Interview With Jonas Heller

MJ: Jonas, thanks for joining us today.

JH: Hey, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

MJ: Would you tell us about what you do here, and about Boxtop?

JH: OK, Boxtop's actually two different divisions. There's Boxtop

Entertainment, which produces various television cable specials. We've been

involved in the Academy Awards, the Grammies, the Nelson Mandela Freedom

Special, Live Aid, you know, various, you know, Kevin Wallace, CEO, is in

the music business and in the TV special business, did a lot of work with

MTV for years. And a couple years ago we started an interactive company, so

hence Boxtop Interactive, which I think today is probably the biggest

interactive production company in Los Angeles. We have clients that range

from AT&T to Guess to five or six of the major record labels, Wherehouse,

the Cartoon Network, America Online, Microsoft Network, Prodigy, Prodigy

Internet. We're doing some work with Yahoo. We're sort of dipping our toe,

if you will, in all aspects of interactive. My division, Boxtop Live, is

dedicated to producing and promoting events on the internet. I equate it to

radio in the early days, or television in the early days, where sponsors

support and brand programming. And the beauty of this medium is that radio

doesn't have any visual elements, but the internet does. And now with the

advent of streaming audio, and now streaming video, we're really able to

produce a full interactive experience. And another attractive element to

this medium is the shelf life it creates. Radio and television are

wonderful, but if you missed a show, you missed a show. The beauty of the

internet is we have created sort of the shelf life of programming where if

you can, you know, the replayability of it is, you can go back in and click

and see a passive experience that you may have missed. So it's a wonderful

medium for replays. And I think that in itself is very attractive to

sponsors because, you know, Frito Lay's sponsoring the Super Bowl, and if

you missed a play, or you missed a segment, or you missed a commercial,

there goes a million dollars, and you're never going to see it again,

unless you obviously recorded it, or something, you know. But in this

business, if Oldsmobile's sponsoring a branded chat series, and you missed

Sandra Bullock last week, you can go back in, and Oldsmobile's still under

the screen, and they're sort of, in juxtaposition they're still associated

with the event for it's... and in perpetuity. So it's sort of really nice

and attractive to advertisers. It's something I find very compelling about

selling programs in this business.

MJ: How did you become interested in the internet?

BF: I was an agent at a company called ICM, which is one of the three big

talent agencies in town. And everyone was fighting for, you know, talent,

and directors, and writers, and growing up here in town, it didn't interest

me. I saw an emerging medium. I saw people... You know, at that time, three

or four years ago, it was really CD-ROM, fielding offers for, you know,

Naomi Campbell and Elle Macpherson to do a three day blue screen for

$150,000. Hey, it sounded great, but no one knew what a blue screen was,

you know, four years ago. And ultimately it evolved from CD-ROM's into sort

of the internet, and distributing programming on the internet, and

associating high caliber individuals with certain types of programming,

either hosting or being guests, or official sites, or, you know, America

Online at that time had 800,000 subscribers, and we were working with Leo

Burnett and America Online in packaging some sort of branded series for one

of their clients, Oldsmobile. You know, 800,000 people, three or four years

ago, it was like a clinic. It was begging people to put their clients on a

chat. No one knew what a chat was, you know, and today there's infinite,

you know, numbers of chats on the internet, and people are sponsoring them,

and you know, it went from 800,000 subscribers to 8 million subscribers. So

there's a clear growth process, and it's just, you know... I watched a

special over the weekend with Bill Gates and Jobs on public access, and it

was just, it was wonderful to see how the vision has evolved, and you know,

Bill even, you know, Bill Gates, the richest man in the world, in this

business, I might add, the richest man in the world, in this business, I

mean, you know, I might be doing something right, said, you know, 'the

internet is such an amazing thing, because even the smartest people in the

world don't know what to expect six, nine months away,' you know. It's...

So for me to be involved at the forefront, pioneering programming and, it's

just... you know, I'm young, I'm excited, I'm enthusiastic about what I do.

It's really nice to wake up in the morning and come to work and be excited.

So...

MJ: How do you describe a chat to somebody who's not familiar with it?

JH: Well, there's various user experiences. In the beginning a chat was

purely a static environment, with text scrolling, waiting, questions would

come in via text. We'd have someone transcribing talent's answers, and that

was sort of a basic experience. What's happened now, is obviously with the

advent of new technologies, you know, streaming audio, streaming video.

