Technologist & Entrepreneur
San Francisco Bay Area
- Current
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- Co-founder & CTO at Plato's Forms
- Founder & Lead Consultant at Swordfish Corp
- Advisor + Product Development at Seesmic
- Past
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- Consultant, MySpace Developer Platform at MySpace
- Developer Network & Product Development (as a consultant) at Orange
- Consultant & Partner at Citizen Agency
- Project Lead, backstage.bbc.co.uk at BBC
- Software Engineer at BBC News Website
- Recommended
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3 people have recommended Ben - Connections
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443
connections
- Industry
- Internet
- Websites
Ben Metcalfe’s Summary
Ben Metcalfe is a self-motivated, ambitious, multi-skilled internet professional with over 11 years industry experience, including 6 years working at the BBC on some of the most high profile and forward thinking websites on the Internet.
He is also a respected and well connected blogger, industry commentator and member of the Web2.0 community. Having used the Internet since 1992, Ben is passionate about the Internet’s ability to enrich, inform, educate and entertain our lives and connect us with others.
http://benmetcalfe.com
Ben Metcalfe’s Specialties:
Technical product development, architecture and implementation. Social media, community orientated strategy, media 2.0.
Enterprise grade technical development, SME-level technical development, web development (both front-end and back-end). Specific languages: xHTML/CSS, Javascript, PHP, Perl, Java, Objective C, WebObjects. (past experience, now 'retired' from development work)
Developer network creation + execution, API and platform strategy.
Ben Metcalfe’s Experience
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Co-founder & CTO
Plato's Forms
(Privately Held; Internet industry)
April 2009 — Present (8 months)
Plato's Forms is a contextual messaging system for media professionals. The company is in early stage development and expects to launch its first product in 1Q09.
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Founder & Lead Consultant
Swordfish Corp
(Privately Held; Internet industry)
November 2008 — Present (1 year 1 month)
Swordfish provides consultancy and strategic assistance around the planning, creation and execution of platforms and API programs, developer networks, developer community outreach and platform-orientated product development.
We specialize in helping companies in the online media and social media verticals, but have experience working with internet-orientated companies across the board. -
Advisor + Product Development
Seesmic
(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Internet industry)
November 2007 — Present (2 years 1 month)
I hold a product development and general advisory role with video-orientated startup Seesmic.
Seesmic was founded by serial entrepreneur Loic Le Meur and is backed by (among others) Skype founders Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis. -
Consultant, MySpace Developer Platform
MySpace
(Public Company; 201-500 employees; NWS; Internet industry)
November 2007 — November 2008 (1 year 1 month)
I advised MySpace around the strategy, development, and implementation of it's OpenSocial platform, Data Availability and 'OpenStack' technologies (OpenID, OAuth, Portable Contacts, etc). I also helped with the developer community out reach, particularly in San Francisco
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Developer Network & Product Development (as a consultant)
Orange
(Internet industry)
March 2007 — November 2007 (9 months)
I spent 8 months working with Orange France Telecom on a start-up style web-project they have been working on. My role focused on establishing a developer program for the project but later also encompassed product development and user experience.
At the time of writing the project has not been launched. -
Consultant & Partner
Citizen Agency
(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Internet industry)
September 2006 — January 2007 (5 months)
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Project Lead, backstage.bbc.co.uk
BBC
(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; Internet industry)
December 2004 — June 2006 (1 year 7 months)
I helped create, launch and then run the BBC's developer network 'backstage.bbc.co.uk'. I believe this was the first original content-orientated developer network to launch as well as the first developer network from a media organization.
Backstage.bbc.co.uk has been tremendously successful, winning numerous awards for it's pioneering approach to open data and for encouraging grassroots innovation in the UK and beyond. -
Software Engineer
BBC News Website
(Public Company; Internet industry)
2000 — 2004 (4 years )
Additional Information
Ben Metcalfe’s Websites:
Ben Metcalfe’s Interests:
Community, developer networks, open source, design, usability, software engineering, management consultancy, online media, mainstream media, grassroots media, blogs, emerging technology, united kingdom, europe, usa, London, product management, product development, travel
Ben Metcalfe’s Groups:
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Online News Association -
Speakers and Panelists -
Blonde2.0 -
BBC alumni -
Silicon Valley Code Camp
Ben Metcalfe’s Honors:
Award winning hack (mashup) at Yahoo! Hack Day 2006
New Stateman New Media Awards: Most innovative site 2006, backstage.bbc.co.uk
Ben Metcalfe’s Contact Settings
Interested In:
- career opportunities
- consulting offers
- new ventures
- job inquiries
- expertise requests
- business deals
- reference requests
- getting back in touch
