Susan Mernit

Susan Mernit

Susan Mernit (born January 23) is the CEO of Peoples Software Company, a Web 2.0 social media startup devoted to making it easier for people to connect with each other. Previously, she was an executive at Yahoo! Personals, a technology and media consultant based in Palo Alto, California and a former vice president of Netscape^[1] and America Online.

As an executive, Mernit launched several corporate media web sites since introducing Scholastic Press on America Online in 1992. She developed the children's educational site Yuckiest Site on the Internet with Jeff Jarvis and served as the editor of New Jersey Online.

She was a vice president of programming, design and production at Netscape from 1999-2001, leading a redesign of the site to coincide with the release of Netscape Navigator 6.0, and was vice president of programming at America Online from 2001-2003.

Today, she's a founding partner of the consulting firm 5ive Corp and a frequent speaker at online media and technology conferences, personally organizing the "social media" gathering BlogOn in 2004. She is a senior fellow at the Media Center, a think tank established by the American Press Institute, and an advisory board member of the digital media archive Ourmedia.

Mernit originally pursued a career in literature, writing two collections of poetry and serving as writer-in-residence for the Teachers & Writers Collaborative. Her short story "Bella" was adapted into a TV movie in 1982. She has a bachelor of arts in English and writing from Bard College and a master's in creative writing and English literature from the Ohio State University.

She was married to musician Spencer Jarrett and has a son, Zack, who attends Michigan State University.

Bibliography

• Everything You Need to Know About Changing Schools (Rosen Publishing, 1992) ISBN 0-8239-1326-0^[2]
• Tree Climbing (Membrane Press, 1981) ISBN 0-87924-036-9
• The Angelic Alphabet (Tree Books, 1976) OCLC 2405344

References