It's more of a interactive experience online. So, ala Larry King. Instead

of being in a studio, and having questions come in from a telephone, you

know, broadcast over cable, this is another means of distribution for the

same types of shows. You know, we can cover live events. We can can footage

from, you know, a premiere, from a backstage charity event, from, you know,

special events from around the world, and edit that into an experience for

someone who wasn't necessarily there, or wanted to experience it, you know,

vicariously. We do various elements here at Boxtop. We can produce a full

feature for somebody. I mean by a full feature, a full A to Z event, from,

you know, various questions being answered live to via our interactive

audience, audio bites from various participants at events, visual elements.

What we do is we, you know, my production team here takes all of my raw

footage in and creates an experience for somebody. And it isn't click,

click, click. It's click, experience three or four minutes of a passive

interactivity, and then click again. So there's an element of

interactivity, so you're actually choosing, you know, you have a choice to

make, and there's some passive experience, because people like to be

entertained and they don't want to have to work for it all the time.

MJ: So let's say I'm a movie star, and I'm here to sell my new movie. What

happens? I sit down with you in this room, what do we do?

JH: Actually we have a studio we have that we put our people in and it's,

half of it's a sound booth. We usually have a producer who's screening the

questions, so, you know, obviously, with every form of medium there are

going to be some sort of risque questions that come in that we want to

protect the people from. But nine time out of ten they want to know those

questions anyway, even though they're not going to answer them. And we like

to put the celebrity or the person being interviewed in a sound proof room

and feed them the questions so we can audio their answers in a clean audio

format, so we can re-purpose that, edit that into some sort of programming

at a later date, or keep that in sort of a shelf life. Questions come in,

just like a radio show, or a Larry King, or, you know, something similar to

that, where people are asking questions about projects. For instance, if

you're Jeff Golblum and your new movie's coming out, "What was it like

working with so-and-so?" or "Are you really interested in dinosaurs?" or,

you know, questions that relate to projects. And, you know, clients like to

promote their latest endeavor. You know, there's a reason Jim Carey isn't

doing press right now. He doesn't have a movie out. You know, it's really

simple. If people are doing the circuit, this has become, and when I say

this, I mean the internet, has become now a traditional form of

distribution for publicity. Whereas before people were intimidated, people

weren't really sure, "There's crazy people on the internet." I mean,

there's crazy people everywhere. I mean, come on. The nice thing about the

internet is that the demographics are smarter people, well educated people,

people in a higher income level, people that have a propensity to go to

movies, to buy cd's, to go to concerts. You know, you're really... You

know, even, you know, I hate to say your... Your demographics are very

interesting in it's raw form, but now with, you know, Bill Gates making the

investments into all the libraries, you're going to let, you know, you're

going to cross over, and you're going to really market to the inner cities,

people that don't have the computers, people that aren't' educated enough

to be online.

MJ: Will the eventually have...

JH: Ultimately they will be online. And I think that's a brilliant move by

Bill, because, you know, he's weaning them onto Windows. He's giving them a

GUI that they're going to be used to for years to come. And I think that's,

you know, it's a smart investment for him. And it also helps the medium,

because now you're penetrating different markets. So...

MJ: How many people are listening, or watching a typical session like that?

JH: It ranges, you know. Distribution is key in any business. More so in my

business than ever. You know, in America Online with nine million

subscribers, or Microsoft Network with a few million subscribers, or

Prodigy with three million subscribers, I mean, it's interesting, because

you're limited to the subscribers. You're limited to the people that pay

every month to be associated with that network. But what's happening now is

I think you see a trend of programming moving to the internet. And one of

the phrases that I've coined is, "Why put it in the fee space, when you can

put it on the free space?" And that really means... Everyone ultimately is

going to move their programming to the internet. It's more attractive to

advertisers, it's more attractive because there's more, there's a bigger

penetration level, and at the end of the day, everything that's available

on an online service is going to be available on the internet. So no one's

going to pay to get what they can get for free. So I think with the right

marketing and strategic alliances in promotions you're going to see a lot

of traffic coming to events, or programming if you will, that is

compelling, on the internet. For instance, if Yahoo's getting 20 million

individual, unique IP's a day...

MJ: What's an IP, by the way?

JH: A unique IP is, it's... An IP address is how you track an individual

user on the internet. And when Yahoo says they get 20 million unique IP's,

that means that the computer's registering 20 million different IP's a day.

