Jack D. Smith

Company: PeopleSpace Inc.

Current title: President

Current project: Retro Trivia Tournament

Favorite game that you've worked on: Mutant Pigs on Ice

Current favorite game to play: PipeDreams

Favorite game of all time: MYST

Mr. Smith has been a trailblazer in online entertainment for over two decades. He is founder and president of PeopleSpace Inc., a leader in helping companies build and retain online communities. PeopleSpace's client list reads like a corporate who's who, including companies like Sesame Street, Playboy, Fox Sports, Microsoft, NBC, EA, AOL, and TV Guide. Mr. Smith has been involved in the online industry since its infancy, or at least since its toddler years . At General Electric, he was a key employee with GEnie, their online service (and at one time a primary force in the online industry). Many of the business models and systems now used by industry leader AOL were developed at GEnie.

In the early 1980s, Mr. Smith was one of the first to recognize the marketing and promotional potential of the online environment. As the proprietor of Writer's Ink, a digital writers' community, Smith worked with well-known writers like Tom Clancy, Michael Crichton, Clive Barker, Lawrence Block, and Anne McCaffrey, making them available to thousands of fans online. Writer's Ink included online poetry slams, a screenwriter's school, and numerous workshops.

Mr. Smith has been involved in the development of online games and has worked with industry leaders like EA, Kesmai, and Simutronics. Before UO , AC , and EQ , there were Gemstone , Island of Kesmai , and Stellar Warrior . He worked in the realm of these MMP games from 1984 “1996.

Mr. Smith has consulted for AOL, Microsoft, Delphi, and other online services on issues of community and digital marketing. He was one of the early proponents of using online games and entertainment as user acquisition and retention tools. PeopleSpace was chosen by Sesame Street to develop a special game to help them celebrate their 30th anniversary and by NBC to help them when they needed games and activities for their Summer Olympics site.

The PeopleSpace offices are located in a 19th Century haunted house in Charlottesville, VA. Mr. Smith can usually be found there either designing online activities for one of his clients or playing games.