Home :: Company

About Ben Bassi

Ben Bassi, President and CEO

Ben Bassi, founder and CEO of CommonPlaces, is a seasoned Internet veteran and marketing executive. As the Chief Operating Officer of the Firefly Network, the Web's first personalized community, he led the company’s efforts in developing e-business and privacy solutions for companies like Barnes & Noble, Cendant, MasterCard, Marriott, Proctor & Gamble, and Yahoo! During this time, Bassi also helped to pioneer Internet privacy standards while working with the Federal Trade Commission, Microsoft, and Netscape.

As one of the first business executives of Lycos, Bassi was responsible for creating many of the first portal traffic agreements in the industry, and licensing the Lycos portal technology to over 35 companies internationally, including GTE, Microsoft, Netscape, Time Warner and Viacom. Bassi also directed Lycos' joint venture with Bertelsmann, publishing over 50 Internet books. Prior to Lycos, Bassi was VP of North America at Object Design, ranked number one on 1994’s “INC. 500” List.

Ben Bassi's Web Experience

Ben Bassi has a proven track record on the Web. His Internet experience dates back to the early ‘90s, when as VP of Sales for Object Design he directed several projects for IBM and the federal government. His first project was developing a command and control center used by the Armed Services in Desert Storm. Below are some examples of early Web development projects he directed as COO of the Firefly Network and VP of Business Development at Lycos, Inc:

  • Provided hosted Web services for: MSN 1.0, Prodigy, CompuServe, AT&T WorldNet, Sprint, GTE Supper Pages, Blockbuster Video, and MTV Music Guide.
  • Built the Firefly Network, one of the Internet’s first personalized communities.
  • Launched My Yahoo!, the Internet’s first personalized webpage.
  • Created online business-to-business directory for Dunn & Bradstreet.
  • Provided off-line Web search catalog for Corel Software.
  • Organized a joint venture with Bertelsmann and AOL to deliver online service.
  • Partnered with Macmillan Computer Publishing to published 50 Internet guides.
  • Provided the infrastructure for Barnes & Noble’s initial e-commerce website.