So let's talk about keyword advertising in a Yahoo scenario, because Yahoo

is a search engine. So you go to Yahoo, and you've created a dictionary of

5,000 related words that have to do with entertainment, OK? And out of 20

million people that come to Yahoo daily, ten percent of them are going to

type in something entertainment driven. So ten percent of 20 million is two

million. So out of those two million people that are going to type in some

sort of related entertainment word and search for it, you're going to own

the top of the screen as a partner with Yahoo to promote a chat that night,

or a special event that night. And now you've refined your audience,

because now you know these two million people aren't interested in, you

know, Mexico, or you know, the Mona Lisa, they're interested in some sort

of entertainment driven something. So what you've now done is refined your

audience which is more attractive to an advertiser, OK? And out of those

two million people, let's say ten percent of those people click on your

chat button, and they want to talk with whoever that night, you know. And

it's an audio-visual experience. That's more interesting in advertising.

You've now refined the two million, 200,000 people that click through that

chat button, and now so-and-so owns that button, you know, branded as an

overall brand. And you're producing a chat that night. Well, you know,

2,000 people in an auditorium on the internet is, it sounds like a lot, but

it's, you know, it's just beginning. You know, I'm, I've done chats

anywhere from, you know, 2,000 to 15,000 people on the internet. So I think

that the market is ready. I think that there are loyal users, I think that

there are people that want to talk to somebody, and I think that it's a

really nice experience for someone in middle America, or in somewhere

around the world, that doesn't live in Hollywood, that doesn't see a

celebrity at a restaurant every night, you know, to really connect and say,

"Wow, so-and-so really answered my question." You know, that's a really

nice experience for somebody, and I'm glad that I've been able to create

these events that reach out and touch fans from around the world. It's

great.

MJ: So you're saying that someday the internet will replace TV, cable,

everything.

JH: No, no. I think that the convergence of all is irrefutable. I think

that there will be... I think traditional medium will always be there. I

think that what the internet provides is an interactive experience to sort

of add on to the traditional experience. I call it the "L." So you're going

to get, if we can use this as an example, you're going to get your

traditional feed, always. And you're going to get it maybe right here. And

if this is your traditional experience, we're programming the "L". So, if

it's chat, if it's picture and bio., if it's "Let's buy the outfit that

Tori Spelling's wearing on '90210'", it it's, whatever it is, it's called

"programming the L." And what it allows you to do is converge traditional

experience with what we're able to create in terms of programming through

the internet. And whether it be cable modems, whether it be, you know, a

fat telephone line, whoever wins, and you know Bill's probably going to be

one of them, it's about programming the L. And yeah, it's great to connect

people around the country, and if you're a "90210" buff or a "Melrose

Place" buff, or a cult, you know, soap opera buff, let's connect those

people on the L, and let's let them talk about what's going on. And let's

create ancillary vehicles for advertisers to brand a so-and-so chat during

another show, or, you know, let's join a fan club. Let's create some sort

of transactional element that allows users to... if I'm a Tori Spelling

fan, and she's all Gap'ed out, or Banana Republic'ed out, or Guess'ed out,

or whatever she's, you know, whatever she's wearing, let's allow them to

click on an outfit and get some sort of back end transactional vehicle

there. I mean it's all, it's not brain surgery. It's just...It's very

exciting though.

MJ: Wasn't there a thought initially that money could be made off the

internet more directly, as in charging access for every time you log on?

Hasn't that been sort of disappointing?

JH: Yeah, I think that was the original model with, you know, the America

Online's of the world. I think that the customer is smarter now. I think

that the customer is... You know, in those days it was easy access, it was

bundled with everything, you know, that you ever got that had anything to

do with computers, and you know, the internet with Mosaic and, you know,

the original browsers was very archaic, and really not user friendly. And I

think America Online created a G.U.I., a graphic user interface that

allowed the consumer to not be so intimidated. It was easy. It was, you

know, put this in, install it and you're up and running. You know, it took

a lot for someone to understand... You know, I had someone ask me the other

day, "Who owns the internet?" You know? People are still learning, and I

think that the smarter people get, the more educated they become about the

medium, the less and less important an America Online or a Microsoft

Network will be. It will be about "Who's your browser?" or "What browser

are you using? who's your provider?" And whether it be a cable company or a

phone company, or, you know, a hybrid of the two, it's basically, "What's

your user interface, and how are you going to navigate around the

internet?"

MJ: What will this do to culture, in terms of, for instance right now, we

all sort of have a common cultural experience. We all watch, or most of us

watched a certain program last night, or, there's sort of, there's a

certain... we share something. But if everybody is doing their own thing on

the internet, will something be lost in terms of togetherness?

