Dan Crow (computer scientist)

Dan Crow
Institutions University of Leeds
Apple Computer
Google
Songkick
Alma mater University of Leeds
Thesis Exploring the use of pattern recognition, pattern identification and machine learning to support active collaboration between the user and the computer (1996)
Known for Songkick
Website
uk.linkedin.com/in/dancrow
twitter.com/crowquine

Daniel Nicholas Crow is a computer scientist, currently the CTO of Songkick.[1][2]

Early career

Crow learned to program on a ZX81 and a BBC Micro in the 1980s.[3][4]

He received a BSc in Computer Science from the University of Leeds,[5] and earned his PhD in Artificial Intelligence from Leeds in 1995. His thesis work used machine learning algorithms to discover patterns in user interactions.[6][7][8]

In the mid-1990s he was Head of Software Development for Art of Memory[9] where he produced the Story of Glass multimedia kiosk and CD-ROM amongst others.

Silicon Valley

In 1996, Crow joined Apple Computer where he initially worked as lead software engineer on the Apple Media Tool. He was also manager of the Hypercard engineering team and the QuickTime applications team. He worked closely with Steve Jobs on the QuickTime Player application[10] and was co-inventor of two software patents with Jobs.[11] In August 2011, Crow was interviewed by the BBC to discuss Steve Jobs' resignation as CEO of Apple.[12]

After leaving Apple in 2000, Crow worked at a number of technology startups. He was Chief Scientist of guru.com where he developed the SmartMatch intelligent search engine.[13] After guru.com was acquired by Unicru, Crow stayed on as Chief Scientist and Chief Architect until 2005.[1]

In 2005, Crow co-founded Blurb.com.[1][14] As Chief Technology Officer of Blurb[15] he led the development and launch of their first BookSmart product.[16]

Google

In 2006 Crow joined Google as Product Manager for the crawl infrastructure group.[17] In this role he regularly spoke at search engine optimisation conferences[18][19][20] and led the company's teams working on the Robots Exclusion Protocol and other crawler technologies; he also represented Google on the proposed ACAP standard.[21]

In February 2008, in an interview with the Technology Review, Crow discussed Google's "alternate views" search interface experiments, and described Google's vision for the future of search: "One thing to remember is that (search is) still the early days. People think that search is a solved problem. I think we're still in the early days of making search work on a universal global scale. We know we can do better."[22]

In 2009, Crow led the engineering team behind Google Squared.[23] He then moved to Google's London office where he led development of Google's mobile search applications and Google Ads Professionals and Rich Media Dynamic Ads projects.[1]

Songkick

In January 2011, Crow left Google to join Songkick.[1][16] At Songkick he helped create the Silicon Milkroundabout hiring fair.[24] He also led Songkick's transition to a Service Oriented Architecture[25] and helped the company adopt continuous integration.[26]

In May 2014, Crow was interviewed by Silicon Real, and talked about his experience at Songkick, as well as his earlier career and the future of the tech industry.[27] In May 2014, Songkick had more than 10 million monthly unique users and had generated more than $100M of ticket revenue through referrals.[28]

Tech City

In March 2012, Crow was named one of the "jobs ambassadors" for Channel 4 News.[29] He regularly comments on startups in Tech City, including writing for The Guardian,[30] talking at conferences[31] and promoting UK startups for the London Olympics.[32] He is one of the founding members of the Tech London Advocates group.[33] In December 2013, Crow was interviewed on BBC World News by Linda Yueh discussing entrepreneurship.[34]

