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Greg Tseng

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Greg Tseng
Tseng in 2011
Born
Greg Yuchang Tseng

(1979-11-14) November 14, 1979 (age 45)
Taipei, Taiwan
EducationHarvard University (BA)
Stanford University (PhD)
OccupationAmerican Internet entrepreneur
Title
  • CEO of Tagged
  • Co-founder of Jumpstart Technologies

Greg Yuchang Tseng (born November 14, 1979) is a Taiwanese-born American Internet entrepreneur. He is co-founder and current CEO of social networking website Tagged[1] and was CEO of JumpStart Technologies, LLC.[2]

Early life and education

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Tseng was born in Taipei, Taiwan,[3] and raised in Washington, Virginia.[4] His family was Taiwanese American. Tseng attended Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology[5] and won numerous awards in mathematics and science. He placed 9th in the 1993 national MathCounts competition, tied for 1st place (with a perfect score) in the 1994 American High School Mathematics Exam, and qualified for the United States of America Mathematical Olympiad every year from 1994 to 1997.[citation needed] He was a Finalist in the 1997 Westinghouse Science Talent Search[6] for a project titled "Development of a Fiber Optic Evanescent Wave Ion Sensor With Interchangeable Probes Adaptable for Field Application" and received official commendation from the Fairfax County School Board.[7] For this project, Tseng was also featured in The American Physical Society's A Century of Physics Timeline[8] and inducted into The National Gallery for America's Young Inventors.[9]

From 1997 to 2004, Tseng was an active researcher in nanotechnology at The MITRE Corporation, Harvard University, and Stanford University. At MITRE,[10] he co-authored a Science journal article entitled "Toward Nanocomputers".[11]

In 2001, Tseng earned a Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry & Physics & Mathematics from Harvard University and co-authored a Science perspective entitled "Carbon Nanotube-Based Nonvolatile Random Access Memory for Molecular Computing"[12] which is the technology behind the company Nantero. At Stanford, he conducted research in the Goldhaber-Gordon group.[13] He then pursued a doctorate in physics under a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship at Stanford University, earning a Ph.D. in 2004.

Entrepreneur

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At Harvard, Tseng was director of the Harvard Entrepreneurs Club (HEC) from 1998 to 2000,[14] and co-wrote The Harvard Entrepreneurs Club Guide to Starting Your Own Business (Wiley, 1999).[15] In the fall semester of 1999, Tseng and two classmates launched flyingchickens.com, a price comparison shopping engine for Harvard textbooks.[16] In the spring semester of 2000, flyingchickens.com was merged with Limespot.com and the textbook shopping service was revamped[17] and expanded to over 80 college campuses.[18] In late 2000, Tseng and three other college entrepreneurs were interviewed and featured in The New York Times[19] and Fast Company.[20] While at Harvard, Tseng also co-founded Jumpstart Technologies with longtime friend and business partner Johann Schleier-Smith. Jumpstart was an incubator of Internet businesses including online matchmaker CrushLink and social networking site hi5. In October 2004, Tseng and Johann Schleier-Smith co-founded Tagged, and were both named by BusinessWeek as one of Tech's Best Young Entrepreneurs.[21] They jointly received a U.S. patent for their invention "User created tags for online social networking"[22] which has led to over 200,000 user-created tags on Tagged.[23] As of July 2014, Tseng is CEO of Tagged[1] and advises several other Silicon Valley startup companies.[5]

At first Tagged[1] was a site meant for just teenagers but Tseng realized that he wanted to expand and help the business grow. He expanded his demographic to those who were 13 years old up in all countries. In 2007, he decided to change Tagged's business model and evolve into a social network site that allows you to meet new people and he called it "social discovery"[24]

Controversies

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Further information: Tagged (website) § Deceptive bulk email

Two of Tseng's companies, Jumpstart and Tagged, have been criticized for their alleged misuse of commercial email and have been the subject of legal action.[25][26] In 2006, Jumpstart Technologies settled with the Federal Trade Commission on alleged violations of the CAN-SPAM Act which included a $900,000 fine but no admission of guilt. The FTC alleged that "in its FreeFlixTix promotion, Jumpstart violated the law by disguising its commercial e-mails as personal messages, and by misleading consumers as to the terms and conditions of the promotion" and stated "Deceptive subject lines and headers not only violate the CAN-SPAM Act, but also consumer trust."[25] Between April and June 2009, Tagged sent tens of millions of spam emails that falsely stated that a contact sent photographs to the recipient. State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced his intention to sue Tagged for "deceptive email marketing and invasion of privacy".[27][28] Tagged paid or agreed to pay separate settlements of $250,000, $500,000, and $650,000 relating to these practises.[29]

Additionally, in 2002, Salon.com published a negative review of Jumpstart's CrushLink website. CrushLink was alleged to harvest e-mail addresses for later use in spam e-mail in exchange for deceptively offering the name of a "crush" that in the vast majority of cases did not exist.[30]

