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KGNU’s Claudia Cragg speaks here with Jack Myers about his new book, 'Hooked Up: A New Generation’s Surprising Take on Sex, Politics and Saving the World'. Myers shares insights into the first generation to grow up with the Internet and what he considers to be the positive impact they are likely to have on business, culture and society.

Jack is a media ecologist and chairman of Media Advisory Group, which provides economic counsel to more than 250 media, advertising, marketing, entertainment and financial services companies who subscribe to the weekly Jack Myers Media Business Report.

He is an award-winning documentary film producer, author of four books and founder of the Women in Media Mentoring Initiative and Syracuse University Newhouse Network. Jack is the recipient of the George Foster Peabody Award, won the Crystal Heart Award from the Heartland Film Festival, and has been nominated for both an Academy and Emmy Award for Best Documentary Feature for Hank Aaron: Chasing the Dream. His most recent production is the Focus Forward documentary series with Morgan Spurlock’sCinelan Group.

Jack’s career includes sales and management positions at CBS Television, ABC Radio and Metromedia Outdoor. While in college, he co-founded the Syracuse New Times. Jack is a Board Member Emeritus of the Newhouse School of Communications at Syracuse University. He served on the Advisory Board for the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development at New York University where he studied Media Ecology with Dr. Neil Postman.

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Gina Keating speaks here with KGNU’s Claudia Cragg about her new book, Netflixed: The Epic Battle for America’s Eyeballs(Portfolio, 2012). Accoring to Keating, the tale of Netflix is “a long struggle for greatness marked by multiple disasters, lucky breaks, personal betrayal, and broken hearts. It has more drama than most of the movies Netflix rents”

In 1997, two Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, Marc Ran­dolph and Reed Hastings, decided to start an online DVD store before most people owned a DVD player. They were surprised and elated when launch-day traffic in April 1998 crashed their server and resulted in 150 sales. Today, Netflix has more than 25 million subscribers and annual revenues above $3 billion. Future success—or even survival—is still far from guaranteed.

First it engaged in a grueling war against video-store behemoth Blockbuster, transforming movie rental forever. Then it jumped into an even bigger battle for online video streaming against Google, Hulu, Amazon, and the big cable companies. Netflix ushered in such innovations as DVD rental by mail, a patented online queue of upcom­ing rentals, and a recommendation algorithm called Cinematch that proved crucial in its struggle against bigger rivals. Netflix also faces disgruntled customers after price increases and other stumbles that could tarnish the brand forever.

Keating is a freelance writer who has covered media, law and government as a staff writer for Reuters and United Press International in Los Angeles.

The Greater Los Angeles Press Club named her its Print Journalist of the Year in 2001. The same year, she won the Press Club’s award for investigative reporting and the California Teachers Association’s John Swett Award for excellence in education-related journalism for stories she wrote for the Los Angeles Daily Journal.

Prior to moving to Los Angeles, she covered the Texas Legislature, business and culture as a freelance writer for the Associated Press, UPI, the Austin American-Statesman, and Texas Monthly, Food and Wine, Southern Living and Forbes magazines. Her freelance work also has appeared in Daily Variety.