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Mark Ghuneim (born September 3, 1962) is an American internet entrepreneur. Currently the general manager of Twitter’s Curator, he is the founder and CEO of Wiredset, a digital marketing agency and technology incubator, and Trendrr, a social-media tracking service. He was previously senior vice president of online and emerging technology at Sony Music Entertainment, working with artists such as Jeff Buckley, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Destiny's Child, and Billy Joel.

Early Career

Born and raised in New York City, Ghuneim began his career as program director and VJ at the 21st Street video nightclub Private Eyes, frequented by Madonna and other young stars during the nascent days of music video. After briefly working for MTV creating on-air promotional spots and background visuals for "120 Minutes," Ghuneim became director of press and video promotion for Beggars Banquet/XL/4AD Records, a British independent label. His early career in music and video continued as he became vice president of video promotion for Columbia Records. He also was Associate Producer of the Pixies documentary "Gouge" for Britain's Channel 4 television.

Sony Music

Ghuneim spent 16 years at Sony Music Entertainment in a variety of positions culminating with the title of Senior Vice President of Online & Emerging Technologies for Sony’s Columbia Records Group. His responsibilities were expanded to include all of Sony Music Entertainment's online services, including Epic, Columbia, Sony Classical, Legacy Recordings and Sony Nashville. Ghuneim created and implemented online marketing campaigns for Columbia Records, working closely with artists such as Bob Dylan, System Of A Down, Jeff Buckley, Bruce Springsteen, Nas, Barbra Streisand, Tony Bennett, Lauryn Hill and Destiny's Child.

Ghuneim's tenure at Sony Music occurred as the music industry felt the growing influence of the internet and its effect on music distribution and consumption. Ghuneim pioneered initiatives at Sony Music that including formation of an online and emerging-technologies group to innovations in online marketing and promotion, social networking and community management. Under his leadership SonyMusic.com became a Top 10 comScore and Media Metrix destination.

Wiredset

In 2004, Ghuneim left Sony Music Entertainment to launch Wiredset, a start-up digital services company for television networks, movie companies, publishers and emerging brands. Headquartered in the meatpacking district of New York City, with offices in Los Angeles and Seattle, Wiredset offered a range of services from marketing to production to Fortune 500 companies. Clients included HBO, MTV, Bravo, Comedy Central, ESPN, Oxygen, Atom Films, Virgin Records, Universal Music Group, Sony BMG and consumer brands such as Apple, Microsoft, PUMA and Armani Exchange.

Wiredset also served as an incubator for emerging digital technologies, including Infofilter, a social-media analytics tool launched in 2006. At the time only two social sources - Delicious and Flickr - offered available APIs. As Web 2.0 emerged, Infofilter evolved into a robust social analytics tool, rebranded as Trendrr in 2007.

Trendrr

Trendrr, a Software as a Service (SaaS) providing social media insights, became Wiredset’s primary business in 2009. Trendrr product enhancements enabled users to measure conversation and activity across Twitter, blogs, news sites, social networks, search engines, sales and location-based services. Trendrr’s client roster expanded to include NBC, MTV, Telemundo, and Univision. The company was granted U.S. Patent 8,271,429 for its system and method for collecting and processing data.

Ghuneim became recognized throughout the industry as an expert in the convergence between television and second-screen engagement or social TV, frequently keynoting and moderating at conferences such as UBiQ Paris, NATPE, MIPCOM and PromaxBDA. He had key insight into social TV and engagement as the use of these metrics gained strong momentum among television networks, producers and brands.

"A socially engaged TV audience is the most powerful marketing team networks have ever had," Ghuneim told AdAge in 2012. "Social TV gives us the opportunity to understand and leverage an audience's emotional attachment to a show, because TV is no longer a one-sided experience. Finally all our shouting at the TV can actually be heard. Brands that are smart enough to listen and leverage that emotional response can unlock valuable attention from an audience that actually cares."

In May 2013, Curatorr became a Twitter Certified Product, joining a list of partners that includes Mass Relevance and Crimson Hexagon. In July 2013, Trendrr released a widely cited study that concluded Facebook had five times as much TV-related social activity as the total of all other social networks that Trendrr measured.

