Jonathan Taplin is Director Emeritus of the Annenberg Innovation Lab at the University of Southern California. He was a Professor at the USC Annenberg School from 2003-2016. Mr. 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, which was selected for the Cannes Film Festival. Between 1974 and 1996, Taplin produced 26 hours of television documentaries (including The Prize and Cadillac Desert for PBS) and 12 feature films including The Last Waltz, Until The End of the World, Under Fire and To Die For. His films were nominated for Oscar and Golden Globe awards and chosen for The Cannes Film Festival five times.

Mr. Taplin founded 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. He holds two patents for video on demand technologies. Professor Taplin has consulted on Broadband technology for the President of Portugal, the Parliament of the Spanish state of Catalonia and the Government of Singapore.

In the 1980s Mr. Taplin acted as investment advisor to the Bass Brothers and then vice president of media mergers and acquisitions at Merrill Lynch.

He is a member of the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, sits on the International Advisory Board of the Singapore Media Authority, and is a fellow at the Center for Public Diplomacy. Mr. Taplin was appointed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to the California Broadband Task Force in January of 2007. He was named one of the 50 most social media savvy professors in America by Online College and one of the 100 American Digerati by Deloitte’s Edge Institute. He is a graduate of Princeton University.

Welcome to my conversation with Jonathan Taplin.