Profile of Adam Curry on Famous Like Me

Adam Curry (born September 3, 1964) is a broadcasting and Internet personality best known for his stint from 1987 to 1994 as a video jockey on the premier music video channel MTV. In the mid-1990s, Curry was a World Wide Web entrepreneur and one of the first celebrities to personally create and administer a Web site. In the 2000s, he helped pioneer podcasting.

Early radio and TV career

Curry was born in Washington, DC, but lived in Amsterdam from 1972 to 1987. There he got his first break in broadcasting as the host of the weekly pop-music television program Countdown. He also hosted several other radio and television programs for the Netherlands broadcast station Veronica.

In 1987, Curry became a VJ for MTV. Besides making spot appearances between music videos, he was also host of the program Top 20 Countdown. While working for MTV, he also did radio work, including: drive-time host for the New York City radio station WHTZ, and host of the national program HitLine USA.

The Web and MTV.com

In the early 1990s, as the World Wide Web was just beginning to gain mainstream attention, Curry began experimenting on the Net. He registered the then-unclaimed domain name "mtv.com" with the idea of being MTV's unofficial new voice on the Web. Although sanctioned by MTV Networks, when Adam left to start his company OnRamp, MTV sued him for the domain name, which led to an out-of-court settlement.

Curry left MTV in 1994 and founded OnRamp, Inc., a Web design and hosting company. He eventually grew the company to 40 employees and sold it to THINK New Ideas, Inc., another company that he co-founded. He became Chief Technology Officer of THINK. In 1996, as the Internet was undergoing its legendary "bubble," the company made an initial public offering on NASDAQ under the ticker symbol THNK. It subsequently grew to employ over 400 people and have offices in seven countries, and was absorbed into Answerthink, Inc. in a later merger.

Podcasting

Curry is a key player in the development and promotion of podcasting—he even acquired the nickname "Podfather" after his collaborations with RSS developer Dave Winer on the technology's underpinnings. He has produced and presented "The Daily Source Code", a daily Podcast (i.e. an audio blog post in MP3) since August 13 2004. He was also a key figure at BloggerCon 2004, held at Stanford Law School, and gave the closing keynote at the 2005 Gnomedex conference in Seattle, where he recorded the 200th episode of the Daily Source Code live on stage.

As of June 2005, Curry hosts a show on Sirius Satellite Radio, entitled "Adam Curry's PodShow," running from 6-10 p.m. EST on weekdays. Also in June of 2005 he started the iTunes podcast PodFinder, a guide of podcasts for new listeners.

He married Patricia Paay (b. 1949) of the Netherlands on August 5, 1987, and they have one daughter, Christina Curry (b. August 27, 1990). Both his wife and daughter make occasional appearances on the Daily Source Code.

In November 2004, Curry moved from the "bunker" in the Netherlands to the "Curry Cottage" in Guildford, England, via the "Curry Castle" in Belgium. He also began renting an apartment (the "Curry Condo") in San Francisco in mid-2005 from which he is intending to use as a recording studio whilst he is on business in the US.

In March of 2005, Adam Curry created a new company called PodShow. PodShow is a company dedicated to the poduction, promotion, and marketing potential of podcasting. PodShow owns indiePodder.org, the base podcast directory on the web, and the PodSafe Music Network, dedicated to helping podcasters find Independent Music to play on their podcast and for Artists to promote their music through podcasting.

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