JH: Well, it's interesting, my, you know, my core business is creating

events. I'm an online promoter. I've taken a medium that no one really knew

anything about, and put events in that medium, and create community around

events. And I think this is a key to the internet, is connecting people. I

mean, let's think about what it was really invented for, I mean, the, what

is it? The arknet was invented for communicating information. You know, the

milnet was the military's, you know, underground communication network in

case, you know, all communication went down. And the internet is really

e-mail, information, and what is e-mail? E-mail is connecting people in a

delayed process. Chat is real-time e-mail. And I think if you give specific

groups of interest topics, and the ancillary trickle-down from that is

communities. You know, some people that are a really interesting example is

like, you know, a Richard Simmons, who has all of these fans out there that

want to lose weight.

MJ: He's a fitness guru.

MJ: He's a fitness guy, OK? You're connecting people in fitness. They trade

recipes, they talk about, you know, they give kudos to people that lost 50

pounds that month. I mean, there's, I mean that's just one example of a

genre-specific culture that connects and creates community.

MJ: So will you have people retreating into their own little communities,

and not cross-communicating?

JH: No, I think that the bigger picture is to cross-pollinate. But I think

the smaller picture is to create these communities, that, like, you know,

that can co-exist, and bring them back to the top, and let them trickle

down again, keep bringing them back to the top. You know, the bottom line

is chat creates community. It creates groups of interest, and it's really

nice to see people from around the world connecting and talking about

things that they're interested in talking about... I mean, people log

online to meet people at a regular time every night. It's a wonderful

thing.

MJ: What kind of things will the new technologies make irrelevant? Like the

post office, will that be around ten years from now? Will other things be,

just go by the wayside because of the new technology?

JH: No, I don't think that the post office will ever be obsolete. I think

that tangible goods are always a necessity, and you can't, there's no

way... you know, you always have to...Even if you're buying something on

the internet, you still need to deliver the... there needs to be sort of a

back end fulfillment scenario. So you're ultimately going to get that

tangible item after you've purchased it off the internet.

MJ: So you always have to order something, then have it delivered to you by

some force.

JH: Goods, tangible items. Services? Unclear. Anything that can be

distributed electronically I think will hurt traditional post office

business, if you will. But I also think that there's forever a need... No

one's ever going to be completely sold on electronic communication. It's

going to be some sort of hard goods... Someone's always going to write a

letter by hand, someone's always going to personalize something. So you're

not going to ultimately eliminate that. And I don't think you want to. I

think you just want to use the internet for what it's really good for. You

know, it's just a new form of distribution. It's a way to penetrate people.

I think the junk mail business will be obsolete.

MJ: Fax machines?

JH: Fax machines, probably. Junk mail, I mean, you know, it's postage free,

and you can send, you can spam the internet with, you know, with your 15

hour sale at, you know, K-Mart, whatever, you know. I think that they're

going to... Big companies are going to save a lot of money in bulk postage

rates, because they're going to find a way to buy mailing lists from

internet users or from ISP's, Internet Service Providers, and take a

traditional junk mail piece and distribute it electronically. I think

that's going to be something that will evolve.

MJ: Answering machines? Telephones?

JH: Well, answering machines are obsolete now, voice mail's the new thing,

so, I mean, it's all computerized anyway, so... I had nothing to do with

that.

MJ: So how will our daily lives change? Will we come home and have video

mail, for instance?

JH: Sure.

MJ: Video telephones?

JH: Sure. We actually at Boxtop have a new technology we just launched

that's being bundled with Power Computing, Del, and Apple, and a bunch of

major companies, U.S. Robotics modems. It's called I-Visit, and it's from

the guys that invented CU-See Me. Tim Dorsey, who was at Cornell. CU-See Me

stands for Cornell University See Me It's a video conferencing technology

that was invented about a year and a half ago. And Tim has a new hybrid of

that original technology, which is point-to-point, instead of going through

a reflector. And a reflector going through a server that reflects out to

multiple users, and this is a point-to-point, which allows you and I to

talk point-to-point, and then group point-to-points together, so we can

conference call people, and it doesn't have to go through a reflector.

It's, actually a very unique technology, and we just launched that, and

there should be three and half million units in the marketplace by

Christmas. And it's an amazing technology to sit in your office, click on a

button, and have a screen come up with someone that you want to talk to.

Video conferencing is amazing. And I think using that core idea, and sort

of what I'm really good at is promoting these events, you know, it'd be

great to have a Schwarzenegger or a Michael Jordan on a video conferencing

technology while you're doing your chat, really connecting people, you

know.

MJ: Will anything be lost by losing face-to-face contact? In other words,

instead of flying to Africa for a meeting, I'm just doing video

conferencing. What if anything is lost in losing face-to-face, skin-to-skin

communication?