References

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  1. ^ a b c "Meet the Team". Tagged.com. Archived from the original on July 7, 2014. Retrieved July 13, 2014.
  2. ^ Weisbaum, Herb (July 23, 2009). "On social Web, beware of address book mining – Tagged.com accused of invading privacy, sending misleading spam". NBC News.com. Archived from the original on July 14, 2014. Retrieved July 13, 2014.
  3. ^ "Insider's guide to San Francisco – Tagged CEO Greg Tseng". Haute Living. July 21, 2011.
  4. ^ "Building a $50M Profitable Social Network Focused on Discovery: Greg Tseng, CEO of Tagged". Sramana Mitra's One Million by One Million Blog. October 3, 2012.
  5. ^ a b "Greg Tseng". LinkedIn. Retrieved July 13, 2014.
  6. ^ "Young Westinghouse Scientists Arriving in Capital for Final Judging; $205,000 in Scholarships to be Awarded Monday" (Press release). .prnewswire.com. Retrieved October 22, 2009.
  7. ^ "Regular Meeting No. 20 June 12, 1997" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on October 7, 2010. Retrieved October 22, 2009.
  8. ^ "The American Physical Society presents "A Century of Physics"". Timeline.aps.org. Retrieved October 22, 2009.
  9. ^ "National Gallery for America's Young Inventors". Nmoe.org. Retrieved October 22, 2009.
  10. ^ "News and Events – Press Center – MITRE in the News – 2001". MITRE. February 13, 2004. Archived from the original on June 20, 2010. Retrieved October 22, 2009.
  11. ^ Tseng, G. Y.; Ellenbogen, J. C. (November 9, 2001). "Nanotechnology: Enhanced: Toward Nanocomputers". Science. 294 (5545): 1293–1294. doi:10.1126/science.1066920. PMID 11701916. S2CID 220092410.
  12. ^ Rueckes, T. (July 7, 2000). "Carbon Nanotube-Based Nonvolatile Random Access Memory for Molecular Computing". Science. 289 (5476): 94–97. Bibcode:2000Sci...289...94R. doi:10.1126/science.289.5476.94. PMID 10884232.
  13. ^ "Goldhaber-Gordon Group | Department of Physics | Stanford University". Stanford.edu. Retrieved October 22, 2009.
  14. ^ No Writer Attributed (March 23, 1999). "The Harvard Crimson :: News :: Entrepreneurs Club Announces New Officers, Plans for Coming Year". Thecrimson.com. Retrieved October 22, 2009.
  15. ^ "The Harvard Entrepreneurs Club Guide to Starting Your Own Business". Wiley. Retrieved October 22, 2009.
  16. ^ "The Harvard Crimson :: News :: Undergrads Provide Book-Buying Alternative". Thecrimson.com. September 22, 1999. Retrieved October 22, 2009.
  17. ^ Rachel L. Brown, Contributing Writer (February 2, 2000). "Revamped Student Web Site Offers Comparison, Used Book Shopping". The Harvard Crimson. Retrieved October 22, 2009.
  18. ^ "Dot-Coms Invade The Dormitory". Newsweek. May 15, 2000. Retrieved October 22, 2009.
  19. ^ Harmon, Amy (October 22, 2000). "C.E.O. Round Table – When That Corner Office Is Also a Dorm Room". The New York Times. Retrieved October 22, 2009.
  20. ^ "Act II Generation". Fast Company. December 19, 2007. Archived from the original on June 7, 2011. Retrieved October 22, 2009.
  21. ^ "Under 30, on the Cutting Edge". BusinessWeek. Archived from the original on January 28, 2010. Retrieved October 22, 2009.
  22. ^ "United States Patent: 7529797". Patft.uspto.gov. Retrieved October 22, 2009.
  23. ^ "Tags is a Huge Success Because Of You « Tagged Blog". Blog.tagged.com. July 2, 2009. Archived from the original on November 10, 2009. Retrieved October 22, 2009.
  24. ^ Mitra, Sramana (October 3, 2012). "Building a $50M Profitable Social Network Focused on Discovery: Greg Tseng, CEO of Tagged". One Million by One Million Blog. Retrieved March 24, 2015.
  25. ^ a b "FTC Slams Spammer in Pocketbook". Ftc.gov. June 25, 2007. Archived from the original on April 12, 2011.
  26. ^ Gregory, Sean (June 11, 2009). "Tagged.com: The World's Most Annoying Website". Time. Archived from the original on June 14, 2009. Retrieved October 22, 2009.
  27. ^ "Attorney General Cuomo Announces Legal Action Against Social Networking Site That Raided Email Address Books, Stole Identities, and Spammed Millions of Americans". Office of the Attorney General, State of New York. July 9, 2009. Archived from the original on October 14, 2009. Retrieved December 5, 2009.
  28. ^ Barbara and David P. Mikkelson (November 14, 2009). "Tagged". Snopes.com. Retrieved December 13, 2009.
  29. ^ "Tagged.com gets slapped by San Francisco DA". LegalNewsline.com. April 13, 2010. Archived from the original on April 15, 2010.
  30. ^ Katharine Mieszkowski (August 7, 2002). "The bot who loved me". Salon.com. p. 3. Archived from the original on September 13, 2009. Retrieved October 22, 2009.
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