Andy Hobsbawm established the first international Internet agency in 1994 and was a founding director of leading British new media company Online Magic which merged with Agency.com in 1997. As European Chairman of Agency.com, Andy helps guide and is a spokesperson for the firm with his unique insight into the continual evolution of the interactive medium.*
Andy recently co-founded the non-profit Green Thing, a new kind of public service that makes it easy and enjoyable to live a greener life. Inspiring ideas for doing the Green Thing are delivered with world-class creativity and a sense of community.
A pioneer of the UK internet industry, he still remember the buzz of watching users from around the world interact with his earliest Web site, the world’s first commercial eZine PowerPC News, following the release of Mosaic in 1993.
Andy was recognised by industry professionals as one of most influential 100 individuals who have most contributed to the development and growth of e-commerce and the Internet in the UK over the last decade and also received a Special Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005. In Campaign Magazine he has been voted New Media Innovator of the Year and named by industry peers as one of the most admired digital pioneers. He also featured as one of the Top 50 Internet Professionals in the U.K. for Internet Business Magazine.
Andy has spoken at numerous industry conferences, including Global Marketing Forum, Jupiter ClickZ Advertising Conference, Forrester Consumer Marketing Forum and the opening keynote at ad:tech, London 2006, and has also helped to judge many awards such as New York’s One Show Interactive, London’s Revolution Awards and the Webbys.
He has been a weekly columnist about the new economy for the Financial Times, a member of GartnerG2's first advisory board on online advertising and published a widely acclaimed report on the global impact of communications technologies: “10 Years On: The State of the Internet a decade after Mosaic”. He is currently writing “Small is the Next Big Thing”, which attempts to make sense of accelerating change in an interactive world and will be published by Atlantic Books Ltd.
Andy was born and raised in London, and educated in London and Montreal. He lives in Highgate with his wife, two children and Gibson 330 ES, and has yet to receive any royalties from obscure pop songs released by a minor independent record label in Europe.
* (That said, if anyone reading anything on this blog feels the overwhelming urge to litigate, these are all his personal views and aren’t necessarily shared by the company -- although he’d hope that they were).