JH: I think there's a nice element in personal relationships. I think that

the nature of sort of people is to have face-to-face and communicate and be

around people, and I think it will streamline certain things, but I think

that, you know, it's human nature to want to get out, and want to connect

face-to-face and have some sort of real relationship. What this does,

through the advent of new technology, is it streamlines communication. But

at the end of the day, people want to meet people. And want, you know,

people want to shake each other's hands. They want to really feel like they

know each other. And I don't think that the internet allows people to

really feel like they know each other. I feel like there's a certain level

of relationship there, but never really a true tangible relationship. And I

think that will always, you know, it's apples and oranges. I mean, one will

streamline communication in business, the other is, you know, people need

to actually have a tangible handshake, you know. People want to fly to

Africa and see the giraffes, I guess, you know. That will never change. I

mean, you go online and search "giraffe" on Yahoo, and a picture of a

giraffe comes up, but that doesn't change wanting to go pet a giraffe. I

mean...

MJ: How do you think... you and I are sort of roughly the same age group,

they call it "Generation X." How is our generation different in modes of

thinking, in style, in operation, than the previous generation?

JH:? Well, it's interesting, because computers weren't that... computers

weren't really as big as they are now, when I was growing up, or when you

were growing up. I mean, there was... I took a computer class, and, you

know, there was a computer in school, and not everyone had a computer, and

kids today, they're online, they're savvy, they send e-mail.

MJ: We didn't realize it was going to be part of our daily life, right?

JH: Right. It's just, it's an amazing process. You know, I think when I was

in school, people were still turning in handwritten assignments. I mean, I

think today, if it's not typed, it's not, you know, it's not turned in.

MJ: Or typed on an old

typewriter.

JH: Right. Right. And, you know, now, there's, you know, grammar programs,

and spelling programs, and thesaurus programs. And I think that helps

children learn how to use better words, and how to use better grammatical

sentences, and I think that that technology actually helps our society

learn in the process of learning. And, you know, I also think that it's

never too late for the people that never got into computers, you know, the

40-somethings crowd the baby-boomers. You know, they're intimidated by

computers. They... "Oh, we don't use..." It's never too late, it's not

intimidating, it's no big deal. Just pick up the computer and start

learning. It's never too late, you know. My biggest problem is people that

are sort of over that age curve that feel like...

MJ: How has the new technology affected our generation in term of...things

are changing so fast. You can't have a one year, two year, five year

business plan with technology changing. How is that changing the way you,

or we all do business or how will it change it?

JH: The exciting thing about this business is no one really knows what's

right around the corner. You can't predict, I mean you can make certain

predictions but you can't plan long term in this business because it's so

evolving every day that it's...you know new technologies stimulate you to

new ideas and in traditional thinking is sort of thrown out the window.

'Well this thing just happened, and this technology is emerging so we've

gotta recreate this concept so we can utilize the best and the newest and

the greatest.' It's almost a game, it's fun.

MJ: In fifty years, you'll be what, sixty five... seventy five. How, what

will we be surprised by? Could you make some predictions of the way our

lives will have changed and that we'll be shocked to think of now?

JH: That's a loaded question.

MJ: With the new technologies in mind.

JH: Right. God. I'm thinking..you're thinking fifty years I'm thinking

fifty minutes. I'd hate to have my kids show me this in fifty years and say

'you were wrong.' So I'm gonna leave it open ended and just say that we're

constantly creating...trying to keep up with new technology, and cutting

edge, and constantly pushing the envelope. Was that political enough for

you?

MJ: It was good. You can run for office.

JH: O.k.

MJ:What about yourself, in your near future, what do you see yourself

doing? What kinds of new things do you see yourself doing?

JH: We're working with some strategic partners to create a full experience

on the internet which isn't just sort of a static point and click. We're

working with our video conferencing technology I-visit, we're working with

some streaming audio solutions. We're working with some very interesting

technologies that will allow the user to have a much more graphical

experience. It's irrefutable that with new technologies experiences change

and I think that the things that people are used to whether it be virtual

reality environments with video conferencing....you're going to see a real

big change in the next six months to a year in experiencing the internet

whether it converges with traditional medium, programming the 'L' or

whether it's just a virtual chat with other virtual components. If you

really sat down and thought about the cutting edge technologies whether

they be 'VR' or video conferencing or streaming audio and video you begin

to package those elements into programming. And it's just...essentially

it's reinventing the wheel for this medium. It's an exciting time to be in

an exciting business. I'm very lucky to be here.

MJ: Thanks for joining us Jonas.

JH: Absolutely, I appreciate it, thank you very much.