Leeds University

Crow is a Visiting Professor of Computer Science at the University of Leeds.[35] He lectures at the university on entrepreneurship and startups.[36] He also writes on Computer Science.[37][38] He is one of the prominent engineering alumni of the University.[39]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Mike Butcher (18 March 2011). "Songkick poaches big hitter CTO out of Google". TechCrunch.
  2. ↑ Jemima Kiss (2 May 2011). "Songkick shows how a UK startup can have global ambition for live music". The Guardian.
  3. ↑ Dan Crow. "The Return of the Tinkerer". Huffington Post.
  4. ↑ "The BBC Microcomputer and me, 30 years down the line". BBC News. 1 December 2011.
  5. ↑ "From Leeds to Silicon Valley and back again – The School of Computing welcomes back alumnus Dan Crow". University of Leeds. 11 November 2013.
  6. ↑ Crow, Daniel (1996). Exploring the use of pattern recognition, pattern identification and machine learning to support active collaboration between the user and the computer (PhD thesis). University of Leeds.
  7. ↑ Beale, Russell and Finlay, Janet (1992). "DB_Habits: comparing minimal knowledge and knowledge-based approaches to pattern recognition in the domain of user-computer interactions". Neural networks and pattern recognition in human-computer interaction. Ellis Horwood. ISBN 0-13-626995-8.
  8. ↑ Crow, D.; Smith, B. (1993). "The role of built-in knowledge in adaptive interface systems". Proceedings of the 1st international conference on Intelligent user interfaces - IUI '93. p. 97. doi:10.1145/169891.169919. ISBN 0897915569.
  9. ↑ "Apple Media Tool consultants list".
  10. ↑ Jemima Kiss (25 August 2011). "Steve Jobs: the computer and design guru who inspired absolute devotion". The Guardian.
  11. ↑ Shan Carter (25 August 2011). "Steve Jobs's Patents". New York Times.
  12. ↑ "BBC News at Six". BBC. 25 August 2011.
  13. ↑ Crow, D.; Desanto, J. (2004). "A hybrid approach to concept extraction and recognition-based matching in the domain of human resources". 16th IEEE International Conference on Tools with Artificial Intelligence. p. 535. doi:10.1109/ICTAI.2004.12. ISBN 0-7695-2236-X.
  14. ↑ Hugo Cox (15 August 2012). "Europe's 100 hottest startups 2012: London". Wired.
  15. ↑ "Blurb launch information from Demo conference".
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 Ben Sisario (1 May 2011). "A Go-to Site for Tracking Music Acts". New York Times.
  17. ↑ Johnson, Bobbie (27 March 2007). "Interview in The Guardian technology blog". London. Retrieved 30 April 2010.
  18. ↑ "Search Summit 2007 in Sydney".
  19. ↑ "Search Engine Strategies New York, 2007. Conference agenda".
  20. ↑ "Search Engine Strategies Chicago, 2006. Conference agenda".
  21. ↑ "Search engines baulk at tighter reins on their spiders".
  22. ↑ Greene, Kate (March 2008). "A New Perspective on Search Results". MIT Technology Review.
  23. ↑ "European Conference on Information Retrieval, 2010".
  24. ↑ Dom Pollard (2 November 2011). "Interview: Dan Crow, CTO, Songkick". The Cloud Circle.
  25. ↑ Joe McKendrick (14 September 2012). "One rockin' vendor's journey to SOA". ZDNet.
  26. ↑ Hit It with a Big Axe. Hacker News Meetup.
  27. ↑ "Dan Crow, CTO of Songkick". Silicon Real. 1 May 2014.
  28. ↑ Tim Bradshaw (27 May 2014). "Songkick makes a noise with 10m subscribers". Financial Times.
  29. ↑ Channel 4 News (14 March 2012). "Channel 4 Reveals Jobs Ambassadors".
  30. ↑ Dan Crow (21 November 2011). "Watch out, Silicon Valley – Silicon Roundabout is the new kid in town". The Guardian.
  31. ↑ The Changing Landscape with Dan Crow. Digital London. March 2012.
  32. ↑ "Olympics Legacy – Silicon Roundabout". Engineering and Technology Magazine. 18 March 2012.
  33. ↑ Olivia Solon (17 April 2003). "Private sector advocacy group aims to support London tech scene". Wired UK.
  34. ↑ "Talking Business with Linda Yueh". BBC World News. December 2013.
  35. ↑ Dan Crow (7 February 2014). "Why every child should learn to code". The Guardian.
  36. ↑ "The accidental entrepreneur: from Leeds to Silicon Valley and back again". Leeds University.
  37. ↑ Dan Crow. "The basics of Computer Science". Medium.
  38. ↑ Dan Crow (23 June 2012). "Why we owe it all to Alan Turing". GigaOm.
  39. ↑ "Prominent alumni – Science and technology". University of Leeds.