own competing technologies, which will become the most widely adopted, mass market standard for delivering mobile TV? How will mobile TV broadcasts be regulated? How will it be monetized properly?

Speakers:

Ted Cohen, Managing Partner of TAG Strategic

May Oh, Head of Business Development for Greater China and India of QUALCOMM | MediaFLO

Levi Shapiro, CEO of Divinity Software

Dennis Young, CEO of Glocal Media

Lou Volpano, Managing Partner of ascertain-ment®

Can Western casual game companies implement Asia’s successful business strategies to their user base? Asian game companies have, for the past several years, pioneered and perfected some of the most sophisticated business models for casual online games. How can one game that is completely free to download and play generate well over $200 million in revenues a year from its users in regions like South Korea, China or Taiwan without any required subscription fees?

Speakers:

Austin Chang, Director – Strategy and Operations, Online Games of MTV Networks

Thomas Lee, Head of Business Development at Nexon America

Dave Madden, Executive Vice President of Sales, Marketing and Business Development at WildTangent

Won Seok Chung, Senior Director, Business Development of Trion World Network, Inc.

Marc Yi, Director, Digital Home Fund, Intel Capital

The microtransaction, ad-supported, free-to-play business model is clearly the right fit for certain regions like China and Korea. The additional option of selling micro-priced virtual items or digital avatars and accessories for as less as $0.50 has already proven to be a lucrative revenue generator for many Asian game companies just based on sheer volume of sales. However, this model has hit several roadblocks here in the U.S., where it is still considered an emerging business. Gamers have voiced their frustrations and criticisms when games such as Lumines Live! charged users for each additional add-on pack that opened up different parts of the game. Why hasn’t this model taken off here like it has in Asia? What can Western publishers and developers learn from regions like Korea or China and their game businesses? Is it the pricing, packaging or distribution methods that need to be adjusted? Or is it just the Western mentality of buying retail packaged games that needs to change?

Speakers:

Steve Gray, Executive Producer / Chief Technologist - Musician / Writer / Game Designer at Worldwide-G

Nathan Pearce, Creative Director, Platform at Sony Online Entertainment

Alex St. John, CEO and Co-Founder of WildTangent

Jay Eum, Co-Founder and Managing Director of TransLink Capital