Twitter

Trendrr was acquired by Twitter in August 2013. The amount of the financial transaction was not disclosed. "Having sat at this intersection of TV and social media for years, we've analyzed data from lots of platforms," Ghuneim said at the time. "What makes Twitter uniquely compelling among these platforms is its connection to the live moment -- people sharing what's happening, when it's happening, to the world. We think we can help amplify even stronger the power of that connection to the moment inside of Twitter."

Ghuneim subsequently became General Manager of Twitter’s Curator, a position he currently holds.

Politics and social advocacy

A longtime privacy advocate, Ghuneim has worked with the American Civil Liberties Union and New York Civil Liberties Union to address surveillance in public spaces. In 1997, Ghuneim founded Hacked.net, one of the first digital resources devoted to online security. Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Louis Freeh cited a Hacked.net statistic about hacked web sites in Congressional testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in January 1998.

Personal life

Ghuneim has guest lectured at universities including UCLA, NYU, and Columbia, and contributed articles as well as interviews on emerging online trends in digital media. Ghuneim’s photographs have appeared in publications such as New Musical Express, Time Out magazine, New York magazine and Vogue Brazil magazine.

References

1. Tagging: Keeping Tabs on the Net, BusinessWeek Sept 26, 2005
2. ^ Billboard.biz Q&A: Wiredset Founder Mark Ghuneim, Billboard
3. ^ Simon Dumenco, Why Real-Time Marketing Matters Now, AdAge, October 13, 2010
4. Billboard Magazine, 'ConnecteD, A Key to Web Extras', Oct 26, 2002, p.49
5. Rays of light: Madonna and the music video club, 1984, Mar 22, 2012
6. https://www.linkedin.com/pub/mark-ghuneim/64/59b/206
7. http://www.musicdish.com/mag/index.php3?id=9887
9. BitTorrent Charts: Wiredset teams up with Infofilter
10. Mark Ghuneim’s Trendrr Measures the Real-Time Data Tornado
11. TRENDRR Announce 194% Increase in YOY Social TV Activity
12. http://natpemarket.com/conference/speakers/bios/?speaker_id_string=6175:nLA0wcXa068GkT9FarHisA**
13. http://schedule-mipcom.mipworld.com/site/GB/Conferences/Speakers_sheet,Mark_Ghuneim,I313,Zoom-c2d144157ec1ba14aeace2a0abd4f148.htm
14. Social TV: What Casey Anthony And Jersey Shore Teach About A New Metric, Forbes
15. For Networks, A Socially Engaged TV Audience Is the Most Powerful Marketing Team, AdAge
16. Trendrr launches real-time curation product, gets certified by Twitter
17. Like “Sharknado,” but Bigger: Facebook Has Five Times More TV Chatter Than Twitter
18. Trendrr tracks Facebook TV chatter as Twitter expands its TV ad targeting, The Guardian
19. Twitter buys social media, TV analytics firm Trendrr, CNet, August 28, 2013
20. Twitter's new sound-alike acquisition is analytics firm Trendrr
21. Twitter Acquires Trendrr in Quest to Own Real-Time Conversation, Wall Street Journal
22. Denny Lee, Watching The Watchers, NY Times, Oct 31, 1999
23. http://thetvoftomorrowshow.com/speakers/mark-ghuneim
24. http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/law/st_org/iptf/exhibits/1998021301_threats.htm
25. Joe Kohen, New York Chapter New Media, New Music, New Money Panel, Life, Jul 23, 2008
26. Brian Stelter, Water-Cooler Talk About the Water-Cooler Effect,New York Times, Feb. 24, 2010
27. David Carr, A Media False Alarm Over the T.S.A., New York Times, November 28, 2010
28. Jenna Wortham, 'Lost' Fans Suffer From Blabbermouths Online, New York Times, May 21, 2010

External links

• Twitter page

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• Living people
• American computer businesspeople
• American music industry executives
• 1962 births