Beast Master
Larry Kasanoff, chair of Threshold Entertainment and the brains behind TheThreshold.com, gleefully relates his company motto: "No crying, no hugging, no learning." Kasanoff's firm manages some not-so-intellectual properties ranging from Conan the barbarian and Duke Nukem to Pete the PO'd Postal Worker, leveraging them into games, films, merchandise, and Web sites. This winter the Threshold-produced Beowulf, starring Christopher Lambert, hits theaters - promoted not as a lit classic but as the story of a beast who "ravages the halls with murder." Is Kasanoff worried he'll get caught by the post-Littleton antiviolence backlash? He snorts: "A kid who makes pipe bombs under his parents' noses - do I think his biggest problem is which cartoon he watched?" We'll take that as a no.
Hard Rock Cachet
Marc Geiger has parlayed his music-industry cred (he cocreated Lollapalooza) into one of the savviest music plays on the Web: Artistdirect.com. The site includes the usual message boards and MP3 downloads, but the killer act is a ring of exclusive Web sites Geiger and company host for top rockers from Beck and Limp Bizkit to Pink Floyd and Tom Petty. Each site works like the souvenir stand outside a concert, with a little eBay thrown in. The artists, Geiger says, "get a crazy good cut" of the profits, and the site may one day offer frequent flier-style loyalty programs. Chili Pepper miles? Geiger: "Fuck, yes"
Lack of Flacks
With a new company a minute in Silicon Valley, good public-relations firms are in short supply. Indeed, boutique house Spark PR - founded by ex-Netscapers Chris Holten and Donna Sokolsky - is turning down more clients than it accepts and securing stock options in companies it represents. Since its launch last January, Spark has scooped up many of the high-profile startups hatched by fellow Netscapees, including epinions.com, Tellme Networks, and the Barksdale Group. Says Holten: "We're looking for companies that make something Mom and Pop can use, like Netscape did with the browser."
PowerBoy
Even in an industry full of young hotshots, 15-year-old Austin Heap is a genuine boy wonder. The Powell, Ohio, Web developer recently cut a link-plus-commission deal with CDnow for his PureRadio site (www.pureradio.net), a music portal pitched to teens. Another Heap effort, New-Wave Networks (www.new-wave.net), reports on online movie and music piracy and links to free content sites. After acing his high school programming class, he's taking a computer course at local Franklin University. The most interesting thing he's learned so far: "Until recently," he says, "I'd never met a smart 40-year-old."
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