Today, we get a little bit more social/business-ish on FSMdotCOM, and we’re gonna discuss ngmoco’s move to hire Jason Oberfest. Back in July Myspace had a new VP of Business Development snatched from the LA Times: Jason Oberfest. His job was to find new partners and develop new projects for MySpace, all of course with the goal of increasing the bottom line. This would encompass commercial programs offered to developers under the Platform and Data Availability APIs.
Following his role at MySpace as the Senior Vice President of Business Development and General Manager for the social network’s open platform, Oberfest will bring his extensive knowledge of social applications and new media to ngmoco’s swiftly expanding network of games.Below you can read the official press release:
FSM EXCLUSIVE DEAL SAN FRANCISCO – Sept. 16, 2009 – ngmoco, leading developer and publisher for iPhone games, has added MySpace executive Jason Oberfest to its executive team to lead its expansion into the social web. Following his role at MySpace as the Senior Vice President of Business Development and General Manager for the social network’s open platform, Oberfest will bring his extensive knowledge of social applications and new media to ngmoco’s swiftly expanding network of games.
As Vice President of Social Applications, Jason Oberfest will bring ngmoco products to social networks and the web, as well as helping develop and discover social games that can be adapted to iPhone and mobile devices.
“It’s clear that, like the iPhone, social gaming is an essential facet of a next generation games company and Jason will bring a valuable perspective and incredible horsepower to an important segment of our business as we look to expand strategically to the social web,” Neil Young, CEO, ngmoco, explained.
As Senior Vice President of Business Development for MySpace, Oberfest was responsible for structuring and negotiating deals to drive revenue and support the launch of innovative new products. He also served as General Manager of the MySpace Open Platform, leading all operations and products for the division.
Before MySpace, Oberfest was Managing Director of Business Development and Product Management for Los Angeles Times Interactive where he structured deals with leading startups including Netvibes, Aggregate Knowledge, Eventful and Mixx.com, and launched a redesign of latimes.com. For six years prior, Oberfest served as Vice President of Strategy at Blast Radius, an interactive agency, which he helped rocket from startup phase to a national business with more than 300 employees. In this role Oberfest also led the design and development of content and commerce websites for AOL, Nintendo, Sony, Viacom, Atlantic Records, A&E Television Networks and others. Blast Radius was acquired by the WPP Group in 2007.
“I have long had a passion for games and could not be more thrilled to join such a talented and accomplished team as ngmoco,” Oberfest said. “We have only seen the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the marriage of social applications and games. I am very excited to help build ngmoco’s vision as a next generation games company.”
Established in June 2008, ngmoco has already developed and successfully released
multiple iPhone and iPod touch games including the award-winning Rolando and chart toppers MazeFinger, Topple, Topple 2, Dr. Awesome, Dropship, Word Fu, Star Defense and Rolando 2. Earlier this summer, ngmoco launched its player social network, Plus+. With six top ten products and its games having been installed more than 10 million times, ngmoco is one of the leading gamemakers and publishers for the iPhone & iPod touch.