Wednesday’s Cali Road Show interview was with Jonas Halpren, the Manager of Business Development for a quiet little company called Federated Media Publishing.

You know that book about Search? Yeah, the one authored by John Battelle? Well, John B. also created this company as well. It’s designed to help a number of quality blogs and websites form a community — or a “federation”. It then assists them with their advertising and marketing needs.

I didn’t realize it, but most of the websites that make up Federated Media are sites and blogs I swear by: from Guy Kawasaki (my twin brother and I first discovered him back in the 90’s regarding his Mac-related articles) to Paul Kedrosky’s Infectious Greed blog. Oh, and the other little social news website you all know as Digg is part of it, too. Federated Media utilizes Direct Media Exchange as a way to help them better overall monetize their community of sites.

And you’ve heard of DrinkOfTheWeek.com too, right? Well if you haven’t, you will soon. It’s one of Federated Media’s websites, and — in addition to handling the role of Federated Media’s Manager of Biz-Dev — Jonas Halpren has ran the DrinkOfTheWeek website for a number of years. If you’re entertaining guests with drinks, you should check it out. It’s fun and educational.

Which brings us to today’s R and R…

I am not a connoisseur by any means when it comes to cocktails. I enjoy an occasional local micro brew that Eugene (and the Northwest overall) has to offer — and organic beers when I can get them. However, I haven’t really mixed drinks. Jonas, however, is an expert mixologist.

After our interview wrapped, he re-introduced me to his fav cocktail: the humble martini. In our surprisingly nice bar in the lobby of our hotel, Jonas escorted us through the making of one. Once, I tried a Sake martini — it may have been when I lived in Japan. I questioned him about it and asked him if he ever tried one.

He grimaced.

“The vodka martini is my favorite. The key is to have as little vermouth as possible in it. Originally, a Martini contained half vermouth. I like mine with almost none. And no olives.”

I sipped mine slowly for a long time as Head Grip Joe and I rapped with Jonas about the state of the net, and Jonas’s experiences with media/the web and the 90’s. Hey, I also discovered he’s a Gaucho like me! Two years separate us. Go Gauchos!

Last day of the Cali Road show is Thursday. These road shows go by quick! Stay tuned…

This entry was posted on Friday, May 11th, 2007 at 8:16 pm and is filed under Publishers, Direct Media Exchange. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.